Life of a West End Seamstress in 19th Century London

The concern with workplace health and safety and workers' rights has been discussed for decades. Throughout British history, there have been many attempts by workers, to create unofficial trade unions to improve their working situation. During the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), the question of whether our working environments are safe, necessary and improve an individual’s productivity has been asked. The pandemic saw many people begin the transition into the work from home (WFH) structure as many offices and buildings could not cater to social distancing measures, efficient ventilation or isolate the spread of disease. Of course, many were unable to transition to a WFH strategy and had to continue to travel to their place of work. Organisations were faced with the challenge of managing the spread of disease, protecting workers from illness, and work productivity.

Health and safety in the workplace is not a new phenomenon brought about by the pandemic but one that is rooted in British history. Workers endured gruelling labour and toil with poor living and working conditions, with a lack of government reform to protect workers and their families from injury or even death. It was not until the Health and Safety at Work act of 1974 that was introduced to protect workers and their rights. Although throughout the nineteenth century, there was a gradual progression towards improving the working lives of many Victorians, for example, the Factory Act in 1833. This article explores how the living and working conditions of seamstresses in nineteenth-century west end London became pushed into public discussion and Parliament's reluctance to pass reforms to ease the lives of seamstresses.

Amy Chandler explains.

Seamstresses in 19th century France.

The distressed seamstress

The industrial revolution took place between 1760 – 1840 and transformed the UK in many ways from the increased number of factories, trade, pollution, and a decline in living conditions. The industrial revolution also increased the chances of developing new illnesses from poor living conditions and lack of sanitation policies. London expanded rapidly and offered a new life for people in the city to find opportunities and employment, however the reality was bleak. Many found it hard to find work and earn enough money to stay in accommodation. Options were bleak, and many women resorted to prostitution or ended up in workhouses; some women were forced into prostitution to earn money on top of their daily employment. During the Victorian period, sewing was seen as a feminine quality and a skill taken up by women of all classes. The occupation of a seamstress was taken up mostly by working-class women and some upper-class women who were unable to become governesses, to support themselves and their families.

The image of the distressed seamstress became a cause celebre, which meant a controversial figure that attracted public attention and interest. The image of the distressed seamstress frequented art and literature in the nineteenth century with Thomas Hood’s famous poem Songs of the shirt 1843, depicting the plight of seamstresses as “fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red. A woman sat in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread”.(1) Hood’s poem continues throughout twelve stanzas revealing the plight of the living and working conditions of the life of a seamstress. Other literary figures attempted to shed light on the lives and hardships of the seamstress, such as Richard Redgrave. Hood’s poem inspired Redgrave to illustrate the figure of the seamstress as a pitiful and lonely figure with no escape to a better life or improved living and working conditions.

The death of seamstress Mary Walkley

In 1863 the course of how seamstresses were viewed changed forever after the death of a seamstress named Mary Walkley, “a workwoman in the employment of Madame Elise, described as Court Dressmaker, of 170, Regent Street”.(2) Women worked all day and night to complete orders, especially during London’s busy social season between April to June, when young women, often called debutantes, would attend social events in hopes of securing a marriage with a wealthy suitor.(3) After investigation, Walkley’s death was caused by “long hours of work and insufficient ventilation” and urgent calls for government officials to “establish by law regulation that might prevent the occurrence of such evils as this case brought to life”.(4)

Walkley's death in 1863 highlights the poor living and working conditions for seamstresses and is an example of what conditions women endured to survive in Victorian London. This particular case caused public outcry and awareness of the shocking conditions in the sweat industry, and there was no parliamentary legislation to change the situation, but public awareness and concern became apparent. Walkley’s case had a public inquest where Dr Lankester assessed the working and living environments. Lankester concluded the overcrowding and lack of ventilation for the number of workers in the space “open[s] up the whole question of the interior conditions of the workshops, workrooms, and sleeping rooms of the metropolitan workpeople”.(5) This situation also raised many questions regarding the “number of hours that persons may be employed in sedentary occupations in ill-ventilated rooms”.(6) Lankester’s report suggested the urgent need for parliamentary legislation to enforce sufficient ventilation and regulation of working hours, as “establishments like those of Madame Elise” were not uncommon throughout London.(7)

The death of Walkley and worker's rights for seamstresses were debated in great depth in the Houses of Commons, for example, Mr Dawson raised the humanitarian concern regarding their work. Dawson asked Parliament to consider if government officials “would give their support to a Bill for defining and limiting the hours of labor, and regulating and inspecting workrooms, alike in the interests of humanity as for the sake of sanitary precaution?”.(8) The debate of Thursday, 25 June 1863 also questioned: “why these establishments should not be placed under proper regulations” such as hours, registration and inspection that were mandatory law for places of employment such as factories, mines, and bakehouses.(9) This case never caused a change in legislation despite public outcry and dress shop owners who desired Parliamentary legislation to reform and recognise the hardship that many endured. Owners of dressmaker shops, like Madame Elise, did have some authority to make changes for their workers, but these were down to personal discretion. Many owners could not afford to regulate working hours as they could lose business to their competitors.

The working class had limited options in terms of choice of occupations due to socio-economic factors. Many workers ended up in the workhouse or following a life of prostitution to survive. Therefore, for working conditions to improve, the authority for change was in the hands of a handful of individuals who were hesitant to pass reforms. Despite there being no official legislation passed, the case of Walkley and the public debates surrounding her death did cause a shift in the public perception of seamstresses. Parliamentary transcripts are evidence of government officials' awareness of the significant difference in workers' rights, such as in factories. Parliament passed reforms to improve the health and safety of workers in factories, such as the Factory Acts of 1833, 1847 and 1850.

After Walkley’s death hit the press, there were questions from the public asking whether Madame Elise, as the owner, should be punished for her ill treatment of workers that contributed to Walkley’s death. This case highlighted a moral dilemma for many employers, as demonstrated by Parliament questions. Sir George Grey emphasised that “masters and mistresses, who are liable to provide for their apprentices food, clothing, and lodging, and have wilfully omitted to do so, are subject, upon conviction, in cases where there has been danger to life or permanent injury to health, to very severe punishment.”(10) Grey shifts the blame from the employee onto the employer for their negligence and ill-treatment of their workers.”(11)

Furthermore, the press reported the general public’s disgust of the working and living conditions.(12) One publication stated that the blame for Walkley’s death was Madame Elise and her debtors, such as duchesses and countesses, where workers were “overworked and poisoned” in Madame Elise’s establishment.(13) The report suggested that these debtors were “often answerable for moral privation and misery” by their “heedlessness and carelessness [… had] often been the cause of many weary hours night work to these poor girls”.(14) The blame was focused directly on the employers and the upper-class customers who placed the social season above public health. Arguably, the upper classes should have gained a conscience and concern for the establishments that they frequented. Madame Elise was unpunished for her negligence, but this situation questioned how workers were badly treated and unprotected by legislation that could ensure workers were protected from injury and death in a place of employment.

Calls for change

Public awareness of the seamstress industry continued to surge in 1906 with The Sweated Industries Exhibition organised by the Daily News. The exhibition aimed to “highlight ‘the evils of sweating’ ” and the public response and attendance were “unprecedented”.(15) The exhibition attempted to create awareness about the poor working and living conditions of seamstresses, whether they worked in a dressmaker’s shop or at home. This exhibition took place over forty years after the Walkley case and illustrates how slow progress for workers' rights, health and safety and reforms were during the nineteenth century. Much Parliamentary legislation and employment rights we are familiar with today took decades to reach the standard that protects workers from exploitation. Therefore, it took over forty years after the Walkley case for the plight of seamstresses to be taken seriously by Parliament and the general public with legislation achieved in 1909 with the establishment of the Trade Board Act that “introduced a legally enforceable minimum wage”.(16)

The Trade Board Act (later renamed the Wages Council in 1945) aimed to regulate the wages for workers in sweated industries such as seamstresses. Board members were representatives of the workers, such as trade unionists, representatives of the employers and government-appointed members. The council had an equal number of representatives from workers and employers and the government-appointed members were fewer.(17) The board proposed the minimum living wage and regularly adjusted the wage based on the state of trade and the cost of living.(18) However, there were ways for employers to avoid having to pay minimum wages through persuading the board that a worker was incapable of performing their expected work through gaining permits for workers with physical or psychological disabilities.(19) During a debate of the Trades Board Act 1909, the extent to which sweated industries suffered was revealed to Parliament. The debate highlighted that workers endured “excessive hours of labour and insanitary state of houses” and that “the earnings of the lowest classes of workers are barely sufficient to sustain existence”, resulting in “ceaseless toil, hard and often unhealthy” work.(20) The legislation proposed in this debate attempted to change working conditions and emphasise that the current wages were insufficient to sustain a healthy lifestyle. Despite this evidence exposing the exploitation of seamstresses, Parliament still were reluctant to pass bills that would even marginally improve the life of seamstresses.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the life of a seamstress was slow to change, and legislation was well overdue, in comparison, to progressive change in working conditions for other occupations such as factories. The seamstress was integral to London’s social season and everyday life but was neglected by Parliamentary reform. The image of the distressed seamstress was not confined to the shadows in Victorian London but dragged into the public sphere where the general public attempted to change working and living conditions. In contemporary society, we have an ever-growing issue with the rise of fast fashion that exploits their workers in order to manufacture at a fast pace to ‘cash-in’ on popular catwalk trends.(21) In the same way that London’s social season exploited seamstresses to produce dresses to wear once and never again. Dress shop owners like Madame Elise used the social season as a way to ‘cash in’ on the hysteria of London’s social events and high demand for custom made gowns. The exploitation and high demand of popular trends mirrors the similar problems experienced in the Victorian era. Today, public awareness and the development of social consciousness have caused a shift in products becoming sustainable and ethically sourced to reduce the exploitation of workers overseas.

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

Now read Amy’s article on the Great Stench in 19th century London here.

Bibliography

Crumbie, A. ‘What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?’, Ethical Consumer, 5 Oct 2021 < https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/what-fast-fashion-why-it-problem >.

Fleming, R. S. ‘ “Coming out” During the Early Victorian Era: about debutantes’, 9 May 2012, Kate Tattersall Adventures < http://www.katetattersall.com/coming-out-during-the-early-victorian-era-debutantes/ >.

Harris, B. ‘Gender Matters’, The Victorian Web, 10 Dec 2014 <https://victorianweb.org/gender/ugoretz1.html >.

HC Deb 23 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1316.

HC Deb 25 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1433.

HC Deb 25 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1434.

HC Deb 28 April 1909, vol 4, cols 343.

Hood, T. ‘Song of the shirt’, The Victorian Web, 16 December 1843 <https://victorianweb.org/authors/hood/shirt.html > .

Matthews, M. ‘Death at the Needle: The Tragedy of Victorian Seamstress Mary Walkley’, Mimi Matthews, 20 Sept 2016 <https://www.mimimatthews.com/2016/09/20/death-at-the-needle-the-tragedy-of-victorian-seamstress-mary-walkley/ >.

Sun. The Case of Mary Anne Walkley. The British Newspaper Archive (26 June 1863).

Warwick Library, ‘The Sweated Industries Exhibition, 1906’, Modern Records Centre, 15 Feb 2022 <https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/tradeboard/1906/>.

Warwick Library, ‘What were trade boards?’, Modern Records Centre, 15 Feb 2022 < https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/tradeboard/boards/ >.

Yorkshire Gazette, ‘The London Seamstress’, The British Newspaper Archive (27 June 1863).

Bibliography

1 T, Hood, ‘Song of the shirt’, The Victorian Web, 16 December 1843 <https://victorianweb.org/authors/hood/shirt.html > [accessed 26 April 2022].

2 HC Deb 23 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1316.

3 R. S, Fleming, ‘ “Coming out” During the Early Victorian Era: about debutantes’, 9 May 2012, Kate Tattersall Adventures < http://www.katetattersall.com/coming-out-during-the-early-victorian-era-debutantes/ > [accessed 2 May 2022].

4 Sun. The Case of Mary Anne Walkley. The British Newspaper Archive (26 June 1863).

5 Sun. The Case of Mary Anne Walkley. The British Newspaper Archive (26 June 1863).

6 Sun. The Case of Mary Anne Walkley. The British Newspaper Archive (26 June 1863).

7 Sun. The Case of Mary Anne Walkley. The British Newspaper Archive (26 June 1863).

8 HC Deb 25 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1433.

9 Ibid.

10 HC Deb 25 June 1863, vol 171, cols 1434.

11 Ibid

12 Yorkshire Gazette, ‘The London Seamstress’, The British Newspaper Archive (27 June 1863).

13 Ibid

14 Ibid

15 Warwick Library, ‘The Sweated Industries Exhibition, 1906’, Modern Records Centre, 15 Feb 2022 < https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/tradeboard/1906/>[ accessed 25 April 2022].

16 Ibid.

17 Warwick Library, ‘What were trade boards?’, Modern Records Centre, 15 Feb 2022 < https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/tradeboard/boards/ >[accessed 2 May 2022].

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 HC Deb 28 April 1909, vol 4, cols 343.

21 A, Crumbie. ‘What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?’, Ethical Consumer, 5 Oct 2021 < https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/what-fast-fashion-why-it-problem >[accessed 3 May 2021].

The Rule of Spain in the New World

By the latter half of the 17th century, the rule of Spain in the New World was reaching 200 years. Times were changing, both in the New World and in Europe, and the leaders of Spain knew it. Their problem was what to do about it. Spain had never had a coherent policy in its imperial rule. Since 1492, Spain was seemingly constantly at war, with an endless series of crises thrown into the mix. Solutions had to be found for the here and now, the future would take care of itself.

In this major series of articles Erick Reddington starts his look at the independence of Spanish America by considering how Spain ruled its vast American territories.

King Felipe V of Spain in the 1720s.

Spain was both blessed and cursed by its enormous New World Empire. Stretching (theoretically) from nearly the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, this was a land mass over 6,000 miles long. Contained within were millions of people, natives, slaves, and colonists. Wealth unimagined in 1491 was under the control of the Spanish. Every year, the West Indies Fleet, also called the Treasure Fleet, would cross the Atlantic and bring gold, silver, and raw materials to Spain. So much gold had crossed the Atlantic that it had caused runaway inflation several times. The Potosi mine in modern day Bolivia produced more silver than any other mine in history. Sugar and tobacco were grown throughout the Spanish Caribbean Basin. These consumer products were then exported for fabulous profits. Wool was grown and shipped to Catalonia for finishing in textile mills there.

These blessings show the problem with the Spanish view of their empire. Despite the incredible wealth and large population base, the empire was seen by Spanish authorities in Madrid as a cow to be milked, not as a flower to cultivate and help blossom. The empire existed to provide the government with mineral wealth and raw materials to fuel strength and power projection for Spain’s many foreign wars and domestic crises. There was little thought given to investing the vast amounts of New World wealth into improving Spanish infrastructure or national wealth. There was even less thought given to improving the empire except where it would lead to immediate increases in wealth extracted. All trade had to flow to Spain. Trade with any other country by the empire directly was forbidden. So many slaves needed to be imported because it was deemed cheaper to work them to death and buy new ones rather than care for them as human beings. Disease was so rampant amongst everyone in the empire that life seemed cheap and transitory; therefore, it was important to get what one could now, and tomorrow could take care of itself.

From Hapsburg to Bourbon

In 1700, the last Hapsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died. He willed his crown to the French Prince Phillippe of Anjou, who became King Filipe V. When Filipe went to Spain, he brought with him several advisors whom, he hoped, would help him make the Spanish Empire more efficient. What they found was appalling. The Spanish government was run by a series of nearly ad hoc committees, rather than government ministries, which was common throughout Western Europe. Tax collection was inefficient and corrupt. Overall corruption was so rampant that it was an expected supplement to meager and irregular salaries. Piracy was rampant. The colonial military was corrupt, untrained, poorly supplied, and totally incapable of all but the most basic of military needs. The French who had followed Filipe V to Spain knew the imperial structure was bad, but they had no idea how bad it really was. Things had to change. Spain’s empire was a giant with feet of clay.

Filipe V was prevented from making many major changes due to the War of Spanish Succession and the need to secure his right to the throne. Once the war was done, he and his successors would embark on a series of reforms lasting several decades with the intent of strengthening the empire before it was too late. Later called the Bourbon reforms, this was a drive to improve infrastructure, agriculture, commerce, and shipping in Spain itself and in the empire. The inefficiencies of the past were to be left behind, and the French mercantilist economic principles of Jean-Baptiste Colbert would strengthen Spain and bring back her glory.

Mercantilism Now!

Mercantilism as an economic theory was all the rage in the 18th century. The idea that national wealth could best be preserved through having a positive balance of foreign trade seemed obvious at the time. Imports were to be discouraged through high tariffs and domestic manufacturing. Exports were encouraged by the state to increase the flow of foreign wealth into the country. Domestic industry was to be encouraged through state subsidies and direct intervention in the economy by the state. Thus, the whole nation would be wealthy. This is an oversimplification, but for our purposes, this is the gist of what these economists wanted.

The wealth of the nation, or economic prosperity in modern parlance, was not the goal of mercantilism, at least for the Bourbon Reformers. National wealth was only a means to an end. Strengthening the state and providing the economic basis for the projection of power, both politically and economically, was the end goal. The reformers of the Bourbon dynasty saw that the Spanish Empire had all the elements needed for massive economic prosperity and national strength. There was little coherence in policy and strategy. Their brand of economic philosophy would change that in their view. It was the rational thing to do.

Rationalizing Government

The rational thing to do. Rationalism was all the rage in France in the 18th century. From society and the structure of the state to individuals and human relationships, everything in life could be reordered based upon the principles of rational thought. This movement was part of the enlightenment. Although many of the enlightenment tenets regarding freedom and secularism did not reach Spain along with the Reformers, many of the ideas of rationalism were imported from France. This is partially why the Reformers were so appalled at the inefficiencies of the Spanish imperial structure. The belief that people respond to logical, rational principles meant that the vast wealth of Spanish America could be harnessed if the right ideas were implemented. The first step was a rationalization of the law.

Law in the Spanish Empire was a dizzying layer upon layer of laws passed by the Cortés, royal decrees, decrees of the Council of the Indies, and local decisions made by administrators over the centuries. Jean de Orry, an advisor brought by Filipe V from France, focused on streamlining the tax collection system to reduce corruption and increase revenues flowing into the treasury. The position of Intendant was created on the French model. Intendants were appointed for every province to have a direct representative of royal power. Cardinal Alberoni, Orry’s successor neutered the Council of the Indies to eliminate a rival power source and reduce that body’s corruption. Within Spain itself, the ancient internal divisions amongst Castile, Aragon, and other sub-regions were eliminated, thereby spreading a financial burden which previously had only fallen on Castile.

One area of primary importance was rationalizing trade. As good mercantilists, increasing the amount of legal trade was of the utmost importance. This meant, of course, eliminating illegal trade. Since regulating hundreds or thousands of small firms was difficult, granting large-scale, sweeping monopolies not only would help streamline regulation, but it would also give the powerful monopoly holders an enormous incentive help the government stamp out illegal trade and endemic piracy. These monopolies would, in time, grow into large corrupt organizations themselves, which would fuel a large amount of colonial dissatisfaction, but this would be in the future.

Military reform was also on the Reformer’s agenda. This would be one of their biggest failures. The military establishments in the colonies were embarrassments. Even in Europe, military service attracted only the most desperate. Few were willing to accept poor pay, brutal discipline, and the prospect of death unless there was no other choice. In the empire, where the lowest classes were tied to the land through slavery or the hacienda system, and other classes had economic opportunities, the talent pool to recruit from was shallow at best. Spanish-born officers sent to the Americas, called Peninsulares, were hostile and dismissive to those born in the New World. The Criollos, those of Spanish descent in the Americas resented the hostility of their social betters. Since Peninsulares made up the highest ranks of the military while Criollos were the junior officers, this was a mix for disaster. This racial tension led to another problem.

Racial Caste System

In Spanish America, race was a much different concept than it is in the 21st century. Within the empire, there was a mix of peoples. Native Americans were the original inhabitants. Thousands of tribes spread over thousands of miles each with their own language and culture. Their numbers were reduced dramatically by the introduction of European diseases after first contact. Population was further reduced by the heavy-handed attempts at enslavement. Throughout the empire, there were constant battles with the natives, with small scale raids common. Tribes from the outskirts of New Spain such as the Pueblo to the Araucanians in the southern Andes provided a source of trade and converts as well as allies against other tribes. Relations with the tribes was complex and difficult at the best of times.

With the failure of attempts to mass enslave the Native Americans, another labor source needed to be found. Sugar, the primary agricultural source of wealth, and mining are very labor intensive. There were not enough colonists to do the work, so the Spanish as well as the other colonial nations, began importing Africans to work the plantations and the mines. Slaves were captured along the coast of Africa from what were called factories or purchased from African tribes willing to work with the colonial powers. After being processed, they were packed aboard ship and sent to the New World in appalling conditions along what was later termed the Middle Passage. Since the cost of slaves was so low, it was in many cases cheaper to import more slaves than provide care to those already purchased. This exploitation of an entire people would have consequences up to the present day. Fears of slave rebellion would influence Spanish law and military policy. The monopoly on the slave trade, the asiento, was a major source of resentment by those who lived in Spanish America and was also a diplomatic chip the Spanish used in influencing foreign policy decisions. No one asked the slaves what their opinion was of the asiento.

Spanish attitudes toward racial mixing were not strict. Since most of the colonists who came to the New World were male, there was a shortage marriage partners for these men. Since nature will always find a way, very quickly a new racial group arose, called mestizos. Mestizos were multi-racial people descended from a mix of Spanish, Native American, and/or African parentage. Existing in a place above Natives and slaves, the Mestizos occupied a strange place in colonial society. They were free people in the legal sense of the term, but they faced a great deal of racial discrimination due to their mixed parentage.

Above the Mestizos were the Criollos. These were people who saw themselves as “pure” Spanish but were born in the Americas. Over time, these people came to accept many of the tenets of the enlightenment and believed that they should have the same rights and privileges as Spanish-born Peninsulares. Although legal restrictions on Criollos were few, the growing resentments of this class caused these few restrictions to be blown up into some of the major issues that would lead to the later revolutions.

At the top of the heap were the Peninsulares. They were Spanish-born and therefore saw themselves as the natural leaders of Spanish America. Usually they were wealthy landowners, military officers, or government officials. Many had no intention of making the New World their permanent home. They were in the Americas to make their mark or build their fortune, then retire back in Spain. The haughty attitudes and entitled place in society caused resentment among all the other classes.

Effects of the Reforms

The Bourbon Reforms were a mixed bag. The mainstream view that the reforms were a direct cause of the later revolutions. The reforms while good intentioned, had the effect of preventing the development of the colonies economically and politically for the benefit of Spain proper. The resentment the reforms engendered, together with the racial resentments against the Peninsulares, led to revolution. This ignores the other social and political events happening in Spanish America and the world as a whole.

By the end of the 18th century, the French Revolution had taken the principles of the Enlightenment and attempted to put them into action. Rhetoric about the freedom of peoples and the rights of man exploded out of France and arrived on the shores of the Spanish Empire. The American Revolution provided inspiration to many in the New World. It also stoked fears in the Spanish colonial authorities that the events of Saratoga and Yorktown could be repeated.

New ideas, wars, revolutions, and economic changes would all combine to make the Spanish colonial situation a volcano ready to explode. To understand fully why, it is important to look at the individual colonies. Next time, as a prelude to the Wars of Independence, we will take a tour of Spanish America and the four Viceroyalties that governed the empire. Each one had their own unique conditions, peoples, cultures, and reasons for discontent.

What do you think of Spanish America? Let us know below.

Now, read about Francisco Solano Lopez, the Paraguayan president who brought his country to military catastrophe in the War of the Triple Alliance here.

The Modern Greek State: 1914–1922 – Greeks Divided

On March 25, 2021, the Modern Greek State celebrated the 200th anniversary of the War of Independence, which ultimately led to its establishment. It is thus an excellent opportunity to reconsider some of the main events of Greek history over these 200 years and how they shaped the character of modern Greece.

This series of articles on the history of modern Greece started when the country was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the War of Independence. There was not much to celebrate one hundred years earlier though, when the first centenary was completed. Indeed, in 1922 Greece suffered probably the worst catastrophe of its modern history. Its origin can be traced back to after the triumph of the Balkan Wars. Thomas Papageorgiou explains.

You can read part 1 on ‘a bad start’ 1827-1862 here, part 2 on ‘bankruptcy and defeat’ 1863-1897 here, and part 3 on ‘glory days’ 1898-1913 here.

King Constantine I of Greece in the early 1920s.

I After the Balkan War was over

Defeat is an orphan, whereas victory is claimed by many fathers. King Constantine and his entourage of officers at the general staff, blamed by the Military League for the defeat at the Greco-Turkish of 1897, (Papageorgiou, History is Now Magazine, 2021) saw their redemption at the triumph of the Balkan Wars. Their approach though was that of complete denial of any credit to the prime minister Venizelos. The latter and his environment, similarly, but more moderately, exalted their contribution against the deficiencies of the pro-royals. (Malesis, 2017)

This was a rather petty quarrel and a bad sign for the future in view of the effort required to integrate the recently acquired territories. Significant minorities (the census of April 1913 shows that in Thessaloniki, for example, out of the 157,000 inhabitants, 39,956 were Greeks, 61,439 Jews, 45,867 Muslims, 6,263 Bulgarians and 4,364 Europeans and other ethnicities) (Papadakis (Papadis), 2017) constituted a potential problem that could be solved neither easily nor quickly. Furthermore, efficient exploitation of the new lands required the build of infrastructure in areas recently devastated by war. The fiscal sufficiency though was slim. By 1913, expenses for military operations amounted to 411,485, 000 drachmas in addition to 280,000,000 of collateral costs. The nation’s public dept had risen by 755,000,000 drachmas. These were dizzying figures considering the state of the Greek finances at the time (GDP before the war is estimated at 735,000,000 drachmas).

The prevailing expectations in Western Europe about the future of the Greek State, after its victorious military campaigns, allowed for the takeout of a 500,000,000 francs loan in February 1914, under favorable terms, to settle the pending depts. Nevertheless, the budget of the same year amassed a deficit of 170,000,000 drachmas, while immediate needs to be covered (not included in the budget) were estimated at over 300,000,000 drachmas. Thus, even before the outbreak of the First World War, issuance of the whole 500,000,000-franc loan proved impossible. The government turned to the National Bank and internal borrowing to supplement the required funds.

In any case, the needs could not be met with continuous borrowing. Payments of salaries and pensions were not being made on time and this gave room to the opposition to criticize the government. Even basic military needs, like the supply of food to the army, were only possible thanks to the advances from the National Bank. (Kostis, 2018)

II The First World War (WWI)

Thus, the outbreak of WWI found Greece facing significant challenges. These suggested that staying neutral was probably the most preferable option. At the beginning of the war, this was also the preference of the Central Powers and the Entente. Both were wooing Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire to join their ranks and taking up their foe during the Balkan Wars could hinder their efforts. King Constantine favored neutrality also for strategic reasons (exposure to a possible naval blockade by the British Empire in case of an alliance with Germany). (Rizas, 2019)

On the other hand, Greece was bound by an alliance with Serbia (Papageorgiou, History is Now Magazine, 2022) which was under attack from Austria-Hungary since July 1914. Furthermore, when the Ottomans and Bulgarians signed treaties of alliance with Germany in September 1914 and September 1915 respectively, (Glenny, 2012) Venizelos, convinced that the British Empire would prevail, saw an opportunity for further territorial gains, if Greece joined the Entente.

The defeat of Germany, though, was by no means a certainty, especially during the early stages of the war. By the end of 1917 Soviet Russia concluded an armistice with the Central Powers followed by the Treaty of Brest – Litovsk with favorable terms for the latter. It was the late entry of the USA into WWI that tilted the scale in favor of the Entente. (Efthimiou)

Thus, steering the country within this complicated framework of international relations by carefully considering Greece’s fiscal and military capacity as well as its political (diplomatic) options required the setting of clear goals and a close collaboration between the prime minister and the head of state and the army. Venizelos and Constantine did exactly the opposite.

At first, Venizelos suggested that the Greek army should undertake the landing at the Dardanelles in February 1915, in return for territorial gains in Asia Minor promised by the Entente. The king seemed fascinated by the idea (considering a possible capture of Constantinople, where his synonymous emperor Constantine died, when the city was taken by Turkey in 1453), but the pro-royal chief of staff Metaxas considered the campaign too risky, leaving the northern border exposed to a Bulgarian attack and resigned his post. Venizelos then proposed the limitation of the Greek participation to only one division raising the king’s doubts about the success of the undertaking. Finally, Constantine refused to give his approval and Venizelos resigned. (Mavrogordatos, 2015)

The prime minister’s Liberal Party, though, won again in the elections of May 1915. The opposition, gathered around the king, refused to interpret the result as a vote for the participation to WWI proposing that it only showed the people’s trust to Venizelos. The king’s refusal to complement led Venizelos to resign again in September and abstain from the new elections of December 1915. (Malesis, 2017)

Meanwhile Bulgaria joined the Central Powers and the attack on Serbia was imminent. To implement the Greco-Serbian alliance treaty Venizelos, in the brief period before his resignation, invited the Entente to send troops to aid the Serbians through the port of Thessaloniki. The revocation of the invitation by the pro-royals and Greece’s protest could not prevent the landing of French troops in October 1915. (Mavrogordatos, 2015)

The presence of the allied forces in Thessaloniki allowed for the formation there of the National Defense Committee by Venizelos’ supporters aiming to confront the Bulgarian threat and align foreign policy with that of the Entente. When the Bulgarians took the Greek fortress of Ruper in May 1916 and later advanced in Eastern Macedonia by August, the government in Athens did not react in the name of a questionable neutrality as foreign armies were now clearly violating national sovereignty. This caused the armed reaction of the National Defense Committee on the 17th of August and when the city of Kavala was lost to the Bulgarians on the 29th, Venizelos, although hesitant at first, decided to lead the revolt. (Malesis, 2017)

Thus, Venizelos was now leading yet another revolt and the country was split in two with one government in Athens in charge of the ‘Old Greece’ and another one in Thessaloniki in charge of the ‘New Greece’ (territories acquired after 1912 except Epirus). (Mavrogordatos, 2015) The military presence of the Entente helped Venizelos to reunite the country though. On November 18, a detachment of 3,000 allied troops landed in Piraeus and advanced to Athens, but they were repelled by forces loyal to Constantine. After that, the royalists turned against Venizelos’ supporters in Athens killing dozens of them, arresting others and committing all kinds of atrocities. On the 26th, the allied fleet implemented a strict naval blockade of the ‘Old Greece’ causing food shortages and other catastrophic consequences for the population. Eventually, the king was forced to leave the country in June 1917 leaving his son Alexander at his place but did not resign. (Malesis, 2017) Venizelos returned to Athens and ‘resurrected’ the parliament elected in May 1915 (thus described as ‘Lazarist’). It was time for his supporters to retaliate against the opposition. Venizelos might have united the country again territorially, but the Greeks were now divided to Venizelists and Anti-Venizelists.

The prime minister’s harsh measures included the exile of this opponents (his former adjutant Metaxas and the leader of the Anti-Venizelists Gounaris, for example, were sent to Corsica) and the cleansing of the public sector, including that of justice and the church, as well as the army from the opposition supporters. Nevertheless, during the last phase of WWI Greece managed to field 10 divisions, that is about 180,000 men, that performed well in the Macedonian front, where they constituted about 1/3 of the total allied forces. To compensate for the late entrance in the war and in order to have the best possible treatment during the peace negotiations in Paris, Venizelos also sent the 1st Army Corps (23,000 men) to fight against the Communists in Ukraine in January 1919. (Malesis, 2017). The campaign was unsuccessful for the allies and they withdrew in April of the same year. The Greek communities in the Crimean suffered the retaliation of the Bolsheviks and many of their members were forced to seek refuge in Greece. Nevertheless, for Greece, the worst was yet to come.

III The Asia Minor Campaign

The story of the Greek expansion to western Asia Minor goes back to 1914. It was offered by the Entente in exchange for Greek concessions to Bulgaria of some of the territorial gains of 1912-1913 so that the latter would join the allies. These amounted to about 5,000 square kilometers including the port city of Kavala affecting 35,000 Greeks living in the area. In return, Greece was claiming a territory of about 125,000 square kilometers with the city of Smyrna at its center and a significant minority of 810,000 Greeks. (Stamatopoulos, 2020) By the end of the war, though, no concessions were necessary as Bulgaria was on the side of the defeated.

Such offers, backed by mostly secret treaties, in order to lure one country or the other to their side, was a standard tool used by both camps during WWI. In April 1915, for example, southwestern Asia Minor was also promised to Italy with the treaty of London. (Stamatopoulos, 2020) The overall situation in the Middle East was further complicated by the antagonism between Great Britain and France as the Sykes – Picot agreement was challenged by the Young Turks of Mustapha Kemal, who was not willing to comply to any agreements of the defeated Ottoman Empire he deemed as harmful for the interests of the Turkish nation. To make things worse, President Wilson, representing the late entrant USA at the peace negotiations of Paris, was not aware of this covert diplomacy and was thus indifferent to any claims over peoples unless those peoples wanted them. (Churchill, 2021)     

Nevertheless, Italy proceeded with the occupation of Antalya in southern Asia Minor. The claims and ambitions of the Italians to lay hands upon the Ottoman Empire resulted to a complete breach between them and President Wilson. This led to a temporary withdrawal of Italy from the peace conference in Paris. When reports reached the conference that the Italians were going to proceed further with the occupation of Smyrna, combined with stories of Turkish maltreatment of the Greek population, it was proposed that the Greeks should be allowed to occupy Smyrna at once for the purpose of protecting their compatriots there. (Churchill, 2021) Although Venizelos was earlier warned by the chief of the British General Staff Sir Henry Wilson that he could not rely on any military or financial aid for the undertaking and that this would result in a long war with Turkey  and a rapid depletion of Greece’s financial and human resources, he decided to take the offer. (Richter, 2020)

At the time of the Greek landing in Smyrna, on May 15, 1919, the Ottoman Empire was under the spell of defeat in WWI. It was surrendering arms and munitions. But as soon as Greece, the enemy of generations, landed its troops, Turkey arose and the leader of the Young Turks, Mustapha Kemal, was furnished with the powers of a Warrior Prince. (Churchill, 2021) Not unfairly. Whereas the Greeks had the sea on their backs and Smyrna was not protected by any natural defensible border, Kemal could exploit the strategic depth of Anatolia, where he could safely withdraw, after every strike. (Mavrogordatos, 2015) Furthermore, Italy was clearly hostile to the Greek presence in Asia Minor and France also opted for collaboration with Kemal in exchange for peace in Syria, now under the French Mandate. (Wikipedia, 2022)   

Thus, Greece was alone when the treaty of Sevres was signed in August 1920. The treaty ceded Thrace to Greece, which was also to possess the Gallipoli Peninsula, most of the Aegean islands, and to administer Smyrna and its hinterland until a plebiscite could be held there. The British prime minister Lloyd George favoured the Greeks, but the imposition of the treaty on the Turks was entirely up to the Greek army, now showing signs of strain under the influence of protracted financial, military and political uncertainties. (Churchill, 2021)

The situation was difficult, and Sir Henry Wilson again describes Venizelos as hopeless and desperate during this period. ‘The old boy is done’, he remarked. (Llewellyn Smith, 1999) In the internal front the national schism continued to fuel despicable acts of hate. Two days after the signing of the Treaty of Sevres, Venizelos himself narrowly escaped an attempt against his life by two royalist soldiers in a Paris railway station on his way home. His decision to call general elections in November 1920 allowing also for the return and participation of the exiled opposition is still a point of controversy. Venizelos’ opponents claim that he was looking for a way to abdicate his responsibility for the outcome of the Asia Minor Campaign. If this was the case, he was successful, because he lost and now it was the royalists that had to find a solution.

Winston Churchill, who was later to experience himself a surprising electoral defeat after the triumph of WWII (Gilbert, 1991), gives a different account though. On October 2, 1920, Prince Alexander (at this point king of Greece) was bitten by a monkey during a walk in the royal garden. The wound festered and after three weeks Alexander died. It was decided to offer the throne to Prince Paul of Greece. The latter was living with his exiled father in Switzerland and, as Churchill puts it, was inspired to reply that he could only accept after the Greek people had at an election definitely decided against his father. This forced a General Election.

Venizelos, with the Treaty of Sevres that expanded the triumph of the Balkan Wars, felt confident. He was willing that the issue should be put crudely to the electorate: Were they for the restoration of Constantine or not? But he did not make sufficient allowances for the strain to which Greece had been put; for the resentments which the allied blockade to make Greece enter WWI had planted; for the many discontents which arise under prolonged war conditions; for the oppressive conduct of many of his agents, when during his continuous absence for the peace negotiations the Greek people lacked his personal inspiration and felt the heavy hand of his subordinates; for the complete absorption of his opponents to party politics and for their intense desire for office and revenge. Eventually, he lost. (Churchill, 2021)

The only sane policy arising from Venizelos’ defeat would have been to reduce promptly and ruthlessly the Greek commitments in Asia Minor, negotiating also for the safety and well-being of the Greek minority there. The pro-royal officer Ioannis Metaxas made suggestions along these lines. (Stamatopoulos, 2020) After all, the return of Constantine further dissolved all Allied loyalties to Greece as the king was a bugbear for them second only to the Kaiser himself. Nevertheless, the new regime, under prime minister Gounaris, was determined to show Greece how little Venizelos had had to do with its successes that far. They would strike Mustapha Kemal at the heart of his dominion. They would have the army march to Ankara. (Churchill, 2021)

What about the army then? Winston Churchill again gives a vivid description of the Greek army during the campaign to Ankara (which partly applies for the Greek people as well). He writes: ‘Imagine an army of two hundred thousand men, the product of a small state mobilized or at war for ten years, stranded in the centre of Asia Minor with a divided nation behind them; with party dissensions in every rank; far from home, and bereft of effectual political guidance; conscious that they were abandoned by the great Powers of Europe and by the United States; with scant food and decaying equipment; without tea, without sugar, without cigarettes, and without hope or even a plan of despair; while before them and around them and behind them preyed and prowled a sturdy, relentless and even more confident foe’. And he continues ‘over the Greek Army in Asia Minor there stole an ever-growing sense of isolation; of lines of communication in jeopardy, of a crumbling base, of a divided homeland, and of an indifferent world’. (Churchill, 2021) Nevertheless, the Greek army remained in martial posture for upwards of three years in Asia Minor. But, after the triumphs of the Balkan Wars and WWI, eventually it was defeated. On September 16, 1922 the last Greek Soldiers left Asia Minor. The Hellenism of Asia Minor followed them to escape the Young Turks’ atrocities.

IV Conclusions

Carl von Clausewitz in his classic On War defines the ‘Culminating Point of the Attack’ as that at which the forces remaining are just sufficient to maintain a defensive, and to wait for peace. Beyond that point the scale turns, there is a reaction; the violence of such a reaction is commonly much greater than the force of the blow. Everything then depends on discovering the culminating point by the fine tact of judgment. (Clausewitz, 1997) His fellow Prussian Otto von Bismarck did exactly that, when, after fighting against the Danes, then the Austrians and finally the French to achieve the unification of Germany in 1871, he stayed put in spite of expectations to storm the rest of Europe. (Steinberg, 2011) A more recent example is Menahem Begin, who, instead of provoking a civil war during Israel’s War for Independence, decided to take the blows of David Ben-Gurion without responding and remained in political exile for thirty years until he became prime minister in the end of the 1970s. (Gordis, 2016)

Obviously, the Greeks did not posses such qualities. As we have seen, civil wars were common during their War of Independence (and more came after that), and now political party quarrels that led to the national schism brought Greece beyond its culminating point of attack, deep in Asia Minor, after ten years of mobilization and war starting in 1912 with the Balkan Wars.

Who was responsible in the present case? Churchill criticized the United States, Britain and France for requesting the presence of the Greek Army in Anatolia, where it had been the foundation of allied policy against Turkey for three years only to fall victim to inter-Allied intrigues at the end. The way for the dissolution of all Allied loyalties to Greece was paved by the Greek people’s choice, at the moment of their greatest hopes and fears to deprive themselves of Venizelos, the commanding personality who had created the situation Greece found itself into and who alone might have carried it to success. (Churchill, 2021)

Several Greek commentators take the same stance (Mavrogordatos, 2015) although there are cases of harsh criticism against Venizelos and his policies and more favourable for the king (Kakouri, 2017). Others blame both Venizelos for his disregard of hard facts (e.g., Greek minority of only 20% of the total population in the disputed area, lack of natural defences etc.) that led to the disaster and the king for not opposing the advance to Ankara - even though he was convinced that the whole undertaking of the Asia Minor campaign would be fatal for Greece. (Stamatopoulos, 2020)

Indeed, in the period discussed here both Venizelos and the king (personally and as head of the anti-venizelists) offered bad service to their country. We have seen in previous parts of this short history of modern Greece that division, violence and civil war characterized its early years. Parliamentarism helped relax the tensions, but now the two rivals were resorting to the old methods again. Not only did they allow/cultivate violence for the (also physical) extermination of the opposition, not only did they allow/pursue foreign intervention for the support of their cause, but they did it with a ‘messianic’ attitude of infallibility that resulted in a complete disregard for the consequences on Greece and its people. This legacy, as we will see, tormented Greece in the following years. In contrast, in the short period of two years (1912-13) that Venizelos and Constantine managed to work together Greece triumphed.      

What do you think of the period 1914-22 in the Modern Greek State? Let us know below.

References

Churchill, W. S. (2021). The world crisis, Volume IV, The aftermath 1918-1928. London : Bloomsbury.

Clausewitz, C. (1997). On War. Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited.

Efthimiou, M. (n.d.). Global History IV: The Man Against Himself - Part B. Center of Open Online Courses (www.mathesis.cup.gr). Crete University Press, Heraklion (in Greek).

Gilbert, M. (1991). Churchill, A life. London: Heinemann.

Glenny, M. (2012). The Balkans 1804-2012, Nationalism, War and the Great Powers. New York: Penguin Books.

Gordis, D. (2016). Israel, A concise history of a nation reborn. New York: Collins Publishers.

Kakouri, A. (2017). The two beta. Athens: Kapon.

Kostis, K. (2018). History’s Spoiled Children, The Formation of the Modern Greek State. London: Hurst & Company.

Llewellyn Smith, M. (1999). Ionian vision, Greece in Asia Minor 1919 - 1922. Michigan: The Univeristy of Michigan Press.

Malesis, D. (2017). Defeat - Triumph - Catastrophe, The army in the Greek State from 1898 to 1922. Athens: EPICENTER (in Greek).

Mavrogordatos, G. (2015). 1915 The National Schism. Athens: Patakis (in Greek).

Papadakis (Papadis), N. E. (2017). Eleftherios Venizelos. Chania - Athens: National Research Foundation ''Eleftherios Venizelos'' - Estia Bookstore (in Greek).

Papageorgiou, T. P. (2021, September 5). History is Now Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2021/9/5/the-modern-greek-state-18631897-bankruptcy-amp-defeat#.YVH7FX1RVPY

Papageorgiou, T. P. (2022, January 20). History is Now Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2022/1/20/the-modern-greek-state-18981913-glory-days#.YhPK6JaxW3A

Richter, H. A. (2020). The Greco-Turkish war 1919 - 1922, From the dream of the ''Great Idea'' to the Asia Minor disaster. Athens: Govostis Publications (in Greek, also available in English by Harrassowitz Pub. - 2016).

Rizas, S. (2019). Venizelism and antivezinelism at the beginning of the national schism 1915-1922 . Athens: Psichogios publications S.A. (in Greek).

Stamatopoulos, K. M. (2020). 1922 How we got to the catastrophe. Athens: Kapon Editions (in Greek).

Steinberg, J. (2011). Bismarck, A life. New York: Oxford University Press.

Wikipedia. (2022). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

Wikipedia. (2022). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Syria_and_Lebanon

Ancient Civilizations: Continuity Between the Indus & Indo-Gangetic Civilizations

The Indus (Harappan) civilization flourished in the 3rd millennium BCE, while the Indo-Gangetic (Vedic) civilization prospered in 800 BCE. Archaeologists highlight a gap of a few centuries to one millennium between the former’s collapse and the latter’s rise. In this article, Apeksha Srivastava highlights some differences and several more potential points of contact between the Indus and Indo-Gangetic civilizations.

Granary and Great Hall on Mound F in Harappa. Source: Muhammad Bin Naveed, available here.

Did this gap between the two civilisations contribute to a discontinuity between them?

Indeed, there seem to be some differences between them. For instance, iron became more important in the Vedic civilization, while the Harappan society was of the bronze age. Some practices that seemed absent in the Indus civilization developed in the Indo-Gangetic civilization. These include warfare, better organization of language, readable scripts, the emergence of religions and great literature, development of a caste system (not too rigid in the beginning), more widespread bureaucracy and administration, the emergence of new art forms, thoughts and belief systems, and rulers gaining more prominence. However, the visibility of this discontinuity to us might also be due to a possible lack of evidence.

Not So Different

The Indus civilization does not seem to be completely isolated from the Indo-Gangetic civilization, as believed by people until about three decades ago. There seem to be several crucial contact points between the Harappan and Vedic cultures. According to renowned scholar Jim Shaffer, “At present, the archaeological record indicates no cultural discontinuities separating PGW [Painted Grey Ware culture; corresponds to the middle and late Vedic period] from the indigenous protohistoric [Harappan] culture.” Bioanthropologists such as Pratap C. Dutta, S.R. Walimbe, and B.E. Hemphill have compared Indus Age skeletons with those from different epochs and demonstrated “a genetic continuum between the Harappans and the present‐day people of the region.”

The following paragraphs underline some possible contacts between the Harappan and Indo-Gangetic civilizations.

The Continuity in Architecture

The Indus civilization is renowned for its town planning, civic administration, water management, and sanitation. Several towns of the Gangetic civilization appear to share these characteristics, such as the general orientation, internal grid plan, enclosing fortifications as an authority symbol, garbage bins lining the main streets, and pillared halls, to name a few. The typical Harappan house plan with a central courtyard having rooms on its sides has survived in rural parts of northwest India to the present day. Apsidal (semi-circular) temples found at several Vedic civilization sites find their predecessor from the Indus civilization, most probably used for fire rituals.

Archaeologists also found the Harappan circular wells with trapezoid bricks in the Vedic period. This shape prevents inward collapse in case of strong subsoil pressure. Floors laid by mixing terracotta with charcoal at Kalibangan (Rajasthan) of the Indus civilization was a composition used in nearby villages even after 4,500 years.

Alikeness in Sacred Proportions

Harappan town planning utilized auspicious proportions. These ratios seem to be the same as in classical Hindu architecture literature. For instance, the ratio of 5:4 in Dholavira’s outer fortifications also applies to the overall dimensions of the port-town of Lothal (near Ahmedabad), Harappa’s granary (stored surplus food grains), a large house in Mohenjo-Daro’s lower city, a significant Vedic altar, and the king’s palace, Ashoka’s columns and Delhi’s Iron Pillar.

Similarity in Ornaments & Auspiciousness

Bangles, anklets, nose-pins, and ear studs documented at several Indus civilization sites, remain an integral part of ornaments worn by the Indian women of today. The married Hindu women applying vermilion at the parting of their hair seem to have Harappan origins (figurines found at Nausharo). However, not enough evidence exists to prove that it had the same auspiciousness as the later period. The traditional techniques of working with metals like gold and bronze, making bangles, and carving ivory in today’s India also derive their roots from the Harappan times.

Parallelism in the ‘Religion’ Aspect

The swastika is a classical Indian symbol with possible Indus civilization origins. However, there is not enough evidence of whether Harappans considered it with the same sacredness as the Gangetic civilization. There are many similarities between the animal motifs depicted on the Indus seals and those on early historical era silver punch-marked coins.

The linga and the trishula (trident), worship of a mother-goddess, animal sacrifice, and the sacred peepal tree (sacred fig) seem to be present in both cultures. Both civilizations also seem to have similarities in their gods having multiple faces, ornamental arches, and yogic postures. Some of their figurines seem to join their hands in a similar fashion, signifying “namaste.”

Other Traces of Equivalency

The traditional bronze casters still use the lost wax method used for making the famous ‘Dancing Girl’ bronze figurine in the Harappan period. Ox-carts have mostly survived in shape and size, with very few changes. Some plowing techniques have also continued till the present times. We still use objects like the frying pans and cooking pots found in Indus cities. Children of the Harappan, Vedic, and even the present times play with rattles, whistles, and spinning tops.

Such instances highlight that although there were changes in people’s lifestyles with time, the urban collapse of the Indus civilization did not cause a complete discontinuity. The “dark age” pictured previously to exist in the 2nd millennium BCE between the retreating Indus civilization and the arising Gangetic civilization has filled up such that there seems to be more continuity between the two. It is highly possible that some late Harappans were responsible directly or indirectly for the beginning of the Indo-Gangetic civilization.

“Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually.” - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States.

What do you think of the links between the Indus & Indo-Gangetic civilizations?

Now read Apeksha’s article on feminine national personifications here.

References

1. Danino, M. The Harappan legacy. (April 2012). BBC Knowledge, 56-57.

2. Schug, G. R., & Walimbe, S. R. (2016). A companion to South Asia in the past. John Wiley & Sons.

3. https://www.britannica.com/place/India/Developments-in-the-Ganges-basin

4. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/how-climate-change-forced-migration-of-indus-valley-people-towards-ganga-basin-59423

Apeksha Srivastava completed her Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. She is currently an aspiring writer and a Ph.D. candidate at this institute. This article is based on an assignment she submitted for the course, Perspectives on Indian Civilization.

Perils, Panics and Pandemics: The Liverpool City Council investigation of Chinese Communities in 1906-07

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020, something troubling started happening to Britain’s Chinese community. Some people started blaming people of East Asian appearance of spreading the virus. In that context, Doctor Robert Brown looks at a panic in 1906-07, involving ugly, unsubstantiated allegations against the British Chinese community in Liverpool.

A Chinese woman and child in the 1920s UK. Source: Harry B. Parkinson, available here.

In February 2020, the shriller voices in Britain amongst a suspicious and poorly informed public began blaming any Chinese Britons or people of East Asian appearance they could find for the spread of the virus.(1)  The community became a focal point for a moral panic that pathologized them as a biological threat to the body politic.  Jenny Wong, Director of the Manchester Chinese Centre recounted to the Manchester Evening News the numerous complaints she received about Chinese children excluded from interacting with other children because parents saw them as ‘virus carriers’.

Suspicious stereotyping towards Chinese communities in the UK and throughout the English speaking world is nothing new, although the tropes driving these stereotypes may mutate.   Around 113 years prior to the pandemic another Manchester based newspaper, the Sunday Chronicle, on December 2, 1906 had broken a hysterical scare story about the activities and vices of Chinese migrants in England’s North West, clustered around Liverpool. According to reports, these Chinese had been spotted dealing drugs and dragging young white girls into prostitution. The article examines the moral panic this generated.  Local outrage against the Chinese was whipped up to the point where Liverpool City Council felt compelled to intervene by conducting a detailed investigation of Chinese activities in Liverpool.  Their findings paint a fascinating picture of official confusion and paranoia about the perceived degenerative physical and moral impact of interracial contact between European and Chinese bodies.

Eugenics, Elections and the Chinese Question in Edwardian Britain

By 1906, suspicions toward Chinese immigration in Britain and the ‘White men’s countries’ of the empire were at an all time high.  Trade Unions and politicians in Australia and South Africa had already laid the groundwork for controversies in Britain.  In attempts to protect their ‘white’ workers from labor competition, they successfully pushed the narrative that Chinese immigrants were fundamentally not compatible with European communities.  In 1905 this came to a head in Transvaal colony, South Africa, where anger about the British government’s importation of Chinese mine workers drove the progressive criminalization of Chinese activities. The feedback from this hit Britain hard in the 1906 General Election. The Liberal Party won a thumping landslide against the incumbent Conservative and Liberal Unionists, partly by claiming the Tories had given ‘South Africa for the Chinese’, and partly by promising to stop the importation of Chinese labor in Britain from escalating.(2)

This political unrest unfolded against an anxious hum of background noise in the popular science and the eugenics movements regarding a perceived biological ‘degeneration’ of the British population. The Departmental Committee on Physical Degeneration (1904) noted that a shocking proportion of working class recruits for the Second South African war had to be rejected as physically unfit to serve.(3)  According to some eugenicists, such as the Liverpudlian physician Robert Reid Rentoul, the physical decline of Britain’s population was caused by interracial marriage, and could be solved by segregating or excluding non-whites from the country. In Race Culture; or, Race Suicide? (1906), Rentoul claimed that, ‘terrible monstrosities’ were ‘produced by inter-marriage of…the white man with the Chinese’ and that naturalisation of foreigners was ridiculous since Africans were dangerous ‘perverts’ and ‘nymphomaniacs’.  While his arguments against racial equality probably did not reach the ears or breakfast tables of the working classes of the North West, his intellectualisation of anti-Chinese prejudice certainly reflected anxious stereotypes about immigrants expressed on street level.(4)

Sensationalist publications about Chinese communities in Britain had certainly not helped.  If anything, articles such as Hermann Scheffauer’s The Chinese in England (1911), for Harmsworth’s London Magazine had helped flesh out constructions of Britain’s Chinatowns as opaque dens of evil and subversion connected in a global web with larger Chinese enclaves in Melbourne and San Francisco. Even worse, The Yellow Danger (1898) by West Indian author Matthew Phipps Shiel was a highly popular and xenophobic ‘yellow peril’ science fiction novel depicting a Chinese invasion of Europe led by the ‘yellow Napoleon’ Dr. Yen How. Littered with ‘germ’ metaphors equating hordes of Chinese shock troops with an infectious plague, the British ironically beat back the invasion by using biological warfare. Chinese prisoners injected with a deadly disease were used to infect and cripple their own armies. These anti-immigrant, ‘germ-phobic’ tropes reflected the nastier anxieties toward the Chinese in Edwardian Britain.

Liverpool City Council’s Investigation

In response to one such article ‘Chinese vice in England’ in the Sunday Chronicle, a special meeting of Liverpool City Council was called on December 12, 1906.(5)  The ‘sensational character’ of the accusations against Chinese workers in Liverpool had stirred up public outrage that could only be assuaged by the ‘closest investigation’.(6)  The Chronicle claimed Chinese owners of laundries and lodging houses were engaged in the organized seduction and corruption of teenage white girls. This stirred a local belief that a sinister and inscrutable ‘oriental’ menace was in their midst, and the City Council clearly took this seriously enough to form a commission comprised of clergymen, local newspaper editors and two doctors to gather evidence and write a report.(7)  Published on July 26, 1907, the report on ‘Chinese Settlements in Liverpool’ included a section on the ‘morality of the Chinese’.  It began by refuting a local rumor that the Chinese on Liverpool’s Pitt Street ‘were in the habit of giving sweets impregnated with opium to children’.

Far greater concern was expressed in the investigation of Chinese ‘relations with white women’.  On the one hand, it was noted that several white British women had married Chinese men, and that, ‘the women themselves stated that they were happy and contented and extremely well treated’.(8) On a darker note however, was the reportedly widespread corruption of English girls from ‘respectable’ backgrounds who became ‘acquainted’ with Chinese men, mercilessly groomed to ‘drift into what can hardly be described as otherwise than prostitution’.(9)  In three cases it was claimed, ‘the girls taken advantage of were under 16 years of age at the time’.  Although there was no record of complaints being made, and insufficient evidence for such cases to be brought to trial, the commission was adamant that the, ‘evidence of seduction of girls by Chinamen is conclusive…the Chinese appear to much prefer having intercourse with young girls, more especially those of undue precocity’.(10)  This exposed a prominent anxiety of Edwardian society that young white women in their associations with ‘men of colour’ were the ‘unwitting revolutionaries’ in a biological sense, for the overthrow of Britain’s white ‘race culture’.(11)

Recommendations of the Report

The report recommended that the Liverpool Watch Committee be warned of the ‘Chinese danger’ so that law enforcement could be vigilant in future.  The report was similarly alarmed about the possibility of ‘miscegenation’, the increase in ‘mixed race’ children arising from the Chinese control of brothels. However no formal evidence of Chinese men running brothels in Liverpool could be substantiated despite the allegations that all laundries acted as fronts for the sex trade.(12) In a letter to the undersecretary of state at the Home Office on December 8, 1906 entitled ‘Chinamen in Liverpool’, the Liverpool Head Constable had tasked his officers with taking a census of the Chinese residing in Liverpool who ‘seemed to be in regular employment’.  The figures listed, ‘15 Englishwomen married to Chinamen, 4 English women cohabiting with Chinamen, and 2 English women employed in Chinese laundries’. A ‘half-caste’ (mixed heritage) Chinese-English woman also ran a brothel with her Chinese husband, and was arrested for this in July 1904.  In the Head Constable’s opinion there was:

At present a great outcry on the subject, mostly due to a lying article in the Manchester Sunday Chronicle, but there is no doubt a strong feeling of objection to the idea of the ‘half-caste’ population which is resulting from the marriage of the Englishwoman to the Chinaman, but I cannot help thinking that what is really at the bottom of most of it is the competition of the Chinese with the laundries and boarding house keepers.(13)

As in the Transvaal, in Liverpool there was an official awareness that commercial interests were partly at play in pushing racialized anti-Chinese talking points and feeding the insecurities of the working classes to stifle business competition. This foreshadowed a far bigger panic in the 1919 race riots against Chinese and other non-white shipping workers in Britain.

Conclusion

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was talk of a second Cold War between China and the West. We will see this narrative grow and mutate in global media discourse over the coming years.  However the debacles of 1906-7 and 2020 also teach us that international anxieties can have more localized consequences. They potentially catalyse regional panics about Chinese communities and Chinese influence that can lead to ugly rumours and uglier results.  It also tells us that germ-phobia, stereotypes surrounding ethnic groups and anxieties about immigration have become entangled in Britain to create a toxic atmosphere in which false information and hatred flourishes. In the modern world citizens have frequently treated the nation-state like a body vulnerable to infection. Developing scientific solutions and vaccines to cope with the covid pandemic has been a painful learning curve, and so too will de-toxifying and disentangling the language linking borders, pathogens, and the contemporary Chinese question.

What do you think of the events surrounding the panic and subsequent report in 1906-07 in Liverpool?

References

1 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/09/chinese-in-uk-report-shocking-levels-of-racism-after-coronavirus-outbreak

2 See Appendix I.

3 Geoffrey Russell Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: a Study in British Politics and Political Thought 1899–1914 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), Geoffrey Russell Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain 1900–14 (Leyden: Noordoff InternationalPublishing, 1976).

4 Robert Reid Rentoul, Race Culture; or, Race Suicide? : (a plea for the unborn), (London, Walter Scott, 1906), p.3-5.

5 Sunday Chronicle, 2nd December 1906, ‘Chinese vice in England’.

6 City of Liverpool, Report of the Commission appointed by the City Council to enquire into Chinese Settlements in Liverpool, 26 June, 1907, HO 139147/15

7 Sascha Auerbach, Race, law, and “The Chinese Puzzle” in Imperial Britain, (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009), p.50

8 City of Liverpool, Report of the Commission appointed by the City Council to enquire into Chinese Settlements in Liverpool, 26 June, 1907, HO 139147/15

9 Ibid, p.7

10 Ibid, p.6

11 Henry Reynolds, Nowhere People, (Penguin, 2005), P.35

12 City of Liverpool, Report of the Commission appointed by the City Council to enquire into Chinese Settlements in Liverpool, 26 June, 1907, HO 139147/15, p.7

13 HO 45/11843, Part 2

The Mormon Battalion’s Movement to Western America - Part 3: Mexican-American War

The story of the Mormon Battalion remains an enduring legend. Recruited by the U.S. government from among those heading to Utah to gather with Brigham Young, this group of some 500 men plus women and children undertook a trek across the American Southwest during the Mexican-American War. The battalion is usually consigned to a footnote in the story, but it is a story which looms large in the settlement of California. In that context, the legend of the battalion and how it has found a truly revered place in the history of the Mormon faithful is significant. In part 3, Marvin McCrary looks at how the battalion fought in the war and how it reached San Diego.

You can read part 1 on the origins of the Mormon Battalion here, and part 2 on the battalion’s movement across the western US here.

Philip St. George Cooke.

When John Charles Frémont was tasked with leading expeditions to the west in 1842, his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, became intensely interested in the details of his travels. Jessie became his recorder, making notes as he described his experiences. Eventually, she wrote and edited the reports into best-selling stories. The stories captured the national imagination as Frémont’s dashing heroism was met with great enthusiasm. The account of the Great Basin was so vivid, that it has been alleged that Brigham Young was convinced that he had found the land long-envisioned by the Saints after reading about it.

The Saints suffered from disease, hunger, and cold while at Winter Quarters in the waning months of 1846, but the unfriendly circumstances merely served to strengthen their resolve. Throughout the spring, the Saints conferred with traders, mountain men, and travelers who were familiar with the Far West. It was decided that a forward expedition would be organized to go to the Great Basin and determine the best place in which to settle. Brigham Young deliberated over the matter, and received inspiration in regards to how the Saints should organize themselves for the journey. The company would be divided into small groups, each with an assigned leader, with special attention given to the poor, the widowed, and to those families which were bereft of a father. Famous frontiersmen such as Jim Bridger and “Black” Moses Harris, who were among those whom church leaders had consulted, noted that the trials the Saints had previously faced would prepare them for greater difficulties which lay ahead.

Exhaustion

In September of 1846, the men of the battalion were facing exhaustion on the long march to Santa Fe. For 3 days, the battalion marched in the unrelenting heat without any water at all, and when water was available, it was often brackish and unsanitary. Complicating the situation were the frequent threats and abuse inflicted upon them by Lieutenant Smith and Dr. Sanderson. The Santa Fe Trail was proving to be perilous, filled with wolves, hostile natives, and the occasional downpour. General Stephen Watts Kearney had met with no resistance from the Mexican forces on his march to Santa Fe, and he ultimately occupied it on August 18, 1846. Kearney had sent word to the Mormon Battalion, asking them to take a faster, more direct route, although it would prove to be more difficult. Despite the  harsh and unyielding conditions in which they found themselves, the men continued their march towards Santa Fe. Eventually, the circumstances would prove too much for some, and Smith ordered a group of fifteen sick families he believed could not make the trek to remain at Pueblo in Colorado. There was already a group of Mormons at Pueblo who had chosen to settle there, hoping to wait out the winter under the leadership of John Brown, who had led a group from the South to the Mountain West. Having to leave family behind was hard on those who would have to endure separation, Smith informed the men that Kearney had ordered that the battalion would be discharged unless they reached Santa Fe in a timely manner.

On October 9th, the weary soldiers were met with salutations of cannon and gunfire as they entered the town. Smith ordered that those who were too feeble would enter the town three days later. The tribute had been organized by General Alexander Doniphan who had assisted the Mormons at a crucial time when they were suffering persecutions eight years earlier in Missouri. The battalion was probably relieved when Lieutenant Smith and Dr. Sanderson departed their company at Santa Fe. It would be Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, another graduate of the military academy,  who would become their new commander. Unfortunately, Cooke was not too much of a departure from Smith, as he was also disappointed at having to lead a group of inexperienced volunteers. In one of his surviving journal entries, Cooke observes that there were too many families, women, and the number of supplies available was meager. General Kearney had already departed the town for California before the arrival of the battalion, with Cooke being given orders by the general to forge a wagon trail from Santa Fe to California. The rigorous pace wore heavily on battalion members, and in November another group of weak and tired soldiers turned back for Pueblo. While Cooke grew increasingly doubtful about the battalion’s capabilities, historian Dwight L. Clarke writes that it was felt that the Mormons still had a hidden, greater potential that had yet to be seen.

After his departure from Santa Fe, half of Kearney's army fought their way through the Mexican province of Chihuahua, and marched three thousand miles to link up with Zachary Taylor's army at Monterrey. Taylor was already beginning to enjoy rising popularity, and had earned his nickname of “Old Rough and Ready” for his significant victories over larger forces. On September 16, 1846, at the Battle of Monterrey, Taylor overcame a substantial Mexican force and declared an armistice, much to President James K. Polk’s consternation. Polk, a Democrat, was growing increasingly anxious about Taylor’s popularity amongst the Whigs. Taylor would go to engage General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's fifteen-thousand-man army at Buena Vista on February 22, 1847. When the smoke finally cleared, Taylor's five thousand men had dealt Santa Anna's army a crushing blow. When news of Taylor's victory reached the capital, his popularity soared even higher, and the Whigs began to publicly discuss his name as a possible candidate for the presidency.

Great Basin

In the meantime, things did not get easier for the pioneer company which had decided to set out for the Great Basin. The passes had become increasingly treacherous, and Brigham Young became sick with mountain fever. When the group of long-suffering pioneers arrived at the Salt Lake River Valley in July of 1847, Young asked to have his carriage turned so he could see the whole of the valley. Young rose from his sickbed and deemed that they were in the right place, according to Wilford Woodruff, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Upon Brigham Young’s return to Winter Quarters in the fall of 1847 from his expedition to the Great Basin, he found the remaining Saints had built a thriving settlement. However, Young anticipated the need to abandon it, as the lease on the tribal land would expire in a few months. The Saints then began moving east across the river, and back into Iowa, eventually naming their new headquarters Kanesville in honor of Thomas L. Kane. The emigration of the Saints to the Utah Territory would continue over the course of the next several years.

When the battalion finally arrived at San Diego on 24 January, 1847, the men recorded their joy at sighting the Pacific Ocean, knowing their travail would finally be at an end. The original plan had been for the Battalion to follow Kearney’s route as closely as possible, however Kearney later advised Cooke that it would behoove them to make their way along a southern route. The battalion had covered nearly 2,000 miles, making the march one of the longest in United States military history. The men had walked so much their shoes were worn out.  They had been forced to resort to burlap, pieces of wagon covers, and animal hides to wrap around their feet for protection from the rocks and cold.  The sun was hot in the day and cold at night through the desert, difficult for people with little to no covering. It was described that at times, the ground was so soft and deep that when they lay down to sleep, half of their bodies sank into the cold mud.

Despite having been tasked with the capture the city of Tucson, and being asked to protect Pauma natives in Temecula, the battalion did not see conflict, exactly as Bringham Young had said. The worst incident came when a herd of wild bulls charged the soldiers while they stopped for water at the San Pedro River in the Rio Grande Valley. Aside from a few injuries and loss of some mules, the soldiers walked away intact.

California

The war in California having effectively ended by the time of their arrival, the battalion soldiers were assigned to garrison duty in San Diego, San Luis Rey, and Los Angeles. The town residents were initially against the idea because of the false information which they had heard about them. The men of the battalion built houses and dug wells, using the knowledge about irrigation they had acquired. Previously, the people had to travel a long way for water from a well only 1 foot in depth. The new wells were 30 feet deep and were lined with bricks to keep them in place. When the time came for the Battalion to move on, the town people went to the Army and asked for more "Mormonitos" to come help them.  Most of the soldiers would reach Utah Territory–where Brigham Young and the main body of the Saints had settled–in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Historian Leonard L. Richards estimates that roughly 80 stayed and worked at Sutter’s Mill.  Sutter found the Mormons to be amongst the best laborers, although more expensive than the natives whom he had rented from Maidu tribal leaders. In 1848, gold was discovered by Sutter’s foreman, John W. Marshall. Henry Bigler, a veteran of the battalion, was at Sutter’s Mill at the time and recorded the date of the gold discovery in his journal. There had been a great deal of exaggeration surrounding gold discovery previously, and thus the excitement was met with an understandable degree of skepticism, even amongst the workers themselves. The Mormons tested the minerals, even biting it to check if it was real.  Word reached outgoing President Polk who endorsed the discovery, and thus the Gold Rush would begin in earnest.

The Mexican-American War served as a proving ground for issues which would later come to the fore during the Civil War. Slavery remained an enduring specter which would prove difficult to exorcise, especially as those on both sides of the debate become further entrenched in their views. Zachary Taylor would win the election in 1848, becoming the second of two Whigs (the first being William Henry Harrison) to become president. Unfortunately, just like his predecessor, Taylor died during his term. Brigham Young would become the second President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1847, and served until 1877. It would be under his steady leadership that the Mormons are to be credited as one of the single most important agencies in the settlement of the American West. The march of the Mormon Battalion serves as a vital page to the historical expansion of the United States. They opened roads of great value to the nation, and made influential friends for the Saints. Their determined self-sacrifice demonstrated an unsurpassed loyalty to their country, their people, and their faith.

Let us know what you think of Mormon Battalion below.

Now read about when Mormon founder Joseph Smith met the president here.

Author’s Note: I would like to dedicate this article series to Sterling and Judy Hill, dear friends who continue to embody the pioneer spirit. My sources have been  journal entries written by those who traveled with the battalion, but I am also thankful to friends who graciously shared their family histories with me. The utilization of secondary sources was meant to provide a greater context to the events surrounding the march of the battalion. It should be stated that this was not meant to be an exhaustive study of the Mormon Battalion, and it is more than conventionally necessary to apologize for any shortcomings. It is hoped, however, that this will serve as inspiration for future study.

Sources

Arrington, Leonard J. Brigham Young: American Moses. New York: Knopf, 1985.

Clarke, Dwight L. Stephen Watts Kearny: Soldier of the West. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Cowan, Richard, and William E. Homer. California Saints. Utah: Bookcraft Publishing, 1996.

Richards, Leonard L. The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Vintage, 2008.

Ricketts, Norma Baldwin. The Mormon Battalion. Utah: Utah State University, 1996.

American Tanks and Tank Destroyers of World War II: A Flawed Necessity?

American tanks and tank destroyers played an important role in the later years of World War 2. Here, Daniel Boustead looks at the most important of these tanks and the role they played in some key battles.

A Sherman tank during the Allied Invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

American Tanks and Tank Destroyers in World War II are very well known to the public and historians. The inferiority of these weapons was a direct result of government and U.S Army policies and doctrine. Extensive research has been done about the technical mediocrity of these weapons. The logistics and transportation of these weapons played a role in their technological inferiority. Very little could be done to improve the American Tank and Tank Destroyer’s marginal effectiveness. In contrast, Airpower and Artillery were the most effective Anti-Tank weapons. 

At the end of World War I the U.S Military was trying to re arrange the peace time army.  The Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery branches of the U.S. Army viewed the Tank and the infant American Tank Corps as a threat and an encroachment to their turf and authority!. In 1919 General John J. Pershing (said in testimony before Congress) that the American Tank Corps “should not be a large organization”(1). General John J. Pershing also said (during his 1919 testimony) “it should be placed under the Chief of the Infantry as an adjunct to that arm”. Pershing’s testimony resulted in a significant event. In 1920, the U.S Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1920, which eliminated the infant Tank Corps. It also placed the Tank Corps under the Chief of Infantry as adjunct to that arm of the U.S. Army. This act seemingly destroyed any hopes for a future independent armored force. In October, 1931, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur disbanded the “Mechanized Force”. He also ordered the Infantry and Cavalry branches to separately devise their own distinctive tanks and rules for their use(2). The resulting “Infantry tanks” would be used to accompany men on foot at a slow pace. In contrast, the light and under-gunned “Cavalry tanks” conducted reconnaissance and exploited enemy weakness. Mildred Gille said about General MacArthur’s decision, “When MacArthur saw fit to split the development of mechanization, the association of the two branches automatically resolved into an internecine competition for money, men and equipment”. The rivalry stifled any technological development in tanks. 3rd Armored Division member, Belton Cooper, recollected “As a young ordnance ROTC cadet in August, 1939, I was shocked to find that our total tank research and development budget for that year was only $85,000. How could the greatest industrial nation on earth devote such a pittance to the development of a major weapons system, particularly when World War II was to start in two weeks?”(3).

World War II

The M4 Sherman Tank was heavily influenced by the polices in 1942 from the Army Ground Forces Development Division (4) The Army Ground Forces Developmental Division had two primary criteria for a new weapon: “battle-need” and “battle-worthiness”. 

“Battle-need” meant that the new equipment had to be essential, not merely desirable. This policy was articulated by. Lt. General Leslie McNair. McNair was insistent that the Army should not be burdened with too many weapon types since the U.S. Army would be fighting thousands of miles from the continental United States and could not afford to complicate logistics. As a result, the U.S Army was unwilling to adopt a specialized tank with heavier armor for the infantry support role.

“Battle-worthiness” meant that the design had to be capable of performing its intended function but to be sufficiently rugged and reliable to withstand the rigors of combat service without excessive maintenance demands.

The M4 Sherman Tank perfectly fit the criteria of “Battle-need” and “Battle-worthiness”. These policies of “Battle-need” and “Battle-worthiness” meant that the Army Ground Forces did not favor the development of new tanks. This was until the combat situation forced them to do otherwise.

In Army Ground Forces or the AGF manual issued in September 1943 stated, “the primary role of the tank was not to fight enemy tanks, but to destroy enemy personnel and automatic weapons” (5). To have denied the infantry armor protection would have resulted in men being senselessly slaughtered by machine gun fire. Until 1945, the US Armor doctrine reflected the interwar school of thought that tanks existed to support Infantry, and the Cavalry’s preference for using them as weapons of exploitation to hit the enemy’s weak rear. These decisions led to the development of the Sherman Tank. However these policies also lead to the deaths of thousands of Tank and Tank Destroyer Crewmen.

In contrast the enemy armored threat was to be solved by the individualized tank destroyer battalions (6). The primary Tank Destroyer of the war was the M10 Gun Carriage. Another important American Tank Destroyer was the M18 Hellcat (7). The M18 Hellcat also was used in combat in Europe and the Pacific (8). The M36 Jackson Tank Destroyer also served in Europe(9).

Specifications

The hull front armor of the King Tiger II Tank was 150 millimeters thick(10). The King Tiger II’s 88 Millimeters KW.K 43 L/71 gun, using the shell of Pzgr. 39/43 could penetrate the front Gun Mantlet of the Sherman Tank at 2,600 meters at a side angle of 30 degrees (11). The King Tiger could also penetrate the front turret of a Sherman Tank using the same ammunition at a range of 3,500 + meters at a side angle of 30 degrees.

In contrast, the Sherman Tank equipped with either the 75 Millimeter gun or the 76 Millimeter gun was unable to penetrate the frontal armor of the King Tiger II Tank from a side angle of 30 degrees. The German JagdTiger Tank Destroyer had a fixed armored body that had 250 millimeters of front armor inclined at 75 degrees (12). The Sherman Tank, either equipped with the 75mm gun or the 76mm gun, was also unable to defeat the frontal armor of the JagdTiger based on front shot at a 60 degree angle (13).

The M-18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer was protected by thin armor and an open top turret which exposed the crew to fire from aircraft (14). The M18’s 76mm gun fired a shell that could seldom kill heavily armored German panzers in one shot. Even the M26 Pershing Tank when it fired the T44 HVAP shell could only penetrate 244 millimeters of homogenous armor at range of 500 yards at a 30 degree angle (15). The M26 Tank would have had some difficulty in destroying the JagdTiger.

In a December 6, 1944, article titled “Plan No Changes in Sherman Tank”, an unnamed War Department Official spokesmen said, “Should our tanks be as heavily armored as the German ones, this would bring up almost insurmountable difficulties in transportation, since many of the tanks now are still being landed on beaches” (16). In addition, Army Regulation 850-15 stated “American Tanks had to be able to fit into landing crafts, and to cross hastily built or repaired temporary bridges. Army Regulation AR 850-15 (which was revised in August, 1943) limited U.S. Tanks to 35 tons (17). The M26 Pershing Tanks’ weight was roughly 45 tons, and the Sherman Tanks average weight was 35 tons. In contrast the German King Tiger Tank was nearly 70 tons (18).

Attacks

On July 11, 1943, at Gela, Sicily, Naval gunfire rescued American tankers and infantry pinned down by fire from Nazi Tiger I Tanks(19). Sergeant Harold Fulton said of airpower “I could write all day telling of our tanks I have seen knocked out by more effective guns. Our best (anti-tank) weapon, and the boy that has saved us so many times, is the P-47 (Thunderbolt fighter-bomber, used to support Allied Tanks” (20). 

On the dates of September 22, 27, 28, and October 2 and 7, 1944, a series of five bombing raids hit the Henschel plant. This is where the King Tiger II was being produced (21). These five raids resulted in destroying 95% of the total floor area of the Henschel Plant. Another bombing raid on the Henschel Plant on December 15, 1944, delayed further recovery. Heavy bombing raids on the Kassel vicinity on October 22 and 23, December 30, 1944, and January 1, 1945, further delayed King Tiger II production. The Allied Bombing campaign from September 1944 to March 1945 caused the loss of at least 657 King Tiger II’s out of 940 that were originally planned to be built.

The American government and military decisions both contributed to these weapons’ deficiencies. Logistics and transportation prevented the weapons from being as formidable as their German counterparts. Thankfully, Tank and Tank Destroyer crews were saved by outstanding Air Power and Artillery.

What do you think of American tanks in World War II? Let us know below.

Now, you can read World War II history from Daniel: “Did World War Two Japanese Kamikaze Attacks have more Impact than Nazi V-2 Rockets?” here, “Japanese attacks on the USA in World War II” here, and “Was the Italian Military in World War 2 Really that Bad?” here.

References

Bryan, Tony, Laurier, Jim and Zaloga, Steve J. New Vanguard 35: M26/46 Pershing Tank 1943-1953. Oxford: United Kingdom. Osprey Military of Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2000. 

Cooper, Belton Y. Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II. Novato: California. Presidio Press. 1998. 

DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 2017. 

Doyle, David. Legends of Warfare Ground: M18 Hell-Cat 76mm Gun Motor Carriage in World War II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 2020. 

Doyle, Hilary and Spielberger, Walter J. The Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle Series: Tiger I and II And Their Variants. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007. 

Doyle, Hilary, Jentz, Thoms L, and Spielberger, Walter J. The Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle Series: Heavy JagdPanzer, Development, Production, and Operations. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007. 

Doyle, Hilary L and Jentz, Thomas L. Germany’s Tiger Tanks: VK 45.02 to Tiger II: DESIGN, PRODUCTION, & MODIFICATIONS. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1997. 

Jentz, Thomas L. Germany’s Tiger Tanks: Tiger I & Tiger II: Combat Tactics. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1997. 

“M-18 Tank Destroyer “Hellcat””. U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center: Army Heritage Trail Experience a Walk Through History. Accessed on April 3rd, 2022. https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/trail/Hellcat/index.cfm.

Footnotes

1 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WWII. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 2017.  42.  

2 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 2017. 46. 
3 Cooper, Belton Y. Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II. Novato: California. Presidio Press. 1998. 295. 

4 Bryan, Tony, Laurier, Jim and Zaloga, Steve J. New Vanguard 35: M26/46 Pershing Tank 1943-1953. Oxford: United Kingdom. Osprey Military of Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2000. 4 to 5. 

5 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 105.

6 Bryan, Tony, Laurier, Jim and Zaloga, Steve J. New Vanguard 35: M26/46 Pershing Tank 1943-1953. Oxford: United Kingdom. Osprey Publishing Military of Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2000. 4. 

7 Doyle, David. Legends of Warfare: Ground: M18 Hell-Cat 76 mm Gun Motor Carriage in World War II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2020. 8. 

8 Doyle, David. Legends of Warfare: Ground M18 Hell-Cat 76 mm Gun Motor Carriage in World War II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2020. 64. 

9 DeJohn,, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 234 to 236 

10 Doyle, Hilary L and Spielberger Walter J. The Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle Series: Tiger I and II and their Variants. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007. 204

11 Jentz, Thomas L. Germany’s Tiger Tanks: Tiger I & Tiger II: Combat Tactics. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd 1997. 14

12 Doyle, Hilary and Spielberger, Walter J. The Spielberger Germany Armor and Military Vehicle Series: Tiger I and II and their Variants. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007. 153. 

13 Doyle, Hilary, Jentz, Thomas L. and Spielberger, Walter J. The Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle Series: Heavy Jagdpanzer: Development, Production, and Operations. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007. 185

14 “M-18 Tank Destroyer “Hellcat” “. U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center: Army Heritage Trail Experience a Walk Through History. Accessed on April 3rd, 2022. https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/trail/Hellcat/index.cfm. 

15 Bryan, Tony, Laurier, Jim and Zaloga, Steven J. New Vanguard 35: M26/46 Pershing Tank Pershing 1943-1953. Oxford: United Kingdom.  Osprey Military of Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2000. 10. 

16 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 215. 

17 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 274. 

18 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 334. 

19 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 135 to 136. 

20 DeJohn, Christian M. For Want of a Gun: The Sherman Tank Scandal of WW II. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2017. 266. 

21 Doyle, Hilary L and Jentz, Thomas L. Germany’s Tiger Tanks: VK 45.02 to Tiger II: DESIGN, PRODUCTION, & MODIFICATIONS. Atglen: Pennsylvania. Schiffer Military History of Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1997. 59 to 60. 

Mao Zedong’s Childhood — A Telling Catalyst

Mao Zedong is often considered the main perpetrator of the Great Chinese Famine, the harrowing ramification of a series of incompetent and shortsighted policies that engendered the deaths of tens of millions of people. A good majority of the blame is often put on Mao, owing to his brutal and ruthless behavior and little regard for human life. But what is it that forged such a malevolent personality? What about him leads some to believe he was instead a benevolent ruler? To understand one’s inherent mindset and actions, many often look at his upbringing to determine how it affected his character. This brings forward the question: to what extent, good or bad, did Mao’s childhood affect who he became?    

David Matsievich explains.

Mao Zedong, from circa 1919.

Mao’s Parents

It is imperative that we first discuss the background of Mao’s parents. Mao’s ancestors came from the valley of Shaoshan, in Hunan, having lived in this humid region for five-hundred years. Mao’s father, Yi-chang, was born in 1870 to a peasant family. He was a hard-working man. After leaving the army, which he had joined to pay off family debts, he brought back home savvy business ideas, beginning to sell top-quality rice to a nearby village, in time becoming the richest man in his village. He was able to afford a six-room house, although the rooms stayed furnished with only the most basic structures: wooden beds, wooden tables, wooden chairs, some mosquito nets, etc..

Before all of this, however, when Yi-chang was fifteen, he married Wen Qimei, or literally “Seventh Sister Wen”. Wen Qimei, being merely a girl, was not given a name, so as she was the seventh sister of the Wen clan, she was duly given her title. Her betrothal to Yi-chang was arranged for a practical purpose: the Wen family resided in a village ten kilometers away from Shaoshan, but they had a deceased relative buried in a grave in the latter which had to had rituals be undertaken from time to time; therefore, having someone from the family in the area would be ideal. 

Early Childhood and Education

Born into a rural community of traditionalists on December 26, 1893, Mao was the third and only son to survive his infancy. His given name, Tse-tung, or Zedong, literally means “to shine on the East”. Auspicious names were reflective of parents’ expectation that their children would be successful in life. However, in order to not tempt fate with such a grandiose name, he was given a pet name by his mother — “the Boy of Stone,” Shi san ya-zi. After an elaborate ritual, somewhat like a “baptism”, at a rock deemed to be magical, he became “adopted” by the rock. He expressed his fondness for this name even in his older years.

Until the age of eight, he lived with his mother at the Wens’ village. He was loved by all his family there, and his uncle even became his Chinese equivalent of a godfather. Life was happy and careless, Mao only doing mild farm labor like gathering pig fodder and taking the buffalo for a walk by a shaded pond. It was in this idyllic village that he began learning to read.  

He returned to Shaoshan only to attend primary education. Mao had to learn by rote the Confucian classics, then an essential part of education in China, at which he was exceptionally talented. He was known by his pupils as a diligent and smart student, gathering a good foothold in Chinese history and learning to write legible calligraphy. Mao absolutely adored reading, flipping through pages well into the night when the entire village was asleep.

Father and Son

Nevertheless, he was a very recalcitrant and obstinate child. He was expelled from at least three schools for disobedient behavior. When he was ten, he ran away from his first school because, he claimed, his teacher was strict and harsh. This — and Mao’s dislike for menial laborious work — put him at odds with his father. The hatred of physically demanding work was especially what engendered the conflict between father and son: Yi-chang only obtained his wealth through hard labor, and he expected his son to do the same. 

Mao despised his authoritative father, who would hit him whenever he did not comply. Some scholars even put forward that Yi-chang was abusive towards Mao and his mother. Whatever the case, Mao likely never forgave his father, whom many years later, when Mao was chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said he would have liked to be treated as brutally as all other political prisoners, had Yi-chang still been alive.

But Mao, as reflected in his future years, was never a submissive man; he fought back. On one occasion, as Jung Chang writes in her book The Unknown Story: Mao, after Yi-chang berated his son in front of guests, Mao ran from his father to a pond and threatened to jump in if his father came any nearer; Yi-chang relented. However, other scholars claim a different outcome; instead of backing down, Yi-chang demanded that Mao kowtow to him, which Mao did, in exchange for avoiding a beating. Two different realities offer two different implications. If we trust the latter, it would be further proof of the severity, and perhaps abusiveness, of Mao’s father, which might evoke sympathy for Mao. But if we are to choose the other, we are shown that Yi-chang did indeed love his son — and that Mao’s unscrupulous cleverness and opportunistic mindset developed at a young age. “Old men like [Yi-chang] didn’t want to lose their sons,” Mao allegedly said. “This is their weakness. I attacked at their weak point, and I won.” Either way, it was an unpleasant father-son relationship.

Yi-chang wanted to tame Mao, to make him docile and responsible. His resolution was to have his son marry his niece, after whom Mao would have to take care of, a mild “white elephant”. And so in 1908, Mao, at the age of 14, married Luo, 4 years his senior. (For the same reason as Wen Qimei, Luo was given not a name but rather a title: “Women Luo”). Mao had no affection for her. “I do not consider her my wife…” Mao said to journalist Edgar Snow in 1936, “and have given little thought to her.” He didn’t even live in the same house as her. She died barely a year later in 1910 (from natural causes, of course). In an article written years later, Mao decried his forced marriage with Luo, and all arranged marriages in general: “This is a kind of ‘indirect rape.’ Chinese parents are all the time indirectly raping their children…” This hatred of paternal authority naturally turned his father into an arch-nemesis. 

A Loving Mother

A pious follower of Buddhism, Mao’s mother became even more devout to the Buddha so that he would protect her only surviving son hitherto. Unlike with his father, Mao’s relationship with his mother was endearingly harmonious. Neat and kindhearted, she was also tolerant, indulgent, and, according to Mao, never raised her voice at him. At a young age he followed her around everywhere, attending Buddhist rituals and visiting Buddhist temples. In emulation of her, Mao espoused Buddhism, although he later forsook it in his later adolescence. His love of her was a complete polar opposite of the hate for his father. In October, 1919, Mao, in his twenties, was horribly distraught to learn of his mother’s death. Yet only a few months later, when Yi-chang was on his deathbed and wished to see his son for the last time, Mao coldly refused to come visit him. He was indifferent to his father’s death.

Once again another controversy opens up, this time about Mao’s absence at Qimei’s death. The generic argument is that Mao simply wasn’t there, away at studies or work, simple and believable. But Jung Chang proposes a more contrived and unpleasant motive: selfishness. Mao had always perceived  his mother as a healthy and clean woman; he did not want that idyllic image to be spoiled by his now ailing mother. He supposedly said to a close staff member, “I wanted to keep a beautiful image of her, and told her I wanted to stay away for a while… So the image of my mother in my mind has always been and still is today a healthy and beautiful one.”

He had agreed with his understanding mother to this arrangement. Mao did indubitably love her very much, but so did he his own interests.

Mao’s childhood: a catalyst?

More attention is usually focused on Mao's later stages of life, like in his early adulthood, when he “became” a communist, and especially later adulthood, when he was chairman. But it cannot be denied that childhood in essence is the foundation for later acts of life. For one, Mao’s ardent hatred and snubbing of traditional customs, like arranged marriage and filial piety, prompted him to espouse the newfangled Chinese Republican values in the early 20th century — and especially develop some very radical ideas of his own — culminating in his notorious communist image, although, as Jung Chang claims, with an “absence of heartfelt commitment” in this new ideology.

It is widely believed among Mao's supporters, past and contemporary, that his Shaoshan peasant background contributed to his empathy and astute concern for peasants in his party years. Mao himself purported that he indeed benevolently cared for the rural and marginalized people of China. Is this true? Jung Chang provides a concise answer: no. There is no sufficient evidence to prove he felt about them this way in her earlier days. Although he had referenced them in a few of his writings, there is no tangible or strong emotion in them to indicate sorrow or sympathy for peasants. In fact, he voiced more emotion on the “sea of bitterness” that was being a student, of which he was one. Mao additionally claimed that his emotion was first roused by the execution of a certain P’ang the Millstone Maker, although there are no records corroborating the existence of such an individual.

It’s safe to conclude that in order to attain a better understanding of Mao’s outlook on the world, it’s worth examining all stages of Mao’s life, not least his college years, where his egotism and fringe ideas were first transcribed on paper. But what qualities did transfer over from his childhood? From what we can confirm, his stubborn behavior is definitely reflected in his later attitude to the CCP leadership; his defiance of his orthodox-viewed father encouraged his adoption of the novel ideas and ideologies, such as democracy, republicanism, and communism, flooding into the country into early 20th century China; and his early-discovered love of books correspondingly prompted him to absorb one after another these recently translated socio-political writings, ranging from moderate to extreme. Although Mao’s childhood was perhaps not the most major period in his life, nor the one in which he adopted communism, it was to a fair degree a stepping stone to his controversial career.  

What do you think of Mao’s early life? Let us know below.

Now read David’s article on the Medieval European Jewish State here.

References

Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. The Unknown Story: Mao. Anchor Books, 2005. 

Spence, Jonathan. “A Child of Hunan.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2000, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/spence-mao.html. 

Snow, Edgar. “Interview with Mao.” The New Republic, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/89494/interview-mao-tse-tung-communist-china.

Henry Ford’s “Ship of Fools”: Ending the First World War through Citizen Diplomacy

In 1915 American industrialist and business magnate Henry Ford launched an amateur peace delegation aimed at stopping the First World War raging across Europe. Although it turned out to be disaster rand subject to ridicule, the mission offers an important example of the unorthodox ways in which private citizens have sought to broker peace.

Felix Debieux explains.

A December 1915 Punch cartoon "The Tug of Peace". It ridicules Ford’s peace mission to Europe.

When we think about ‘diplomacy’, a number of images spring to mind. Official-looking statesmen in grey suits, facing off across long tables as they discuss the terms of treaties, ceasefires and trade. This image is a narrow one, and places a great deal of importance on the work of nation states. We might call this ‘Track One’ diplomacy, that is to say the kind of diplomacy conducted in official forums by professional diplomats. There is, however, a second track. Indeed, ‘Track Two’ diplomacy – sometimes referred to as ‘backchannel diplomacy’ - refers to the non-governmental, informal and unofficial diplomacy of private citizens, major corporations, NGOs, religious organisations and even terrorist groups. 

Easily overlooked, this second track has sought to shape major historical events – often at times where government-to-government diplomacy is perceived as inadequate, ineffective or to be failing in some way. This was certainly the case with American industrialist and business magnate Henry Ford, who in 1915 launched an amateur peace delegation aimed at stopping the First World War raging across Europe. Although it turned out to be complete disaster ridiculed mercilessly by the contemporary press, the mission offers an important example of the unorthodox ways in which private citizens have sought to broker peace.

A humanitarian industrialist

While Henry Ford’s motives for involving himself in international diplomacy have been disputed, Ford certainly held sincere pacifist sentiments and, from early 1915, had begun to condemn the war in Europe. Indeed, unlike the jingoism readily found among other automotive industrialists like Roy D. Chapin and Henry B. Joy, Ford described himself as a pacifist and aired his frustration with both the war and the profiteering associated with it. This caught the attention of two prominent peace activists, who approached Ford with an ambitious proposal: launch an amateur diplomatic mission to Europe and broker an end to the war.

The two peace activists play a crucial role in this story. The first was Hungarian author, feminist, world federalist and lecturer Rosika Schwimmer. Closely associated with a number of movements including women’s suffrage, birth control and trade unionism, Schwimmer from the very outset of the war had advocated for neutral parties to mediate a peace. In 1915, she successfully persuaded the International Congress of Women at The Hague to support the policy. Her companion was Louis P. Lochner, a young American who had acted as secretary of the International Federation of Students. In 1914, Lochner had been appointed as Executive Director of the Chicago-based Emergency Peace Federation, and – like Schwimmer – called for neutral nations to mediate an end to the war. Both were fervent champions for world peace, and they hoped to persuade Ford to throw his resources behind their proposal.

While their eventual meeting with Ford was a success, the proposal put to the industrialist was not entirely honest. Indeed, Schwimmer claimed to possess key diplomatic correspondence which proved that there were neutral and belligerent nations receptive to her idea of mediation. The documents, however, cannot be described as anything other than a complete fabrication. Nevertheless, they were enough to persuade Ford that there was appetite in Europe for negotiations and so he agreed to finance a peace mission. “Well, let’s start”, he said. “What do you want me to do”? 

Chartering a mission to Europe

With Ford sold on the idea of neutral mediation, Lochner suggested that they seek the endorsement of President Wilson. The President could establish an official commission abroad until Congress made an appropriation. If this ‘Track One’ diplomatic route was to fail, Lochner explained, then the President could back an unofficial mission to undertake the work. Ford supported the idea, and seemed excited at the promise of good publicity. Indeed, the industrialist revealed a natural flair for epigram, thinking up such pithy pronouncements as: “men sitting around a table, not men dying in a trench, will finally settle the differences”. 

On November 21, 1915, Ford, Schwimmer and Lochner lunched with a group of fellow pacifists. Everybody in attendance approved the plan of sending an official ‘Track One’ mediating mission to Europe and, if that failed, a private ‘Track Two’ delegation. To set the plan in motion, Ford and Lochner would travel to Washington to secure President Wilson’s backing. Possibly jesting, Lochner suggested to the group “why not a special ship to take the delegates over [to Europe]?” Ford immediately jumped at the idea. While some members of the group thought it ridiculously flamboyant, Ford liked the idea for that very reason. Almost immediately he contacted various steamship companies and, posing as “Mr. Henry,” asked what it might cost to charter a vessel. In no time at all, Ford had chartered the Scandinavian-American liner Oscar II. 

The very next day, Ford and Lochner arrived in Washington for an appointment with the President. The meeting began well enough, with Lochner observing how “Mr. Ford slipped unceremoniously into an armchair, and during most of the interview had his left leg hanging over the arm of the chair and swinging back and forth”. After exchanging pleasantries, Ford outlined the mission, offered to finance it, and urged the President to establish a neutral commission. While he approved of the principle of continuing mediation, the President explained that he could not anchor himself to any one project and, regretfully, that he could not support Ford’s plan. This was not what Ford had prepared himself to hear. He explained that he had already chartered the ship, and had promised the press an announcement on the following day. “If you feel you can’t act, I will”, he said. While Wilson did not budge from his initial position, this was not enough to deter Ford. “He’s a small man”, Ford said to Lochner as they left the meeting. An unofficial, ‘Track Two’ mission this was going to be.

Casting a net

Eager reporters began to arrive at Ford’s hotel. The industrialist opened his press announcement with a simple question: “A man should always try to do the greatest good to the greatest number, shouldn’t he?” He continued: “We’re going to try to get the boys out of the trenches before Christmas. I’ve chartered a ship, and some of us are going to Europe”. When pressed for more detail about the voyage, Ford explained that he was going to bring together “the biggest and most influential peace advocates in the country”. Some of the heavyweights he listed included Jane Adams, John Wanamaker, and Thomas Edison. 

The voyage, unsurprisingly, made front page news in both New York and around the country. While it is not clear what kind of coverage Ford expected, the reaction he did receive was generally derisive. Among his harshest critics was the Tribune, which ran with the headline:

GREAT WAR ENDS

CHRISTMAS DAY

FORD TO STOP IT

Other commentaries were more direct in their criticism. The New York Herald, for instance, described the mission as “one of the cruellest jokes of the century”. This was echoed by the Hartford Courant, which remarked that “Henry Ford’s latest performance is getting abundant criticism and seems entitled to all it gets”. Usually more sympathetic towards Ford, the World deemed the mission an “impossible effort to establish an inopportune peace.” 

Ridiculed though it was, the mission – even before setting sail – was at least generating the kind of publicity which Ford craved. This, however, only disguised the huge logistical problems which the organisers of the project faced. Indeed, having announced 4th December as the date of embarkation, Ford had left only nine days to assemble an entire delegation. This was not only unrealistic, but also put the project on the back foot from the very outset.

Wasting no time in racing towards an impossible deadline, invitations were sent out at once to prospective delegates. The general response provided only further ammunition for the jeering press. Indeed, within just one day of Ford’s press announcement, John Wanamaker and Thomas Edison clarified that they would not be joining the voyage. While Jane Addams confirmed that she, at least, did plan on joining, it was hard to ignore the avalanche of refusals. These included distinguished figures such as William Dean Howells, William Jennings Bryan, Colonel E. M. House, Cardinal Gibbons, William Howard Taft, Louis Brandeis, Morris Hillquit, and many others who would have lent their credibility to the project. 

Nevertheless, the net was cast wide enough that some notable peace activists were able to join. Leading suffragette Inez Milholland and publisher Samuel Sidney McClure signed up for the mission, along with more than forty reporters. Also committing to the cause was the Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, a close friend of Ford’s. In the end, the delegation was as large and distinguished as Ford could reasonably expect to assemble within such a tight timeframe. Indeed, the fact that so many were willing to abandon their commitments with only nine days’ notice, in some cases at their own expense, pointed to the prestige and appeal which they believed the mission carried. 

All aboard!

The Oscar II set sail from Hoboken, New Jersey on December 4, 1915. Much to the delight of the press, arrangements began to unravel just days before embarkation. On December 1, Jane Addams – one of the mission’s key delegates – fell unexpectedly ill and had to pull out of the voyage. This was a major blow, and no doubt undermined the leadership of the expedition. It was not enough, however, to deter a crowd of roughly 15,000 people from gathering to watch the Oscar II leave the dock. As the band started to play “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier”, Ford appeared and was met with resounding cheers. 

There was certainly no shortage of entertainment to occupy the press. Indeed, just before the ship's departure, a prankster placed a cage containing two squirrels on the gangplank. An accompanying sign read "To the Good Ship Nutty". This was followed by a man who leapt into the water, and proceeded to swim after the ship as it left the dock. Once hauled ashore, he declared that he was “Mr. Zero” and explained that he was “swimming to reach public opinion.” Oblivious to the commotion, the crowd continued to wave and cheer. This clearly made an impression on Ford. As Lochner observed:

“Again and again he bowed, his face wreathed in smiles that gave it a beatific expression. The magnitude of the demonstration—many a strong man there was who struggled in vain against tears born of deep emotion—quite astonished and overwhelmed him. I felt then that he considered himself amply repaid for all the ridicule heaped upon him.” 

As the Oscar II faded out of sight, Americans waited to see what effect she might have. 

What nobody foresaw was just how soon the delegation would descend into squabbling and infighting. Much of this was triggered by President Wilson’s 7th December address to Congress, in which the case was made for military prepardness and an increase in the size of the US army. This proved to be an incendiary development, with the activists simply unable to agree on their collective response. Indeed, some aboard the Oscar II felt very strongly that the delegation should deprecate preparedness and call for immediate disarmament. Others, however, would not countenance criticism of either the President nor Congress. McClure made his position quite clear:

“For years I have been working for international disarmament. I have visited the capitals of Europe time and time again in its behalf. But I cannot impugn the course laid out by the President of the United States and supported by my newspaper”.

While some among the delegation understood this position, there were those on the voyage who were not so tolerant. Schwimmer, for instance, accused McClure of corrupting the delegation. Lochner went further still, asserting that supporters of preparedness who had joined the voyage must have simply come along for the “free ride”. Such comments only served to stoke disunity, and were lapped up by the ship’s reporters who narrated the infighting in day-to-day stories. “The dove of peace has taken flight,” cried the Chicago Tribune, “chased off by the screaming eagle”. Such reports were accused of having magnified the dispute. “The amount of wrangling has been picturesquely exaggerated,” wrote the activist Mary Alden Hopkins. “A man does not become a saint by stepping on a peace boat.”

While himself strongly opposed to preparedness in any form, it was in the end left up to Ford to patch things up. For him, the success of the voyage was paramount and, if that meant working alongside peace-lovers who supported a degree of preparedness, then so be it. Ford signed a statement, which outlined what he saw as the incompatibility between peace and prepardness but – more importantly – emphasised that all delegates on the mission were welcome. The damage, however, was already done. Indeed, delegates were very aware that their closely-held principles were being savaged in the press. “The expedition has been hampered at every step by the direct and indirect influence of the American press, by the Atlantic seaboard press,” declared one of the passengers.

As the Oscar II continued to steam across the Atlantic, the situation aboard went from bad to worse. An outbreak of influenza spread through the ship, resulting in one person dying and many others falling sick. Ford also fell ill, and retreated to his cabin in hopes of avoiding reporters. This led to a rumour that he might have secretly died, and so a group of the ship’s less considerate reporters forced their way into his quarters to check on the veracity of the story. At the same time, reporters had become highly suspicious of Schwimmer and the diplomatic correspondence she claimed to possess. After some negotiation, Schwimmer agreed to show her evidence but, angered by their comments, cancelled the exhibit. The Hungarian expressed her frustration by locking the reporters out of the Oscar II’s wireless room. By this point the group looked desperately forward to their planned arrival in Norway, where they had been promised a grand welcoming party. Like many other aspects of the mission, however, their expectations were not realised. 

Land ahoy! 

In the early hours of December 18, the Oscar II docked in Oslo. A handful of Norwegians came by later that morning to welcome the delegation, but this was nothing like the rousing welcome they had been promised. The reception was in fact much cooler, with many Norwegians generally supportive of military preparedness and sceptical towards the mission – particularly Schwimmer. Indeed, Norwegians felt that it was inappropriate for a citizen of a belligerent power to play a leadership role in the peace mission of a neutral country. Further still, Norwegians were generally pro-Ally and believed that peace could only be attained after Germany’s military strength had worsened. Onlookers were surely disappointed when a very sick Ford, who insisted on walking from the dock to his hotel, collapsed and went to bed. The most distinguished member of the delegation would make no further public appearances while in Norway.

Regretfully, Ford’s health showed no signs of improvement. He “was practically incomunicado”, recalled Lochner, who suspected that Ford’s friend, Samuel Marquis, was trying to talk the industrialist into returning to America. “Guess I had better go home to mother”, Ford eventually said to Lochner, “you’ve got this thing started now and can get along without me.” Lochner strongly objected, believing that Ford’s presence was critical to the success of the mission. This was to no avail, and on December 23 Ford began his long journey back to the US. 

The effect this had on the rest of the delegation is rather predictable. Some felt depressed, disheartened and perhaps even a sense of betrayal. Lochner attempted to re-motivate the group: “before leaving, [Ford] expressed to me his absolute faith in the party and… the earnest hope that all would continue to co-operate to the closest degree in bringing about the desired results which had been so close to his heart—the accomplishment of universal peace”. While certainly commendable, Lochner’s efforts to soften the blow fell short. After all, everybody knew that Ford was the only one among them who commanded the stature needed to impress and energise the representatives of neutral nations. Though he continued to support the mission both morally and financially, the activists who Ford left behind inevitably splintered further apart. Nevertheless, the disjointed delegation was able to claim one success: the establishment of the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation. 

Held in Stockholm, the Conference - attended by representatives from the US, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland - sought to encourage neutral governments to mediate an end to the war. On May 18, 1916, the Conference issued a manifesto asking belligerent nations to participate. The manifesto laid out three general activities: mediation between belligerents, propaganda to build public support for peace, and scientific study of the political problems. The Conference even managed to meet with the Danish Secretary of Foreign Affairs, its first formal recognition by a European government. Ultimately, however, there were no further successes that the activists could point to. Indeed, their quick work to develop a program failed to gain traction in the parliaments of the neutral nations; no action at all was taken by any of the targeted governments. By March 1, 1917, with the US moving closer to entering the war, Ford made the decision to discontinue the Conference. The total bill for the peace mission? Half a million dollars - $10,100,000 in 2022.

A total failure? 

How should we evaluate the peace mission? Former US Senator Chauncey M. Depew famously reflected that “in uselessness and absurdity” the peace mission stood “without equal”. This, perhaps, is the easiest assessment of the delegation’s efforts. Indeed, without ever agreeing on how they intended to achieve peace, the group failed to persuade any neutral nation to adopt a policy of mediation. In the process, those who boarded the Oscar II were subjected to relentless ridicule and criticism. This was always about more than bruised egos, with some believing that the ridiculousness of the mission risked the credibility of their deeply-held principles. The Baltimore Sun, for instance, judged that "all the amateur efforts of altruistic and notoriety-seeking millionaires only make matters worse".

Nevertheless, Ford himself asserted that the peace ship was a success. It "got people thinking” about peace on both sides of the Atlantic, he claimed, and “when you get them to think they will think right”. Was he hurt by the level of ridicule he was subjected to? It is impossible to say, but he later reminded people that at a time when no serious effort was made to bring the war to an end, he stood up and acted. “I wanted to see peace. I at least tried to bring it about. Most men did not even try”. Ford’s positive assessment of the peace mission was surely influenced by its commercial outcomes. Tellingly, he described the expedition as the “best free advertising I ever got”. 

Indeed, Ford was very much attuned to the commercial benefits of a highly publicised journey to Europe. Lochner, in fact, concluded that publicity was the only definite part of Ford’s thinking. “If we had tried to break in cold into the European market after the war, it would have cost us $10,000,000. The Peace Ship cost one-twentieth of that and made Ford a household word all over the continent”. While for the activists peace was everything, for Ford this was also an investment - an opportunity to advertise his benevolent character across Europe and America. After the war, Ford would go on to become the largest manufacturer of Liberty Motors for aircraft, blurring the boundaries he had once set between profiteering and pacifism. 

A rounded assessment of the peace ship would not be complete without considering its long-term impact. Indeed, it should be remembered that ideas stimulated during the mission eventually wound up in President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, a statement of principles for peace to be used in negotiations to end the war. Notably, the list included a commitment to transparent peace treaties, free from the greedy tentacles of private deals struck on the side. This was an idea thought up by activists who had participated in the peace mission. Though they might have failed to bring an end to the war, these ‘Track Two’ citizen diplomats can claim a legacy of sorts, pioneering alternative modes of peace-building less dependent on government leadership. 

What do you think of the ‘Ship of Fools’? Let us know below.

Now read Felix’s article on Henry Ford’s calamitous utopia in Brazil: Fordlandia here.

References

Open War Aboard the “Peace Ship", J. Mark Powell.

The Peculiar Case of Henry Ford, The University of Michigan and the Great War.

Henry Ford And His Peace Ship, American Heritage, Volume 9, Issue 2, February 1958.

The “Peace Ship”: An Early Attempt at Citizen Diplomacy, Read the Spirit.

The Peace Ship: Henry Ford’s Pacifist Adventure in the First World War, Barbara Kraft, New York, 1978.

The Odyssey of Henry Ford and the Great Peace Ship, Burnet Hershey, New York, 1967.

Second Track / Citizens' Diplomacy: Concepts and Techniques for Conflict Transformation, John Davies, Edward Kaufman, eds., Maryland, 2002.

London’s Great Stench in the 19th Century - Part 2: Bazalgette, Sewers and Stench

Millions of tourists visit London each year to take in the city's iconic architectural sites and attractions. It is hard to imagine that the iconic River Thames was once a site of unbearable stench and disease that choked Londoners. The summer of 1858 was labelled as the Great Stink by the British press and was a result of many years of poor living conditions, sanitation and a lack of public health reforms. The Great Stink was the tipping point that encouraged a change of attitude towards public health from a laissez-faire attitude, where the government did not interfere with public health, to a desire to improve living conditions. A laissez-faire attitude meant that government officials took a step back from interfering with social welfare and let issues take their own shape naturally.

In part 2, Amy Chandler explains how throughout history, the “Thames was effectively the city’s sewer for centuries” as the banks became “dominated by factories, furnaces and mills, all dispensing their foul waste and chemical pollutants into the river”.(1) This article explores how Joseph Bazalgette constructed the London sewer system to clean up the River Thames from sewage. 

If you missed it, part 1 on what caused the Great Stench is here.

An 1828 cartoon: Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water.

What to do about the Great Stink?

The perseverance to improve public health culminated in the Great Stink of 1858 from June to August. The heat wave in the summer of 1858 made the River Thames a bubbling vat of stench and raw sewage that contributed to outbreaks of disease, such as cholera, across London. Throughout that summer, the Thames water levels fell leaving piles of sewage and waste to visibly build up in public view. The build-up of waste was now staring Londoners and government officials in the face. The laissez-faire attitude of avoiding public health problems was no longer an option for Parliament.

In July 1858, Parliament discussed the “purification of the River Thames” and what course of action to take to solve the problem of sewage flowing into the river. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, described the river as an “unexpected calamity” for many but that there was always “an observant minority in the community which has expected the catastrophe” for some time. (2) For some members of the public and Parliament, it may have been a shock that London’s population was suffering from cholera and other diseases. But for a select few like Sir Edwin Chadwick and Dr John Snow, concerns of public health and welfare was an imperative thought. The problems of the Great stink was, to a point, inevitable as living conditions were continuing to decline as London’s population expanded and the government continued to avoid passing any bills to improve public health in poverty and disease-stricken areas. It was not until Members of Parliament became affected by the smell of sewage and waste from the river that they felt it was time to take charge of London’s public health. If the Houses of Parliament were not built directly next to the River Thames, it may have been unlikely that public health would have taken a dramatic change in the way that it did in 1858. The smell became so unbearable that it “severely affected [Parliamentary] business” with strong consideration of moving Parliamentary business to Oxford or St. Albans as well as the “curtains were soaked in chloride to attempt to mask the smell”. (3) The Times reported Members of Parliament were frequently seen with handkerchiefs pressed against their noses as their offices overlooked the Thames and became surrounded by the stench. (4)

Many satirical cartoons at the time, such as Punch, illustrated the dire reality of London’s public health. These cartoons often personified the River Thames as ‘Father Thames’ as ill and in poor health because of the pollution and tonnes of sewage forced and filtered into the Thames and drinking supplies were killing the life force of London. In many ways, the personification of the dying River Thames mirrors the deterioration and ill health of the inhabitants in poverty-stricken areas of London. The British government was reluctant to take responsibility for allowing London’s “noble river” to become a “stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors” but Disraeli commented that “this House, in pursuit of health” passed the bill to pump raw sewage into the waters of the River Thames, they ignored the voices of “persons of great authority on such matters” who could predict that such a health calamity was imminent. (5) Disraeli insinuated that this laissez-faire attitude of not interfering with the spread of disease and poor living conditions was the government's fault for not taking more control of the situation.

One method the government attempted in July 1858 was to pour lime chloride into the Thames to remove the smell of sewage and waste. In some ways this was a logical solution given the current scientific miasma theory that disease and illness were caused by bad smells. In nineteenth-century logic, overpowering the smell of the Thames not only stop disease but also removed the horrible smell. However, this was not effective and calls for a sewer system and reforms to purify the Thames was growing amongst Parliament and notable public figures.

On 2 June 1858, the Metropolitan Board of Works made a decision regarding London’s sewage problem and announced that they planned to “defer all consideration of it [the sewers] until the middle of October” and leave the summer period undisturbed with no changes. (6) In response, Sir Benjamin Hall commented on the selfishness of the Board of Works for using the city’s discomfort as a bargaining tool to pressure Parliament to resolve “the engineering and financial arguments in its favour”. (7) The Board of Works previously proposed to build a sewer system but was unsuccessful in receiving enough funds from the government to complete their project. As the city's health deteriorated, and Members of Parliament became increasingly afraid of becoming unwell through bad air, the need to find a solution became heightened. By 15 July 1858, Disraeli passed the Metropolitan Local Management Act that amended the 1855 Metropolis Local Management Act to “extend the Metropolitan Board of Works for the purification of the Thames and the main drainage of the Metropolis”. (8) By 2 August 1858, this act was officially passed after eighteen days and allowed the Board of Works full authority on the project and borrow £3,000,000 to carry out the project and deodorise the Thames in the meantime before work started. (9)

Bazalgette’s construction of the London sewer systems

The Metropolitan Board of Works was given full authority and enough money to start work on tackling London’s waste problem. Joseph Bazalgette was in charge of constructing London’s new sewer system with the plan to create a network of main sewers that was parallel to the River Thames and filter waste and surface water away from the city. (10) The project was overseen by Bazalgette, who took great care and consideration into every aspect of the construction, from personally measuring the lead and cement contents for each brick used within the tunnels. Much of Bazalgette’s work “involved substantial bank extension and infill, reducing the width of the river in the central part of the city.” (11) Bazalgette used a new type of cement called Portland cement that was strong and water-resistant to support the tunnels from collapse and sewage wearing down the interiors. The project required 318 million bricks, 670,000 cubic metres of concrete, and over a thousand labourers to excavate the tunnels. This increase in labour saw brick layers wages increase by 20%. (12)

Aside from building interconnecting pipes and sewer systems from east to west across London that collected waste and rainwater, Bazalgette also built four pumping stations, and two treatment works to manage, treat sewage and pump out the purified liquid into the River Thames. (13) The Abbey Mills Crossness pump station is still operational today and open for public visits. The pumping station is decorated with ornate Byzantine-style architecture and described as The Cathedral of Sewage because of its ostentatious designs that are out-of-place for the nature of the building. Many wealthy Victorians enjoyed ornate architectural designs therefore something as unappealing as a sewage house was designed in an ornate and extravagant style. Furthermore, Bazalgette’s construction of the London sewer system transformed London from below ground and above by building the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments that narrowed the Thames by 52 acres causing water to flow faster. (14)

The construction of the sewer system transformed London’s landscape, shape and improved the health of the city’s population. Many visitors to London may notice the decadent and intricately designed benches and Dolphin lamp-posts that line London’s popular Thames Embankment. The Metropolitan Board of Works decided to illuminate the new Embankment with electric lights and asked for design submissions. The ornate fish-shaped lamps were designed by George John Vulliamy in the late 1860s. The Board of Works received many designs, one designed by Bazalgette is situated on the Chelsea Embankment. The ornate lamp designs are a visible legacy of the transformation of London from a dirty and disease-ridden city to a cleaner and more sophisticated river where many walk and enjoy the sights London has to offer.

The sewer system is still in use in London today, and it was because of Bazalgette’s forethought that London’s population was expanding rapidly and would continue to grow over time. He, therefore, created the sewer pipes to be larger than necessary to accommodate an increased amount of waste in the future. This forethought has allowed the sewer system to last for over 150 years and is only now undergoing repairs to the tunnels to ensure London’s sewers continue to function efficiently. London’s sewer system today faces something unimaginable to Bazalgette, the fatbergs that block the tunnels of the sewers forcing sewage to pile up within the tunnels. For example, the 2017 fatberg was removed from Whitechapel. There is a certain irony that our modern obsession with cleanliness and the use of products, such as wet wipes and other items of personal hygiene, are now discarded by modern Londoners in a similar way to how the Victorians were keen to dump their waste in the Thames. Both of course are equally disruptive and likely to cause a stink!

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

Now read Amy’s articles on Ignaz Semmelweis’ key contribution to medicine - hand-washing in hospitals here.

Bibliography 

Bibby, M. ‘London’s Great Stink’, undated, Historic UK < https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Londons-Great-Stink/ >. 

Collinson, A. ‘How Bazalgette built London’s first super-sewer’, 26 March 2019, Museum of London < https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/how-bazalgette-built-londons-first-super-sewer >.     

Crossness Engines, ‘Visit Us’, 2022, Crossness Engines <https://www.crossness.org.uk/visit.html >. 

Curtis, S. ‘The River Thames: London’s Riparian Highway’ in: A. Smith and A. Graham, eds., Destination London (London: University of Westminster Press,2019).  

Halliday, S. ‘Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Great Stink’, April 2012, London Historians < https://www.londonhistorians.org/?s=articles >.

Halliday, S. The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, The History Press, Gloustershire, 2013, ebook, p.1781.

HC Deb, 15 July 1858, vol 151,cols 1509W.  

Patowary, K. ‘The ‘Great Stink’ of London’, 14 July 2017, Amusing Planet < https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/07/the-great-stink-of-london.html >. 

UK Parliament, ‘Estimate of expense River Thames Purification Bill 1866’, undated, Uk Parliament < https://www.parliament.uk/es-test-gallery-page-dnp/living-heritage2/building/palace/estatehistory/from-the-parliamentary-collections/thames/estimatethamespurification/ >.  

1 S. Curtis, ‘The River Thames: London’s Riparian Highway’ in: A. Smith and A. Graham, eds., Destination London (London: University of Westminster Press,2019)p.168. 

2  HC Deb, 15 July 1858, vol 151,cols 1509W.  

3  UK Parliament, ‘Estimate of expense River Thames Purification Bill 1866’, undated, Uk Parliament < https://www.parliament.uk/es-test-gallery-page-dnp/living-heritage2/building/palace/estatehistory/from-the-parliamentary-collections/thames/estimatethamespurification/ > [accessed 22 March 2022]. 

4  M, Bibby, ‘London’s Great Stink’, undated, Historic UK < https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Londons-Great-Stink/ >[accessed 18 March 2022].

5  HC Deb, 15 July 1858, vol 151,cols 1509W.  

6  S.Halliday, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, The History Press, Gloustershire, 2013, ebook, p.1781.

7  Ibid., p.1789. 

8  Ibid.,p.1798. 

9  Ibid.,p.1853.

10 Ibid.,pp.1880-88.

11 Curtis,op.cit.,p.168. 

12  A, Collinson, ‘How Bazalgette built London’s first super-sewer’, 26 March 2019, Museum of London < https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/how-bazalgette-built-londons-first-super-sewer> [accessed 10 March 2022]. 

13  S.Halliday, ‘Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Great Stink’, April 2012, London Historians < https://www.londonhistorians.org/?s=articles >[accessed 18 March 2022]. 

14  Ibid.