The Crusader Cannibals

Wars of religion often seem to lead to the most despicable acts of cruelty and barbarism, with both sides claiming to have divine sanction for the horrors that they choose to visit on their enemies. This was certainly the case on 12^th December 1098 when a Crusader army breached the defences of Ma’arat al-Numan, a fortified town that lies in what is now Syria.

In 1095 Pope Urban II had called on the Christians of western Europe to recover the Holy Land for Christianity from the Muslims who now occupied it. Being utterly convinced of the rightness of their cause, and having a firm belief that Muslims were a depraved form of humanity who deserved no mercy or respect, the Christian armies swept towards Jerusalem, slaughtering anyone who opposed them.

The Crusaders did not have everything their own way. The city of Antioch withstood a siege that lasted 21 months, and when it fell the inhabitants were treated extremely badly with many civilians losing their lives.

However, the long siege had meant that there was very little food left in the city, and the Crusaders, whose own supplies were running low, found nothing to replenish their stocks. With winter approaching, the surrounding countryside had little to offer either, so a plan was drawn up to advance the short distance to Ma’arat al-Numan and hope for more luck there.

When the town fell to the Crusaders some 20,000 people were killed and the children captured as slaves, but there was still no food to be found.

The Crusaders then turned to the only solution they could think of. They started to feed on the bodies of the people they had killed. Some reports said that they went as far as killing people for the purpose of eating them, including impaling children on spits so that they could be grilled, but these accounts cannot be relied upon.

Even so, for an army to turn to cannibalism, in the belief that they were fighting against people who were animals rather than humans, was terrible enough. This event placed a huge stain on the reputation of the Crusaders, and Christianity in general. The Muslim world has long held the Christian west in detestation, and this incident was one that caused that view to be created and to prevail down the centuries.

© John Welford

Great Britain's mandates in the Middle East, 1920

The date was 25^th April 1920, which was perhaps one that should “live in infamy” every bit as much as that on which Pearl Harbor was attacked or the Twin Towers felled.

This was when the League of Nations granted Britain and France the right to govern the territories of the former Ottoman Empire and split them up as they saw fit. What followed has led to problems ever since.

Part of the deal saw Britain gaining mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia. For the latter, which became the modern state of Iraq, Britain installed Faisal Hussein as king in recognition of his father’s support for Britain during World War One.

As for Palestine, Britain divided the territory between the Emirate of Transjordan, to the east of the River Jordan, and the Palestine Mandate to the West. Faisal Hussein’s brother Abdullah became the ruler of Transjordan. 

An added complication was the fact that Britain had already, through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, declared its support for a Jewish “national home” “in Palestine”, both of which terms were intentionally vague.

The 1920 decision therefore pleased nobody, given that the British had also proposed that Palestine should be governed by an international body and that the Arabs should have their own independent state. 

The assumption that 85,000 Jews and 600,000 Arab Palestinians could co-exist peacefully turned out to be a false one. The consequences of that mistake have haunted the world ever since.

© John Welford

Gandhi's 1930 Salt March

A protest march in 1930 that started with 80 people was seen in later years as a major step on the path towards India’s independence from the British Empire.

Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) was a London-trained lawyer who sought to fight against the British Raj by wholly peaceful means. One cause of discontent was the tax levied on the Indian population for the purchase of salt, which was essential for the preservation of food in the notoriously hot climate of India.

The protest march began in the state of Gujarat. It lasted for 24 days, averaging ten miles a day. The route of the march led towards Dandi, on the Arabian Sea coast.

As the march progressed it attracted thousands more followers and eventually the procession of people was more than two miles long. Gandhi also addressed large crowds of people at stops along the way and at the march’s conclusion.

At the end of the march Gandhi encouraged his followers to break the law by making their own salt from seawater, this being a significant act of civil disobedience.

The Salt March was the first major example of non-violent direct action against India’s colonial rulers. Seventeen years later Gandhi and his followers achieved their aim when the independence of India was declared.

© John Welford

A torrent of transatlantic emigration in the 17th century

The story of the Pilgrim Fathers, who sailed across the Atlantic in the Mayflower from Plymouth (England) to the New World in 1620, is well known, but what is not so widely appreciated is that this was just the start of a virtual torrent of emigration from England to the colonies during the rest of the century.

Wave after wave of migrants left England for various reasons. It has been estimated that as many as 400,000 people may have set sail, with about half that number heading for North America and the rest going further south. Given that the total population of England at that time was about 5 million, that meant that getting on for 10% of the people of England simply departed and never came back. 

The first emigrants of the century – the Pilgrim Fathers – were Puritans who were sickened by what they regarded as lax religious standards on the part of the official Anglican clergy. They relied on God’s advice to Abraham to “Get out of thy country … unto a land that I will show thee”. They clearly believed that God was on their side when they arrived in America and vast numbers of the native population caught and died from diseases brought by the new arrivals and for which they had no immunity. God was obviously clearing the way for his new chosen people.

The next big wave of emigrants was in the late 1640s. Many of these had supported the cause of King Charles I against Parliament prior to and during the English Civil War, which eventually swung in Parliament’s favour. They could see no future for themselves under the regime that was likely to follow Charles’s defeat and headed off for Virginia and other American colonies. Given that the victors largely favoured the Puritan approach to religion, the new emigrants were of a very different nature from the previous batch.

The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 caused problems for other religious groups in England, most notably the Quakers, who were appalled by the intolerance of the new regime towards non-conformist denominations. Most prominent of these emigrants was William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.

Not all the 17^th century emigrants had political or religious motives for setting sail. There were plenty of economic migrants who left seeking to escape the poverty of their lives at home. Many had become victims of changes to the economic structure of England that made life very difficult for those at the bottom of the social pyramid. As woods and common land was enclosed to become private property, prices rose and wages fell.

As might have been expected, there was adequate opportunity for unscrupulous people to take advantage of the misery of others. Agents known as “spirits” became active at fairs, markets and taverns where they would entice people into emigrating with promises of vast riches to be made in the colonies.

A huge number of emigrants were indentured servants who had to work as virtual slaves for up to seven years before gaining their freedom, in return for board and lodging. It has been estimated that only around 10% of these people survived the experience.

Another source of emigration was the transportation of prisoners from English jails – a practice that lasted well into the 18^th century until the American Revolution meant that Australia replaced North America in this respect.

Genuine emigration – i.e. by those who wanted to emigrate as opposed to doing so by force - waned towards the end of the 17^th century, largely due to the increased toleration provided by the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688.

A less acceptable reason was that the burgeoning slave trade, which shipped vast numbers of slaves to the colonies from Africa, meant that there was less need to import indentured servants from England, who were in any case less suited to the harsh conditions of the plantations in the southern colonies.

English migration may have declined at this time, but it was soon replaced by fresh sources of travellers from countries that included Ireland, Germany and Italy. However, the earlier dominance of English emigrants left several permanent marks on the population of what would eventually become the United States of America, most notably the universality of the English language.

© John Welford

Broadening the mind on the Grand Tour

It is a well-respected maxim that travel broadens the mind. For many British young people this takes the form of a “gap year” before going to university. The equivalent in the late 18^th and early 19^th century – if you could afford it – was the Grand Tour.

Who were the Grand Tourists?

It has been estimated that some 40,000 Britons undertook the Grand Tour during the period from 1750 to 1825. They were nearly all the eldest sons of wealthy aristocrats and they would have undertaken the Tour when aged anything between 15 and 21.

The notion behind the Tour was that the education provided by the great Public Schools (i.e. institutions such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester) was not particularly well-rounded, and in order to be fully educated it was important to have first-hand knowledge of great art and architecture. In the days before public art galleries (London’s National Gallery dates from 1824) it was impossible to see the works of masters such as Titian and Raphael. You had to travel to where they were in order to see them, and in most cases that meant Italy.

Aristocratic young men were given an education that placed great emphasis on the classical languages, particularly Latin. In order to put flesh on the bones, where better to go than Rome to view the remains of its ancient past?

Also, many people of this class were expected to play a role in politics and diplomacy. That meant knowing foreign languages, the teaching of which was largely ignored by the Public Schools. In order to learn French or Italian you had to spend time in France or Italy.

An Expensive Business        

The Grand Tour was only available for families with very deep pockets. A tour could last up to five years, and the participants did not expect to spend much time in student hostels! A tourist would take at least one servant with them, and some would be accompanied by several. They would travel in their own horse-drawn carriage, with all the expense that that entailed, and they might well hire extra staff such as porters during their travels.

It has been estimated that some fathers spent as much as £10,000 a year on financing their son and heir’s Grand Tour – the equivalent of millions today.

Some Danger Involved

As soon as a tourist set foot in France they would become open to the attentions of highwaymen and tricksters. Some learned – the hard way – the benefits of keeping gold coins hidden about their person.

Tourists would be exposed to many threats to their health, such as diseases to which they had no immunity and untrustworthy water supplies. Many took well-stocked medicine chests with them.

On reaching Marseilles, the route to Italy was either by sea – with the risk of being attacked by pirates – or across the Alps. The latter route meant traversing Alpine passes shrouded in furs against the cold and sometimes having to follow narrow tracks with sheer drops to the valley below.

Indulging in the Arts

Once in Italy, the tourist could head for Venice, hopefully in time for the annual carnival. This was an opportunity for enjoying oneself at masked balls or taking part in gondola races, and for soaking up the culture provided by Venetian architecture and the artistic works of Canaletto and many others.

Another popular destination was Florence, where many great works by the Old Masters could be seen. However, Rome was always the greatest magnet, not least for the ruins of the Forum and better preserved buildings such as the Colosseum.

Some tourists ventured further south to visit the ruins towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, although these have become far more visible in more recent times thanks to later excavations.

It must also be pointed out that not all Grand Tourists were as conscientious in soaking up the culture as their fathers might have wished. It should surprise no-one that sending a rich young man off to France and Italy, far away from parental control, might offer temptations to behave badly, and that was certainly the case in many instances.

What did the Grand Tourists Come Back With?

Many deep-pocketed tourists were able to buy works of art that took their fancy and return with them to Britain. Many great country houses today have their walls lined in part with purchases made by past Grand Tourists. Some of these works have subsequently found their way into public collections such as those of the National Gallery and major regional art galleries.

Landscapes by artists such as Claude and Poussin were sometimes used by estate owners to guide garden designers such as “Capability” Brown and Humphrey Repton towards the production of their own classical landscapes.

It also became the custom for Grand Tourists to have their own portraits painted in front of a famous antiquity. This was a somewhat more expensive – and far more time-consuming – version of the modern in situ “selfie”.

Apart from paintings, tourists collected sculptures, pottery, objets d’art and furniture, many examples of which can still be seen today in properties now owned by the National Trust and English Heritage.

Sons of aristocrats who later inherited their fathers’ estates were sometimes inspired to re-design their great houses along the lines of sketches they had made while on tour. The Italianate “Palladian” designs of Robert and James Adam owe their origin to this tendency.

Always a Success?

By no means. As mentioned earlier, not every Grand Tourist took the event as seriously as was intended. Although the average tourist returned to England as a far more sophisticated person than they had been when they left, some had acquired habits that attracted mockery and ridicule from stay-at-homes.

These included ornate clothes, extravagant wigs and foppish attitudes.

The Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith was of the opinion that the average tourist returned “more conceited, less principled, more dissipated and more incapable of study or business than if he had stayed at home.”

© John Welford

South African history: the Great Trek

South Africa’s Afrikaners (Whites of Dutch origin) regard the Great Trek as the event that marked their identity as a people.

The Causes of the Great Trek

When – over a five-year period between 1835 and 1840 - some 14,000 Afrikaners packed their belongings into ox carts and set off from the Cape Colony to find new lands that they could call their own, they did so because life was becoming steadily less desirable for them where they were.

Dutch settlers had first arrived in the Cape in 1652, but they were later joined by British colonists who eventually seized control of the territory in 1805. The British had different ways of doing things – for example, they abolished slavery, gave Blacks and Whites equal status and introduced English as the official language in schools and churches.

Apart from these legal moves, perhaps the most important source of discontent for the Afrikaners was the fact that the influx of British settlers placed increasing pressure on the availability of land for farming. Many Afrikaner farmers decided that they would be better off if they found new lands for themselves further east and north.

The Routes of the Trek

The Great Trek was not a single journey by a large group of people but a succession of “treks” from various starting points in the Eastern Cape that used a number of different routes.

The first two “Voortrekker” (forward journeyer) parties were led by Louis Trichardt and Hans van Rensburg. They set off together in 1835 northwards across the Orange River but later split up after a quarrel, just south of the Limpopo River.

Van Rensburg took his group northwards along the course of the river but encountered hostile Tsonga tribesmen who wiped them out.

Trichardt’s party headed for the coast, although they were in no great hurry to reach it. When they did so, three years later, nearly half of them, including Trichardt himself, died of malaria. The survivors made their way to Port Natal.

Meanwhile, thousands more trekkers had set out on the journey of some 300 miles, many of them making for the mountain of Thaba Nchu, north of the Orange River. From there, they headed eastwards over the Drakensberg Mountains.

Making the Trek

The Trekkers had many different environments to contend with on their journey, including vast stretches of dusty veldt and steep mountain slopes. All a family’s possessions would be loaded into an ox-drawn wagon and at night the wagons would be arranged in a circle to provide some protection from attack.

Progress was never rapid, averaging around 6 miles (10 km) a day. When climbing or descending steep slopes there was always the danger that the ox wagons would run out of control, so the practice was to remove the rear wheels and tie branches under the axles.

The Trekkers were not advancing into empty territory and they met considerable opposition from native tribes, especially the Zulus. Zulu power was eventually broken at the Battle of Blood River in December 1838.

The End of the Trek

The Trekkers, who became known as Boers (meaning farmers) set up a republic in Natal, on the east coast. However, this was annexed by the British in 1843 and the Afrikaners had to move again, finally settling in the high veldt to the north and west. Two Boer republics were established and recognized by the British, these being the Orange Free State and the Transvaal (or South African Republic).

An unexpected consequence of the Great Trek, and the expulsion from Natal, was that the Boers now controlled areas that contained extensive gold and diamond reserves. Not surprisingly, the British sought to take over these areas, and this ambition was a major cause of the two Boer Wars (1880-1 and 1899-1902) which led to the Boer Republics becoming part of the British Union of South Africa.

© John Welford

How tobacco got from America to Europe

There can be few people today who would say that the use of tobacco, mainly by smoking it, has not been an unmitigated disaster in terms of public health and unnecessary early deaths. A tobacco-free world would surely be a much happier and healthier one.

From a European perspective the chief culprit for its introduction is generally held to be Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1554-1618), although this is only part of the story, given that tobacco was in use in Europe long before Raleigh was even born. However, Raleigh, who had explored the southern part of North America that would eventually form the Dominion of Virginia, became acquainted with the tobacco plant and the uses to which it was put by the native Americans. He certainly popularised its use in England.

The leaves of plants of the Nicotiana genus (the name comes from the Frenchman Jean Nicot who introduced tobacco to France in 1560) are hallucinogenic when dried and smoked in very high concentrations, and it is thought that this is the use to which tobacco was originally put by the priestly class of early native Americans. Once in a tobacco-induced trance they believed that they could communicate with the spirits of ancestors or gods.

The Mayas of central America are known to have used tobacco for recreational purposes during the height of their civilization around 900 CE. Stone carvings on temple and palace buildings show high-ranking Mayas enjoying their “smoking tubes”. They also used a form of snuff (tobacco dust that is sniffed up the nose), and tobacco leaves were also chewed as well as smoked.

The Aztecs who dominated central America in the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest used tobacco for both recreational and ceremonial purposes. The drug was assigned its own goddess, Cihuacoatl, whose priests wore gourds that contained tobacco during ceremonies in which human sacrifices were performed. Again, the assumption is that tobacco was used to send the priests into a trance-like state during which they would carry out their grisly rituals.

The first Spaniards to arrive in the region noted the widespread use of tobacco, which was not limited to the privileged classes. Aztec banquets would start with smoking tubes being passed to the guests, and these would be given at the end of the meal to the servants and poor people in the vicinity, so that any unused tobacco was not wasted.

It is commonly thought that the cigarette is a modern invention, but these smoking tubes were a half-way house between pipes and cigarettes, in that they often consisted of combustible materials such as reeds that might be partially burnt during use and thus be reusable on at least one other occasion, as mentioned above. Cigars, consisting wholly of tobacco leaves, were also in use in central and south America.

However, in north America these forms of smoking arrived much later. European settlers, on making contact with native Americans, were often invited to smoke a “pipe of peace”, and it is in this form that the idea of tobacco smoking originally crossed the Atlantic.

It is not difficult to see how the idea arose that tobacco had medical benefits. If someone was put into a trance by smoking tobacco, they would be far more relaxed and thus less likely to feel pain. Any pleasurable experience makes one “feel better”, even if the symptoms of one’s disease or discomfort have not been tackled. When the symptoms return the obvious answer is to take more of the “medicine” that alleviates them. Visitors from the Old World who succumbed to a tropical disease might be persuaded to try tobacco and take a supply home with them so that they could continue with what they supposed was the cure.

Given the highly addictive nature of nicotine, which is the chief active ingredient in tobacco, it is clear that there would be another reason why a returned traveller would want to ensure a constant supply of the leaves, not only for himself but also for his friends and family who had also been induced to try the wonder drug from the New World. It is little wonder that, once discovered, tobacco use spread round the world with great rapidity, even before the aggressive marketing of tobacco companies got to work to force their poisonous wares on to unsuspecting millions of people in both the developed and developing world.

One of the great tragedies of the modern world, namely the massive toll of tobacco-related illnesses and deaths, was therefore imported under false pretences from people in the Americas who had as little idea of the harm they were causing themselves as would smokers across the world for centuries afterwards.

© John Welford

Ways in which the Ottoman Empire was impacted by British foreign policy

The Sick Man of Europe

The Ottoman Empire was the Muslim successor of the old Christian Byzantine Empire that was in turn based on the Eastern Roman Empire. Centred on Constantinople (Istanbul), at its height in the late 16^th century it occupied much of south-eastern Europe stretching nearly as far as Vienna, as well the whole of the Levant, Egypt, modern-day Iraq, and the north African coast as far west as Algiers.

However, the Empire proved to be too unwieldy to hold together, especially when an expanding population could not be fed and the central government refused to modernise at a time when the countries of Europe were doing so. For much of the 19^th century, the Ottoman Empire was the “Sick Man of Europe”. The invalid’s continuing decline led the great powers to have many sleepless nights over what would happen when he died.

Britain Versus Russia

The British government, at the heart of a growing worldwide empire, was as interested as anyone in the health of the old Ottoman Empire, from several perspectives. For one thing, the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire was India, and anything that affected the security of India, or free passage in that direction, was a matter of great concern. For another, the imperial ambitions of Russia had to be countered. France was another rival to be kept in check.

During the middle years of the 19^th century, British foreign policy was driven by a remarkable man, Viscount Palmerston, who sat in the House of Commons by virtue of his peerage being an Irish one. With only a few interruptions he held high office from 1809 to 1865, mostly as either Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. His was a tough “no nonsense” approach, his response to crises often being to “send a gunboat”, but he was also a master of the game of international politics and adept at playing his cards with skill and cunning.

In 1829, Britain supported Greece in its war of independence, but Palmerston then came to realise that the Ottoman Empire had great value in being a buffer to Russian ambitions, especially where they concerned access to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and Dardenelles, the narrow waterways that led through Ottoman territory to the Black Sea. The last thing Britain wanted was Russian warships patrolling the Mediterranean and threatening British trade and her route to India.

The Ambitions of Mehemet Ali

A crisis arose as a result of the Greek revolt, in that the Sultan had called for assistance from his powerful Egyptian viceroy, Mehemet Ali, who now sought a substantial reward for his efforts. The Sultan offered him Crete, but Mehemet Ali really wanted Syria. To complicate matters, France had been very active in supporting Mehemet Ali in his modernising and expansion of Egypt, and they were likely to support him in any action he took.

When, in 1831, Mehemet Ali’s army swept through the Levant and threatened the territory of Turkey itself, the Russians offered protection to the Sultan and sent a fleet to Constantinople. The British put pressure on the Sultan to buy off Mehemet Ali with the territory he sought, after which the Russians also withdrew. The Russian price was a treaty that closed the Dardanelles to the enemies of Russia, a situation that was far from satisfactory to Lord Palmerston.

In 1839 the British prompted Ottoman Turkey to take revenge on Mehemet Ali, but the Egyptian army and navy proved to be too strong. Palmerston now sought to threaten Egypt with an ultimatum, but the French took Mehemet Ali’s side and tried to negotiate a direct deal between Turkey and Egypt. Tempers rose on all sides, and for a time it seemed possible that Britain and France might go to war over the issue.

Palmerston was reluctant to climb down and even sent a fleet to bombard the Syrian coast, but eventually he was pacified by a deal whereby Mehemet Ali gave up Syria but stayed as the hereditary ruler of Egypt. The best result from Britain’s point of view was that the Dardanelles were now declared closed to the warships of all nations.

The Next Crisis

The next time that British foreign policy impacted the Ottoman Empire was in the 1840s. The sick man’s health was not improving, and in 1844 Britain and Russia agreed to consult over what should replace the Empire should it collapse. Meanwhile, Britain and France were in agreement that Russian ambitions should be curtailed. However, towards the end of the decade Russia became convinced that the Ottoman Empire could not last much longer and started to exert considerable influence in the Balkans, where a number of states were showing signs of pushing for independence. While still wanting to preserve the Ottoman Empire, it was clearly Russia which was pulling the strings in this region.

The Crimean War began almost by accident, occasioned by Russian efforts in 1853 to put pressure on the Sultan over the protection of Christians within the Empire. The British and the French supported the Sultan, and when the latter declared war on Russia, an Anglo-French fleet entered the Black Sea in support of the Turks and three years of war followed. At the end of the war the sick man was no better. The Sultan promised to improve the lot of his Christian subjects, but did little to keep his promise.

The Suez Canal

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought the British and Ottoman Empires into direct confrontation. The building of the canal had been one of the many modernisation projects that the then Khedive of Egypt, Ismail, had begun during a period of great prosperity. However, the financing of the canal had required Egypt to take foreign loans on terms that proved to be ruinous and brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy. In 1875 the British government bought out the Egyptian government’s shares in the canal at a bargain price, and the canal, built by Egyptian labor and largely at Egyptian expense, was now destined to benefit only those foreign nations who were in any case going to benefit from the new trade routes that the canal made possible.

Egypt was now forced to accept domination by the French and the British, who virtually ran the economy in ways that were highly disadvantageous to the Egyptian people. Not only did they have to pay interest on their loans and dividends to the canal bondholders, but they also had to pay tribute to the Ottoman Sultan. The money was raised from taxes on the peasantry, many of whom were reduced to starvation.

Eventually, the Egyptian people and army rose in revolt, and the British response was to crush the revolt with considerable force. In July 1882 the port city of Alexandria was bombarded from the sea with the loss of around 2,000 civilian lives. In September, the battle of Tel-el-Kebir resulted in the deaths of 57 British soldiers and perhaps as many as 10,000 Egyptians.

The Sudan

However, the easy British victory turned to dust later that year when the territory to the south of Egypt (modern-day Sudan) rebelled, under a fundamentalist Islamic leader who declared himself to be the “Mahdi”. The British grossly underestimated the forces that opposed them, with the result that an army column was destroyed and the celebrated British general, Charles Gordon, became cut off in Khartoum and was killed before he could be rescued. The British socialist William Morris wrote, “Khartoum has fallen, into the hands of the people it belongs to”. The Sudan was not re-captured until 1898 when, at the Battle of Omdurman, the slaughter of the native army, including the murder of wounded prisoners as revenge for the death of General Gordon, sickened the young Winston Churchill.

World War I

When the First World War broke out in 1914, the Sultan sided with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is quite possible that, had the war started 20 years earlier, Turkey would have been allied with Britain and the other “entente” powers (France and Russia), but the virtual British takeover of Egypt and support for anti-Turkish groups in the Middle East had changed things.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill masterminded a naval attack in 1915 on the Gallipoli Peninsula that overlooked the Dardenelles, with a view to opening a route to Britain’s new ally, Russia. This was a military disaster, with huge losses being inflicted on the British Empire forces (more than 44,000 killed), which included a large number of Anzac (Australia and New Zealand) soldiers and sailors.

Despite the fact that Ottoman casualties were greater in number than those of the Allies, their victory gave them fresh hope of being able to revive the Ottoman Empire. In striving to reassert their authority in the Arab lands under their somewhat shaky control, they inspired the “Arab Revolt” of 1916-18, which was then supported by the British, led on the ground by Colonel T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”). Lawrence was instrumental in uniting many disparate Arab forces and getting them to carry out attacks, for instance on the railway that ran south from Damascus, that in turn diverted thousands of Ottoman troops from their main objectives.

Post-War Policy

The main Arab aim had been to replace the Ottoman Empire with an Arab Caliphate that would have extended across much of the Middle East. However, the European powers had other ideas, and the post-war partition of the Ottoman Empire took little account of Arab views. Various promises had been made during the war in order to gain support for the war effort, but it proved impossible to keep all of them due to their conflicting nature. In particular, Lawrence had promised the Arabs that they would have an independent state covering most of the region, but the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promised support for a Jewish state within Palestine. The consequences of those mixed messages are with us to this day.

Under the League of Nations, Britain and France were granted mandates over various parts of the old Ottoman Empire, with the British mandates covering Palestine, Transjordan and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). By drawing straight-line boundaries around territories that had never had fixed borders before, the new masters of the region created all sorts of problems for future generations, such as the division of Kurdish lands between four modern states.

All in all, British foreign policy had a huge impact on the Ottoman Empire over a long period of time. It cannot be said that the policy was always wise or far-sighted, and its ramifications affect international relations even now.

© John Welford

Reasons for Great Britain's Colonization of Australia

In some ways, Australia offered the conditions for the perfect colony, but in other ways it was far from ideal. Captain James Cook had sailed along 2,000 miles of the east coast in 1770, landing only at Botany Bay (as named by him). He claimed the coastline for the British crown, but it was another 18 years before any attempt was made to site a colony there. He thought that the southern coastline was reminiscent of South Wales, and “New South Wales” it has been ever since.

A perfect colony?

What made Australia perfect for colonization was that it was an untouched, empty continent that the British could occupy without opposition. Although Dutch navigators had discovered parts of Australia long before Cook arrived, their countrymen made no attempt at settling there. Cook had noticed that there was a native population, but they proved to be largely docile and to have no intention of resisting any incursions by Europeans.

On the other hand, as the first settlers soon discovered, this new continent proved to be an unfriendly host. The natives were hunter-gatherers who had made no attempt to cultivate the land or build settled communities, so there was no infrastructure to take over or imitate. The wildlife was impossible to tame or farm (you can’t milk a kangaroo), and there were many species of snake, spider and scorpion that were armed with deadly venom. The climate was baking hot away from the coast, and although several fairly large rivers disgorged into the sea close to Botany Bay, others proved to be highly seasonal, drying up completely for many months of the year. There were no obvious natural resources that anyone would want to exploit and send back to England. So what reason could there possibly be for wanting to colonize this place?

The answer was precisely its remoteness and harshness. These properties were exactly what were needed when the old country wanted to export its most troublesome commodity, namely its criminals and undesirables. Australia was perfectly suited to becoming a penal colony.

Somewhere to send British criminals

This function had previously been taken by the American colonies, particularly those of Georgia and the Carolinas, although Newfoundland was also used for this purpose. With American independence, a new convict settlement was needed, and Botany Bay sounded just about right, although nearby Sydney Cove turned out to be more suitable for building a settlement.

The “Salisbury and Winchester Journal” of 25 April 1785 stated that: “Michael Dennison (from Poole), for having broken open a sloop, from which he stole several articles, was sentenced to be transported for seven years”. He made the journey aboard the “Alexander”, which was one of the ships of the “First Fleet” that arrived at its destination in January 1788 with its thousand or so convicts, soldiers and officials. Although 28 convicts died on board the Alexander during the passage, Michael Dennison survived to become one of the first white Australians.

Who were the convicts?

The convicts were, generally speaking, from the lowest rungs of the English social ladder, who were used to living hard lives and settling disputes with their fists.

Although the convicts were often tough people, and were transported for having committed offences, many of the crimes would strike us today as being mild in the extreme. Stealing as little as a shilling, for a first offence, could land someone in Australia. There was a case in my wife’s family history of a girl of fifteen who was asked to a hold a horse for a man who had just ridden up and dismounted next to where she was standing. The horse had been stolen, and when the constable arrived she was arrested for being in possession of stolen property. The girl later became one of Australia’s matriarchs and the ancestor of a great Australian dynasty.

In the 19^th century, many transportees were political prisoners, notable among which were the “Tolpuddle Martyrs” from Dorset who were transported in 1834 for organising themselves into an agricultural trade union. They were later reprieved and returned to England.

Staying on

In Australia, discipline was often harsh, although there were other colonies, such as nearby Norfolk Island, where life was even tougher due to the brutality of the regime. If anyone could survive and make a living in Australia, the English criminal courts had chosen their candidates well. It was soon apparent to the convicts that, because escape was impossible in that there was nowhere to escape to, they might as well make the best of a bad job. Although transportation was not usually for life, seven years being the almost universal term, convicts who had served their sentence often chose not to return, preferring to make a new life for themselves in a new country.

The suggestion has been made that the penal colony was in fact originally planned as a colonial establishment, and that it was always the intention to build an outpost of Empire on the far side of the world. That is hard to establish, given that at the time of the First Fleet nobody knew anything about the conditions that would be found there, or even whether survival was possible at all. The officials and soldiers who travelled with the prisoners must have been every bit as apprehensive as their charges.

Building new colonies

Later fleets took supplies with them that made it more likely that permanent colonies would be established. These supplies included cattle and sheep, which proved to be far more adaptable to the conditions than might have been imagined. There is a story that, when explorers tried to find a route to the interior through the notoriously difficult Blue Mountains, they discovered a herd of wild cattle on the other side, these being descendants of the original cattle that had found their own way round the mountains rather than across them!

In time, Australia did reveal its natural resources, such as gold, sapphires, opals, coal and iron (much later discoveries included uranium and natural gas). These made the early colonies much more valuable than simply a place to dump exiles from the home country. It did not take long before Australia became a place of voluntary emigration for people who wanted to make a fresh start, with more than 500,000 colonists arriving from the United Kingdom between 1851 and 1861. Many incentives were offered down the years to persuade people to go there, and it has only been relatively recently that immigration has had to be capped.

Transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840, by which time the colony was well established as the home of free people.

The Australian continent was never the scene of colonial rivalry between the European powers, with non-British immigration being unknown until the 20^th century. The Australian colonies became an untouchable British preserve, with Britain as their sole export market and the one source of commodity imports. The way of life of the colonists was British in all but name, and they also became annoyingly good at playing cricket!

© John Welford

The Diet of Worms, 1521

This event, which concluded on 18^th April 1521, has gone down in history with an unfortunate name that means something completely different from what most English-speaking people would assume. It was in fact a fundamental turning point in the history of Christianity.

The Opponents

The word “diet” means simply a government assembly (from the Latin “dies” meaning “day”, although diets could last a lot longer than a single day). This particular one met in the city of Worms in south-western Germany. Although diets in the Holy Roman Empire were supposedly legislative gatherings, they were in reality echo chambers for the Emperor, whose word was law.

The Holy Roman Emperor was the governor of an association of states in Northern Europe, nominally sanctioned by the Pope in Rome. At the time this was Charles V, who wielded absolute power over his territories despite only being 21 years old.

The Diet of Worms had been convened as a form of trial for a German monk who had dared to defy the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, namely Martin Luther. 

In October 1517 Luther had published his “Ninety-Five Theses” which were points of dispute with the Church, especially over what Luther regarded as its corrupt practices. These were challenged by the Pope and other theologians, leading to Luther being accused of heresy. When he refused to recant his views he was summoned to Worms to explain himself.

A Courageous Appearance

Martin Luther saw no reason to try to avoid the summons, given that he was more than keen to defend and expound his opinions regarding the sorry state of the Roman Catholic Church. He was warned by friends that – if found guilty of heresy – his life could well be in jeopardy. His reply was: “I am resolved to enter Worms although as many devils should set upon me as there are tiles on the rooftops”.

It was the case, however, that Luther had been assured by the Emperor of his safe conduct. Of course, Charles was perfectly capable of changing his mind but Luther was prepared to trust his good word.

Conflict of Arguments

Luther was appalled by the corruption in Rome and certain of his own principles. He refused to accept the absolute authority of the Church, preferring to rely on “scripture and plain reason”.

Emperor Charles’s counter argument was that “a single monk, deluded by his own judgment”, was in no position to conclude that “all Christians up till now are wrong”.

There was no chance that Luther would win his case, which he concluded by saying: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise”.

The net result was that Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Church, having been condemned as a heretic. However, Charles was an honourable man and he refused to allow Luther to be seized and punished.

After the Diet

The date 18^th April 1521 is regarded by many as the true date of the start of the Reformation, because the genie of reform was henceforth out of the bottle and it could not be put back.

Martin Luther would spend the remaining 25 years of his life preaching for reform in Germany, while Charles V would oppose the trend – with limited success - for the 37 years that remained to him.

© John Welford

The executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, 1927

On 23rd August 1927 two men were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison in Massachusetts. They were Nicola Sacco (born 1891) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (born 1888), two Italian immigrants, who had been convicted in 1921 of the murder of two men during a factory robbery in 1920.

However, serious doubts were raised at the time about the safety of the convictions, which have not been eased in the intervening years, with the real possibility that the men were condemned more for their political beliefs and social status than their actual guilt or otherwise based on real evidence.

The United States was, at the time, in the grip of one of its periodic “red scares”, this one based on fears that Communist plotters sought to copy the Russian Revolution of 1917 on the western side of the Atlantic. The problem for Sacco and Vanzetti was that they were admitted anarchists. Their politics, plus the strong anti-immigrant feelings current at the time, ensured that it would be extremely difficult for them to get a fair trial.

As it was, the jury did not take long to reach guilty verdicts and all appeals against the death sentence were subsequently rejected.

There was contrary evidence pointing to the men’s innocence, including ballistics evidence and a confession by another man, but none of this made any difference.

The storm aroused by the convictions and executions was such that the case became a noted “cause celebre” in the United States, as well as the inspiration (in whole or in part) for several literary works.

These included:

• “Boston”, a novel by Upton Sinclair
• “Winterset”, a play by Maxwell Anderson
• “U.S.A.” trilogy by John Dos Passos

The poet Edna St Vincent Millay joined a protest on the day before the executions and held a placard that read “If these men are executed, justice is dead in Massachusetts”, and was arrested for doing so.

The case was not forgotten for many years, becoming seen as an archtype of the prejudice of the American judicial system against the Left and ordinary working people. It would certainly appear to have been a clear case of a miscarriage of justice, and it might have been hoped that it would have led to such instances becoming a thing of the past. However, there have been plenty of other cases that suggest that Sacco and Vanzetti were by no means the last Americans to suffer from a deeply flawed legal system.

© John Welford