Fascists falling out? How Italian Fascists discriminated against Germans in the inter-war years

Helen Saker-Parsons tells us the story of how Mussolini’s Italy systematically undermined Germans in South Tyrol, a region of Italy with a German majority – at a time when Italy and Germany were close Fascist allies. The article looks at Italian ethnic cleansing, the ban on the German language, the land of stolen treasure and counterfeit pounds.

In 1920s Europe, fascism was gathering strength. In Germany, the National Socialists were winning support on the basis of their belief in German superiority. Hitler published Mein Kampf in 1925 and wrote of the supremacy of the Aryan race. But in one German-speaking region of Europe all references to the German language were banned. This was not a socialist or communist led country, hostile to the ideas of Fascism: this was Fascist Italy. The region itself had removed its Germanic title of South Tyrol and had reinvented itself as Alto Adige. For 500 years it had belonged to Austria but after the First World War and the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919, Tyrol had been divided in two and the southern part handed to the Italians as ‘spoils of war’ in gratitude for Italy’s co-operation with the Allies during the war. Thus began a twenty-five year period in its history which saw it experience ethnic cleansing, local martyrs, and concentration camps - and ended as it became a dumping ground for Nazi lootings and the home to the production of counterfeit British pounds.

Following the rise of Fascism and Benito Mussolini in 1922, a policy of Italianization in the area was introduced, driven by Italian ultra-nationalists, such as Senator Ettore Tolomei who on July 15, 1923, presented his 32-point program for Italianization: Provvedimenti per l'Alto Adige ("Measures for the Alto Adige"), which he claimed was aimed “to clean the area which had been polluted by strangers for centuries.” Mussolini said in February 1926: “We shall Italianize this territory, because it is Italian, geographically and historically.” In fact 70% of the population spoke German and only 25% Italian. Amongst the measures were: the introduction of Italian as the only official language; the establishment of Italian kindergartens and schools; the dismissal of German-speaking civil servants and teachers; a complete stop on German immigration in South Tyrol; Italian as the juridical language; the closure of German banks; the Italianization of the names of places (towns, roads, rivers, mountains etc. – except Gries) as well as the Italianization of Germanized family names, with the list of new names being printed in 1926 in the Gazetta Ufficiale. Tolomei acquired the nickname ‘grave digger’ as he also proposed prohibiting the use of German in cemeteries and ordered that German words should be deleted from gravestones.

Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler together in Munich, Germany. 1937.

A BATTLE OF IMPLEMENTATION

These measures met with varying degrees of success. The settlement of Italians from other regions was encouraged through the building of thousands of new houses, especially in Bolzano. However the tricky terrain of high mountains and deep valleys hindered repopulation and prevented the new arrivals, especially from the south, warming to their new environment. The planned substitution of the German clergy with Italians failed because of the opposition from the Vatican. Another move that met with opposition was the ban on teaching in German - either in schools or in private lessons. School books were ‘cleansed’ of everything referring to German customs, traditions or history. The singing of German ‘Lieder’ was considered dangerous to the Kingdom of Italy. German teachers were systematically dismissed on the grounds of ‘insufficient didactica’, or transferred to the south, from where Italian teachers were recruited instead. One vehement critic of this policy was the priest, Canon Michael Gamper, long time editor of the newspaper Volksbote. In 1925 he used his paper to call for a continuation of German education, writing that it was their duty to imitate the early Christians who found refuge in the catacombs of Rome.

The clandestine establishments he encouraged became known as ‘Katakombenschulen’ or ‘catacomb schools’. A shortfall in suitable teachers was overcome by recruiting young women, without families or responsibilities. The first group of 25 teachers received training in Bolzano in 1925 under the auspice that they were part of a sewing circle. More young girls were approached until around 500 volunteers were eventually trained, usually by local clergymen and often in secret. Most of the teaching took place in barns, attics, kitchens or ‘stube’- the living rooms of rural houses. Up to five children at a time, sometimes 30 per day, received instruction in reading and writing in German. Often girls would arrive with knitting to disguise their true intentions but would leave having learned a new Tyrolean song. Books of fairy tales and songs were supplied by German cultural societies, and were smuggled from Austria, hidden in religious buildings and then taken from school to school. For the children of the catacomb schools, who also attended Italian public schools, there was a confusion of identity that lingered long in to their lives. 

After initial difficulties, secret seminars for the instruction of teachers were organized throughout the province, usually under the protection of the Catholic Church and from 1931 were also held as far afield as Munich. Despite the risks, there were many prepared to take them. One such teacher, Angela Nikoletti, has been hailed as a regional Joan of Arc. She received several warnings to stop but continued to teach undeterred. She was arrested on May 14, 1927 and sentenced to 30 days in prison. During her imprisonment she contracted tuberculosis, which worsened when she was banished from her home community on her release and forced to hide in a cave. Only once her weak condition had been diagnosed was she allowed to return home to live with her aunt. However, she was to die from her illness and her death created an almost myth-like legacy. In October 1930 her funeral turned in to a public rally and five years later a newspaper wrote:  “She had given her life for her homeland. Her German heart could bear no bonds.”

RESISTANCE

Between 1928 and 1939 various resistance groups formed to fight the fascist Italian regime and its policy of suppressing the German language. Catholic media and associations resisted the forced integration under the protection of the Vatican. The underground resistance movement, the Völkischer Kampfring Südtirols, was formed by a Nazi Party member and tailor from Bolzano, Peter Hofer. Then on October 21, 1939, Mussolini reached an agreement with Hitler that all inhabitants had until December 31, 1939 to choose between remaining in the region, accepting complete Italianization, or emigrating to Nazi Germany (including annexed Austria), the so-called "Option für Deutschland" (option for Germany). The population was deeply divided. Those who wanted to stay (Dableiber) were condemned as traitors; those who left (Optanten), the majority, were defamed as Nazis. Hitler commented on a plan to relocate the ‘Optanten’ to Crimea (annexed to Greater Germany) in 1942: “the transport of South Tyrolese to Crimea offers no special physical or psychological difficulties. They need only make a voyage down a German stream, the Danube, and they’d be right there”. But most were to be resettled in German-annexed western Poland.

The National Socialists put their successful propaganda machine into action, launching a campaign to encourage the South Tyrolean population to ‘opt’ for resettlement. Lies were deliberately spread amongst the people to incite hatred against one another, resulting in entire families being ripped apart and resentments resonating for many decades. The majority of people succumbed to Nazi pressure with 86% choosing resettlement - thus began a program of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The Optanten banded together in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Optanten für Deutschland (Association of optants for Germany or ADO) that was founded on January 30, 1940 under the ubiquitous Peter Hofer. Those who chose to stay, the Dableiber, mainly banded together around local Catholic priests. The first families left their homeland in 1939, and up to 1943 a total of around 75,000 South Tyroleans emigrated (the original numbers curtailed by the outbreak of war), of which 50,000 returned after the war.

SWEET REVENGE?

In September 1943 Mussolini was deposed and Italy surrendered to the Allies who had invaded the country from the south. From the north the German Wehrmacht poured in its troops. On September 10, 1943 the Operation Zone of the Alpine Foothills was established, incorporating South Tyrol. The ADO was dissolved and joined with the Deutsche Volksgruppe. Peter Hofer was chosen as the Volksgruppenführer. Many German-speaking South Tyroleans, who had suffered years of linguistic oppression and discrimination by Fascist Italy, wanted revenge upon the ethnic Italians living in the area, particularly in the larger cities. There were also attempts to arrest fleeing Italian soldiers and attacks on the Dableiber. However, wide scale retribution was discouraged by the occupying Nazis who feared alienating Mussolini and the Italian Fascists. The man once described by Hitler as a ‘strutting peacock’ had been rescued from his high altitude imprisonment on the Gran Sasso by German paratroopers and had been instated as the puppet head of an Italian Social Republic in Salo. One sector of the community not considered safe, however, was the Jewish population, especially the large contingent of foreign Jews living in Merano. On September 16, 1943, the Nazis sent the first group of Merano Jews to Auschwitz.

Owing to its mountainous terrain and its remoteness, the region managed to escape much of the fighting between Allied and German forces as the former swept through the country. But the history of this tranquil region remained troubled. In summer 1944, a concentration camp was established in Bolzano, hosting around 11,000 prisoners. The area also became an extension of Switzerland as a dumping ground for Nazi lootings. The US 88th Infantry Division which occupied South Tyrol from May 2, 1945 uncovered vast amounts of precious items and looted art treasures. Among the items reportedly found were railway wagons filled with gold bars, hundreds of thousands of meters of silk, the Italian crown jewels, King Victor Emmanuel's personal collection of rare coins, and scores of works of art looted from art galleries such as the Uffizi in Florence. Furthermore, from this mountainous area, the Nazis attempted to wreck the British economy. Castello Schloss Labers (located above Merano) was used by an SS Task Force for ‘Operation Bernhard’, a plan to undermine the British economy by the mass production of fake pound notes using inmates of concentration camps as counterfeiters.

Fears the Germans might use the region as a last-ditch stronghold to fight to the bitter end were not forthcoming and following the German surrender in May 1945 Austria and Italy came to an agreement ratified under the Paris Peace Treaty that Austria would give up its claim to the region on the condition that Italy took steps to redress some of the cultural damage perpetrated under Fascism. None of the ADO leaders were tried for their crimes. Peter Hofer himself was killed during an Allied bombing raid on Bolzano in December 1943. Amongst the plethora of wreaths sent to his funeral was one from Hitler. Alto-Adige is now the wealthiest province of Italy, proud of its bi-lingualism, its diverse architecture, culture and traditions, yet for some the divisions are still raw and its troubled history too recent.

Helen Saker-Parsons is the author of a book about an Allied soldier who is captured and held prisoner in Italy during World War II. The fascinating book, A Captive Life, is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Helen has also written a historical fiction book related to World War I, Searching for Cecil. It is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

 

As always, your feedback is welcome below. Alternatively, like the article, tweet about it, or share it by clicking on one of the links below.

References

http://www.accenti.ca/online-archive/rocky-roads-northern-italy-s-jewish-heritage-by-deborah-rubin-fields

South Tyrol: A Minority Conflict of the Twentieth Century By Rolf Steininger

http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/print_bio/angela-nikoletti

A Comparative Study of the Northern League, Plaid Cymru, the South Tyrolese People‟s Party and the Scottish National Party Emanuele Massetti

 http://www.roughguides.com/destinations/europe/italy/trentino-alto-adige/italianization-tyrol/#ixzz32uPFtv8t

The Italian Military Governorship in South Tyrol and the Rise of Fascism  By Giuseppe Motta

 The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley  By John W. Cole, Eric R. Wolf

Food and drink in 17th and 18th century inns and alehouses

Janet Ford takes a light-hearted look at inns and alehouses in 17th and 18th century Britain by reviewing the diaries of three travellers who experienced them.

Inns and alehouses were and are one of the most important buildings in towns and villages, as they are places to socialize, have a meal, discuss various matters of the day, and - for some people - to get drunk. Two important elements of the inn are food and drink. I am going to be looking at the food and drink that was sold in 17th and 18th century inns and what travellers, who used inns, thought of them. To do this I am going to be looking at travel diaries, notably the diaries of Celia Fiennes, who travelled around England in the 1690s, John Byng, who travelled around England and Wales between 1781 and 1794 and Karl Moritz, who was German, and travelled in 1782.

The Ale-House Door, a painting by Henry Singleton. c. 1790.

Food in Inns

In terms of what they had to eat, all three travellers had, bread, mutton and cheese. Celia Fiennes also had salmon, trout, eggs, bacon and West Country tarts. John Byng wrote that he ate veal, fruit tart, chicken, cake, beef streak, sage cheese, pigeon, cabbage, cucumbers, salad with cheese, cold meats, rice pudding, gooseberry pie, beef, pig, fowls, partridge and scotched collops. Finally, Karl Moritz also ate roast meats, salad, pickled salmon, Cheshire cheese, fowl and cold meats.

These lists of food show a variety of aspects about the food in inns. It shows that inns offered a variety of food, as the list includes meats, fish, dairy products, vegetables and desserts. The type of food on offer also indicates that the most common foods in inns were bread, cheese, fish and meats, as they were written about the most. It also illustrates that food in inns between the late 17th and late 18th century did not change that much, as all three travellers wrote about similar foods.

The Quality of the Food

The travellers also commented on the quality of the food and what they thought of it. Of course opinions are different between people, as people have different tastes, but their opinions still give us an idea of what the food was like. It seems that all three travellers had good and enjoyable meals with good quality food as well as some not so nice meals. An example of a good meal is shown with Celia Fiennes at an inn in Lancashire: “At the Kings arms, one Mrs. Rowlandson, she does pot up the Charr fish the best of any in the Country”. (1)

An example of a poor meal can be seen with John Byng in an inn in Silsoe, Bedfordshire: “The chops at last burnt up and our bad dinner came in”. (2) Another example of a poor meal is illustrated with Karl Moritz at an in inn Cheshire: “Cheshire cheese roasted and half melted at the fire. This, in England it seems, is reckoned good eating, but, unfortunately for me, I could not touch a bit of it”. (3)  A possible reason why the German Karl Moritz did not enjoy some of his meals could have been down to his lack of experience and knowledge of English food.

These views suggest that food was of a mixed quality in inns; some inns took food seriously as they produced good food, while other inns cooked poorly and food was not at the center or seen as important.

Drinks in inns

The drinks sold in inns included beer, ale, wine, brandy, port and other sprits. Alehouses sold beer, ale and - in the 18th century, spirits - The difference between ale and beer is hops, as ale was made from just malted barley and beer was made from malted barley and hops. Hops made beer a lighter drink compared to ale. In terms of what the travellers drank, Celia Fiennes experienced wine, beer and ale, John Byng drank ale, beer, brandy, port and wine, and Karl Moritz drank ale. It seems that it was not until the 18th century that sprits became popular in inns, as Celia Fiennes, who travelled in the 17th century, did not write about them at all.

The Quality of the Drinks

The quality of the drinks for the English travellers was mixed; there were both good quality drinks and poor quality drinks. An example of a good drink can be seen with Celia in an inn in Nottingham: “Att ye Crown Inn is a Cellar of 60 stepps down, all in ye Rock Like arch worke over your head: in ye Cellar I dranke good ale”. (4) An example of a poor drink is shown with John Byng at an inn in Dover: “not-drinkable wine!” (5)

The view of the drinks from Karl Moritz was quite different from the two other travellers. He had not tried English ale before and had evidently not got used to the taste of it. He wrote of a Derby inn, the “strong ale of England did not at all agree with me”. (3)

The two natives show that the quality of the drinks was mixed, as many inns had good drinks, while there were a few with bad drinks. Interestingly, even though drinks were at the heart of many inns, some inns still produced or sold poor quality drinks. And the fact that the German traveller found the ale too strong indicates that a person had to get used to English ale before they could truly enjoy it.

These travellers tell us a great deal about food and drink. They first show the variety of food and drink on offer. They secondly show that, much like today, the quality of the food and drink was slightly mixed. Finally, even though some inns had poor food and drink, most inns were of a good quality and were enjoyed by most travellers.

Do you want to know more about food and drink in history? Well if you have an iOS/Apple device or an Android device, download issue 4 of History is Now Magazine to read a great article on 19th century food.

Click here for Apple/iOS | Click here for Android

(1) Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, (The Leadenhall Press, 1888), 1698 Tour: Lancaster to Carlisle, visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Fiennes/23

(2) John Byng, The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours Through England And Wales of the Hon. John Byng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) Between the Years 1781 and 1794, (Henry Holt and Company, 1938), A Tour of Bedfordshire, May 1794, visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Byng/4

(3) Karl Moritz, Travels in England in 1782, (Cassell and Company, 1886), Chapter 11: Oxford to Derbyshire, visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Moritz/12

(4) Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, (The Leadenhall Press, 1888), 1697 Tour: London to Yorkshire, visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Fiennes/12

(5) John Byng, The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours Through England And Wales of the Hon. John Byng (Later Fifth Viscount Torrington) Between the Years 1781 and 1794, (Henry Holt and Company, 1938),  A Tour of Kent, 1790, visionofbritain.org.uk/travellers/Byng/3

Simply D-day – Image of the week

Our image of the week is from D-Day.

June 6 1944 was the day of the famous D-Day landings. They were of course the start of the Western assault that would help to topple Hitler. And in commemoration of the 70th anniversary on Friday, our image of the week is of those landings.

The image above shows British troops landing on the beach in Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. It somehow captures the drama of the day – troops dashing about and moving on to the beach amid a scene of seemingly organized chaos. The image is from the MOD and is available here.

Now, please share the image by clicking one of the buttons below!

The last air deaths in World War II - Bombing the Eagle’s Nest

In this article Mary Miles tells us the story of Berchtesgaden, the Allied attempt to bomb a site rumored to house Hitler towards the end of World War II. This was also the raid that had the last RAF Bomber Command losses in the war.

April 25, 1945 is a historic day in Royal Air Force (RAF) history. It marks the last big raid in Bomber Command’s Europe offensive. Around 355 bomber crews were sent to flatten a small area of Berchtesgaden. This was the area surrounding Hitler’s holiday home, the Eagles Nest at Obersalzberg. This last bomber raid of the European war was a joint operation with the US 8th Army Airforce who provided an 88-98 Mustang fighter escort. The four bomber crew who died on this operation were the last of the 55,573 losses of RAF Bomber Command. This article concentrates on just three of the 22 squadrons that took part in Operation Berchtesgaden.

Wilf DeMarco's crew (619 Squadron).

Strike Hard, Strike Sure

Intelligence had been received that a light aircraft had taken off from Berlin. It was believed that this plane could have been carrying Hitler to his mountain retreat so he would be away from the rapidly advancing Soviet Army. Eisenhower evidently knew Hitler was still in Berlin but aircrews believed they had a chance of killing him due to what was told to them during the briefing. It is unknown who was aboard the aircraft that left Berlin that night, as Berchtesgaden was also the last major SS barracks still manned and the powers that be considered that a Nazi Partisan army could be set up there - although it was only a few fanatics who considered this last redoubt a real possibility. The final piece in the strategic thinking of this raid was that it would show the German High Command that until there was an unconditional surrender the RAF would continue business as usual.

Ziemi Mazowieckiej (Land of Masovia)

300 Polish squadron took part, with many of their aircrew seeing the raid as a last revenge on the Nazis. The Allied pact with Soviet Russia meant that for a lot of Poles the end of the war was not going to have a good outcome. This last raid was their chance to personally hit back at Hitler. The annexing of their country was the catalyst that had sent Europe into war. A large proportion of the Polish population had either been killed or sent into labor camps, while Warsaw was almost flattened by bombing and suffered a death toll of some 40,000. The stain of six Nazi death camps, including Treblinka and Auschwitz, in their country was one that nearly all Poles rightly found repugnant. So even if it was the slimmest of slim hopes, they took the idea that they could kill Hitler and ruin his personal retreat to heart, with a certain amount of understandable vengeance spurring them on. Fourteen Lancasters from this squadron took part in the operation and all returned.

Strike and Return

460 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) found they had 20 of their crews taking part in this raid on ANZAC day. The majority of the squadron waited for the return of their 20 Lancasters before holding their ANZAC day parade. These 20 aircraft had taken off at around 5AM and joined up with the other aircraft over 300 Lancasters and sixteen Mosquito pathfinders. Anti-aircraft fire managed to down planes out of this large formation, one of which was 460 squadron’s Lancaster NX585 AR-M. This was piloted by Flying Officer Henry “Lofty” Payne. His Navigator had a close call; he was called away from his seat and returned to find a gaping flak hole in it. If Sergeant Colin Fraser had not had moved he would have died. AR-M was heavily hit by flak; the bomb bay door and an engine were blown away.

After that flak hit, Payne at first believed it was possible to glide the plane to American lines just 40 miles north but with one engine gone and two on fire when the fourth engine blew he gave the order to bail out. As he kept control of the plane five of his six crew mates bailed out but he was shocked to see his rear gunner make his way to the cockpit. The spare parachute had not been packed and the gunner's parachute was ruined. They then attempted a crash landing; fortunately this was successful, meaning that the crew of AR-M all survived.  News of the loss of Lancaster AR-M may have subdued any celebrations of this ANZAC day raid on a target strongly symbolic of Nazism though. But as news of the crew’s bravery and their survival was soon to reach 460’s base at Binbrook – happening as it did on the 30 year anniversary of the ANZAC Gallipoli landings of the First World War - it was symbolic to this brave Australian squadron who had flown over 6,000 sorties.

Ad Altiora (To Higher Things)

The six Lancasters from 619 Squadron, based at RAF Strubby, were tasked with running interference for the raid. This meant doing circuits of the target area to attract any flak. Although the flak was not extreme at this late stage of the war, this was still a dangerous task and Lancaster LM756 PG-F (for Freddy) was a casualty. Firstly the Navigator Norman Johnson, in a position that echoed his fellow navigator on AR-M, was killed. Then F for Freddy started to seriously lose altitude and it is likely it had engine fires. The Canadian pilot Wilf DeMarco of Timmins Bay, Ontario did an amazing job of managing to keep the heavy bomber steady so that three of the crew, Jack Speers (Wireless Operator), Freddy Cole (Flight Engineer), and Arthur Sharman (Bomb Aimer), were able to bail out and that the crash did not cause any civilian deaths. The crash site of F for Freddy is near Adnet in Austria. This group of hamlets is just a 25-minute drive from Berchtesgaden in a modern car. The locals scavenged the wreckage for scrap metal as the Nazi regime had left them with very little; because of this many pieces of F for Freddy have survived to this day. The four aircrew who died, Wilf DeMarco (Pilot), Norman Johnson (Navigator), Gordon Walker (Air Gunner), and Edward Norman (Air Gunner), were the last deaths suffered by RAF Bomber Command. The four crew mates are buried side by side in Klagenfurt War Cemetery, Austria.

On the 70th Anniversary of the raid, the people of Adnet, Austria are unveiling a memorial to the crew of PG-F for Freddy. This memorial will be erected due to the hard work of Bürgermeister Wolfgang Auer, Mayor of Adnet, Kevin Ruane MBE, and David Young. For more information please visit http://619lancasteradnet.weebly.com/. Charlie Angus, the Member of Parliament for Timmins Bay, has arranged for a Canadian commemoration the same day.

Per Ardva ad Astra (Through Adversity to the Stars)

After the war, governments from all sides shunned the Bomber Crews, but this last raid shows the courage these young men, whose average age was 21, had. Every man in Bomber Command was a volunteer; they were not conscripted. At one time during the war the average ‘life span’ for a crew was two weeks and for the rear gunners it was less. Between Dunkirk and D-day they were the Allies’ only conventional way of striking at Germany. So to Wilf DeMarco and his crew and the 55,569 other air crew that were lost over the course of the war, we owe a huge debt.

Now, why not read Mary’s previous article on the role of women in World War II? Click here.

References

http://619lancasteradnet.weebly.com/

http://www.polishsquadronsremembered.com/300/Berchtesgaden.html

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/bombercmdsquadrons.cfm

https://www.awm.gov.au/wartime/61/berchtesgaden/

The Fascinating Wanderer who opened the World of Japan to the West

Kevin K. O’Neill tells us about the life of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, a man born in Greece, but who later lived in Ireland and the US – until he fell in love with a country that was just opening up to the world in the late 19th century. Japan.

Ninja, samurai, hara-kiri, kamikaze, all are Japanese words familiar to English speakers today. Indeed many people, especially those living on the west coast of the United States, are well aware of Japanese culture and often become ‘Japanophiles’ or people who love things Japanese. The size of this group has risen significantly over the last twenty years due in part to the rise in popularity of ‘anime’ or Japanese cartoons. Unlike their American counterparts, anime are created for all ages and tastes. Post war Japan was impoverished and anime filled the entertainment need without the expense of movie making. However, before Japan took a part of center stage in the 1930s and 1940s, little was known of Japanese culture in the English-speaking world except through the observational writings of travelers. Japan, after initial western contact in the 1600s, closed itself off from the world until, in a true case of gunboat diplomacy, Commodore Perry forced them to open trade in the 1850s.

A Japanese print showing Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Perry played a key role in opening Japan to the West in the 1850s.

In the late 19th century, Europe was in a tizzy over Japan, including such things as pottery (and the crumpled paper it was shipped in, due to the woodblock prints), the Gilbert and Sullivan play ‘The Mikado’ and other items reflecting Japanese aesthetic taste. While information flowed freely much of it was of little value, such as Oscar Wilde’s comment; “… Japan is a pure invention… There is no such country, there are no such people.” A few writers, such as the German Philipp von Siebold, attempted to bring day to day life in Japan to the Western world but their writings were through the eyes of scientists more interested in botany, medicine, or trade. This changed with a writer, Lafcadio Hearn, who went native and became Japan’s first naturalized English speaking foreign citizen. As an aside, the clown of hamburger fame is called Donald McDonald in Japan in deference to Ranald McDonald who taught English prior to Hearn’s arrival.

Troubled Youth

Born Patrick Lafcadio Hearn on an Ionian island in 1850 to a senior British military surgeon of Irish descent and a woman from the minor Greek nobility, Hearn was never acknowledged as legitimate by his father’s side of the family, probably due to his father’s Protestant relatives not recognizing the legitimacy of a Greek Orthodox marriage. With his father on the move due to military service Hearn was relocated to Dublin, Ireland at the age of two. Educated in Roman Catholic schools Hearn lost his faith at an early age, largely due to his parent’s marriage never being recognized and a playground incident that left him disfigured and blind in his left eye.

Portraits and photos of Hearn are of his right profile. Branded a good for nothing misfit, Hearn was sent to the United States at the age of nineteen. Settling in Ohio, Hearn lived a poor life until finding low level journalistic work. Hearn then dropped Patrick from his name because of the source in Saint Patrick and the fact that Lafcadio conveyed the exotic roots of his birthplace, the island of Lefkada. He also thought it was a catchy name for a writer. Hired as a newspaper reporter for his writing talent he developed a reputation for sensitivity with accounts of the poor and of tawdry sensationalism for his descriptions of violent crime. Fired from his job for the crime and associated scandal of inter-racial marriage, he went to work for another newspaper, but with the alleged completion of his divorce he moved to New Orleans. The legality of his marriage and divorce was in dispute until his death.

Hearn wrote for several newspapers and magazines in New Orleans and was prolific in both the variety and volume of his works. With a personality akin to Poe he embraced voodoo as a subject for writing. Hearn wrote many editorials harshly condemning the many failures common to all big cities. It is possible his disenfranchisement with the Western world sown during his early life grew as he bemoaned the ills of New Orleans with diatribes against crime, corruption, and bigotry.

Home at Last, Life in Japan 

Hearn traveled to Japan as a newspaper correspondent, a job that quickly finished as he was able to land a job teaching English in a town in western Japan, Matsue, where he married Setsu Kozumi a daughter of a samurai family. They had four children and to preserve his son’s social and legal legacy Hearn took his wife’s surname becoming known as Yakumo Kozumi. Hearn, even more prolific than before, wrote many books and articles about Japan covering a variety of subjects. Hearn’s fascination with the macabre was apparent in his most popular book, Kwaidan (Ghost Story). Kwaidan, a compilation of tales such as Mimi-nashi Hoichi (Earless Hoichi) and Yuki-onna (Snow Woman), was made into a movie of the same name in 1964 that was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes film Festival.  Another of Hearn’s works, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (published posthumously in 1904), was relied on by Bonner Fellers, General MacArthur’s military attaché and advisor on Japanese psychology at the end of and after World War II. Fellers received the ‘Second Order of the Sacred Treasure’ from Emperor Hirohito for his “long standing contribution to promoting friendship between Japan and the United States”. The relationship between MacArthur, Fellers and Hirohito is the subject of the 2012 film Emperor.

Hearn wrote about much more than ghosts or psychological impressions, he left a significant legacy with his collection of oral folktales collected at a time when ‘Old Japan’ was being pushed into the shadows by modernization. Hearn also wrote about the art of raising silkworms, incense admiration, haiku, food preparation, insects, training regimes of geisha and monks, and a myriad of other subjects. The deceptively simple title of his In a Japanese Garden conceals a sweeping study that predates the modern Feng Shui movement by one hundred years. Throughout his writings from his time in Japan one can almost feel the Western mind collating the Eastern philosophy of life. That the Japanese embraced him as a kindred soul is shown by the honor they hold for him to this day. The Hearn Memorial Museum at Matsue is still popular and was the subject of a 1984 NHK historical drama. Hearn’s book Out of the East is still used in Japanese schools today.

While it is doubtful Hearn would have been remembered by history had he not visited Japan and did what the brothers Grimm did for European folklore, one hopes his storm tossed soul finally found peace in the Land of the Rising Sun. Indeed much of his later writing expounds the merits of the Buddhist way with fanatical zeal.

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The author has used the English format of given name first, surname last, when writing Japanese names as opposed to the “Surname, Given Name” used commonly in Japan.

References

• Kwaidan; Stories and Studies of Strange Things - Lafcadio Hearn
• In Ghostly Japan - Lafcadio Hearn
• https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/hearn.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn

Family Squabbles and the Outbreak of World War I

Rebecca Fachner starts a series of articles on World War I by considering how close family ties between many European rulers may have contributed to the outbreak of war – like a family squabble on a grandiose scale.

This summer marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, and over the next few months there will be plenty of articles and books that deal with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the diplomatic machinations between the various countries after the Archduke’s death, and the outbreak of hostilities a few weeks later. One of the most interesting aspects of the beginning of the war is how most of the major powers seemed completely prepared for war, but stunned that war broke out so quickly. It is then, worth considering the political situation before the war to understand why the situation fell apart in the way it did, with the speed that it did.

Queen Victoria in 1887. Her relatives were closely connected prior to World War I.

Many people have compared World War I to a bar fight; there is even an internet graphic floating around that imagines the entire war as if the countries involved were drunks fighting at a bar rather than nations. If the war itself was a bar fight, the political situation leading up to the war is best characterized as a family squabble. Part of the reason that a comparison to a family makes sense is that the European political landscape at that time was in some ways like that of a large family. King George V of Great Britain was a grandson of Queen Victoria, first cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany through his father and the Kaiser’s mother. He was also first cousins with the Tsarina of Russia, Empress Alexandra, herself a granddaughter of Victoria. To make family dinners even more complicated, George was also a first cousin of Alexandra’s husband, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia; their mothers were sisters. His own sister was married to King Haakon of Norway, whose brother was King Christian X of Denmark, both of whom were cousins of both George and Nicholas. George and Wilhelm also had cousins in the royal houses of Greece, Romania and Spain. Confused yet? Well, almost every European royal family was related to almost every other European royal family, and untangling the branches of the family tree is a complicated endeavor, to say the least.

In an age when Europe was dominated by kingdoms and emperors, minor family disagreements became a huge problem. We all have family members that we don’t like too much for whatever reason, that’s the nature of families. But it is one thing if you don’t like your annoying cousin Nick or don’t trust cousin Bill, but when you all run countries, your dislike becomes both political and very important. Suddenly, the fact that you don’t trust your cousin has major policy implications for your government’s relationship with him and his government. This is not to suggest that pre-war alliances were purely based on family discord, or that the world lost millions of lives because of family drama. Two of the major players in the story were not linked to this large family: France because it no longer had a monarchy and Austria-Hungary because its rulers weren’t closely entwined in Queen Victoria’s royal circle. Since the war actually started between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, the non-family political situation was clearly very important too.

Why war broke out

As almost all histories tell us, World War I was the product of entangling alliances between the various powers, and their inability to stop the chain of events from overtaking them in the wake of the Archduke’s assassination. That is true; however, the crucial piece is not the entangling alliances, but the inability of each country in Europe to stop the train wreck as it was happening. The manifest weakness of many of the hereditary rulers of Europe was lethally exposed in 1914, along with their lack of diplomatic skills, their poor management style and general incompetence.

It is impossible to say whether better and more skilled (i.e. merit based) rulers would have been able to stave off a war, but it does seem clear that letting nations behave like a dysfunctional family is not the way to international harmony. Unfortunately it took an awful lot of lives to convince world leaders that international conferences shouldn’t look quite so much like a family reunion. One of the most enduring legacies of the war is that it ultimately toppled a number of the monarchies in Europe, perhaps because the conflict exposed the problems of hereditary rulers to such an extreme extent. Hereditary rule is like rolling the dice with your leadership, sometimes you roll a Peter the Great or Frederick the Great; at other times you roll a Nicholas II or Kaiser Wilhelm. Taking that kind of chance might have been a good idea at some point in history, but in an age of warfare on a massive scale and increasingly deadly weaponry, the major powers needed more skilled diplomats to manage international affairs, not to mention better military commanders.

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The importance of an African American Exhibit at the 1900 World’s Fair

Ben Parten takes us back to the 1900 World’s Fair and considers how W.E.B. Du Bois made attempts to overcome the Color Line and continued prejudice against African Americans through a breakthrough exhibition.

Exhibit of American Negroes at the Paris Exposition. Photographer unknown. Photograph undated, in Review of Reviews, vol. 22.

As the world turned its back on the nineteenth century and entered the twentieth, civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois assessed the social state of American society looking forward. In his famous book The Souls of Black Folk, he prophetically claimed, "For the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Du Bois emerged as the intellectual voice of the race uplift movement­, which sought to advance the social status of African Americans. Prior to his “color line” statement, Du Bois foresaw challenges approaching the black community and attempted to redirect the perceptions of African Americans on the world’s biggest stage: the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Though primarily thought of as an exposition to showcase industrial and technological feats, Du Bois saw the World’s Fair as an arena where “the problem of the color line” could be denigrated by expressing the intellectual acumen and social progress of African Americans. If Du Bois and his team could effectively demonstrate to their European peers that the African American community was a thriving and active component of American society, it would be a step in the direction of racial tolerance at home and abroad.

Though Du Bois is conventionally identified with the Exhibit of American Negroes, the exhibit was initially organized by Thomas Calloway. After petitioning then President William McKinley for the necessary funds to conduct the project, he enlisted Du Bois and Daniel Murray - an assistant at the Library of Congress - to gather the appropriate materials. From these collected materials, Du Bois and Murray hoped to convey four different aspects of the African American community: their history, their present state, their education, and their literature. Accordingly, they assembled a large collection of patents from African American inventors and a bibliography of over 1,400 pamphlets and books written by African American writers. Most notable of these writers was the popular poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The group even constructed charts that mapped out the demographic status of African Americans within America and in comparison to Europe. Du Bois specifically points out in “The American Negro at Paris” that “there are nearly half as many Negroes in the United States as Spaniards in Spain” and illiteracy of African American children is “less than that of Russia and only equal to that of Hungary.”

Yet, the most intriguing component of the exhibit was its compilation of photographs. Du Bois and Murray compiled over five hundred photographs highlighting the social progress of African Americans since emancipation. In order to highlight social advancement, these pictures often portrayed families, clubs, or single individuals dressed in nice clothes and sporting stylish accessories equal to those of whites. The pictures also conveyed the importance African Americans placed on education. Photos of whole graduating classes at the major African American colleges like Fisk and Howard were taken along with photos of younger students attending grammar school. Photographs were even taken of African American middle class working conditions and places of worship to show just how far African Americans had progressed since their days of servitude.

African Americans, mostly women, sorting tobacco at the T.B. Williams Tobacco Co., Richmond, Virginia

Interior of 'Negro' store, Buffalo, N.Y.

Aside from highlighting social advancement, these pictures also demeaned the disparaging notion that African Americans were less than human. In fact, the pictures proved to a European audience that African Americans were as equally human as whites by showing African Americans participating in the same types of human experiences as whites. Not only were African Americans capable of engaging in these experiences, but they had the abilities to thrive in the same modern society as white Americans. Du Bois and Murray masterfully used pictures, literature, and patents to illustrate to the Europeans that the days where an African American did not even possess his or her own body were over; they now possessed the self-ownership and proper education to actively take part in a larger global community.

During the fair, the exhibit was practically snubbed by the other American exhibitionists, and the mainstream news outlets generally ignored it. It was even relegated to a location separate from the main United States exhibit. Though dismissed by the American exhibitionists, the Exhibition of American Negros was extremely popular amongst the patrons of the fair. Europeans gawked at the amazing images and were astonished at the oeuvre of literature displayed. Even some American patrons came away impressed. One anonymous American writer called it the “most authentic evidence of the literary output of the race” and another called it “a prophetic of what may be expected.” In sum, the project was a success. Du Bois and his team were able to take an exhibit that Du Bois referred to as “an honest straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss” and use it as a tool to quicken the march toward African American equality.

You can read an article related to African American Emancipation and the struggle for equality in the June 2014 issue of History is Now Magazine, our latest issue. You can even read it for free today if you take up a no-obligation trial now.

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References

Anonymous. "Negro Authorship." Publications of the Southern History Association, 4:4. 1900 (July): 295-296.

http://books.google.com/books?id=vdQRAAAAYAAJ&as_brr=1&pg=PA295#v=onepage&q=murray&f=false

Anonymous. "The Negro in Literature." Literary Digest, v.21, n.5 (August 4, 1900): 130

http://books.google.com/books?id=_03QAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Du Bois, W.E. Burghardt. 1900. "The American Negro at Paris." The American Monthly Review of Reviews, vol.XXII, no.5 (November): pp.575-577.

http://books.google.com/books?id=hTIIg_nfB3YC&pg=PA575&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin, 1989. Print.

Gnovis, Vol. 6 (Georgetown University's journal of Communication, Culture and Technology
www.gnovisjournal.org/files/Shannon-Grevious-Finding-One-s-Place.pdf

Image Sources

Library of Congress original pictures - http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&co=anedub

Library of Congress blog - http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2014/04/collection-connections-twelve-years-a-slave/

A Scene of Chaos in a 19th Century Asylum – Image of the week

Our image of the week looks at a scene of anarchy in an eighteenth century asylum.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries life was extremely hard for many. And it only became more so when you possessed a mental health problem. Indeed, in this period mental health issues were known, but often not fully understood. One such arena in which ‘lunacy’ was often not considered was court. So, an ongoing battle was fought in the nineteenth century and in to the twentieth century to have mental health issues considered as part of trials.

At the same time, those who did manage to have their mental health problems recognized as being a mitigating factor in crimes were sent to some less-than-nice places.

The image above is a scene entitled In the Madhouse, painting eight of William Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress. In the scene we can see the inside of Bethlem Hospital (‘Bedlam’), the foremost criminal lunatic hospital of its day. The painting was produced in the 1730s. The hospital’s roots can be traced as far back as the thirteenth century, while in the Georgian era, it housed many people who were classed as insane by the authorities. The image itself shows us a picture of chaos inside the hospital, with dark figures lurking who are undertaking all sorts of weird and wonderful activities.

The latest issue of History is Now magazine features an article on criminal lunacy in the nineteenth century. The magazine also has a range of fascinating articles related to modern history from America and the wider world.

Click on the following links for more details and to get the latest issue for FREE today: Android | Apple iOS

FDR, Truman and Eisenhower in World War I

Steve Strathmann considers what the three presidents most closely associated with World War II did during  that other great war of the twentieth century – World War I.

In 1917, Woodrow Wilson led the United States as it entered the First World War. In his speech to Congress asking for a declaration of war, Wilson presented Germany’s submarine warfare as the primary reason to go to war, but he also stated a greater goal:

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

The two men who held the office before him supported the nation’s entry into the war. Theodore Roosevelt, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, asked to personally raise a division of troops to be sent to Europe. Wilson met with Roosevelt and politely declined the offer, explaining that the ranks would be instead filled through a draft. Another strike against Roosevelt going to Europe was his poor overall health; he would barely outlive the conflict, passing away on January 6, 1919.

William Howard Taft spoke publicly in support of the war. On June 13, 1917, he repeated Wilson’s “war for democracy” theme, declaring “...Now we have stepped to the forefront of nations, and they look to us.” Taft would be tapped by President Wilson to chair the National War Labor Board, a panel set up to handle labor/management disputes during the war.

While other future presidents would make contributions to the war effort (especially Herbert Hoover, whose work during and after the war would make him internationally famous), what did the three presidents most identified with the Second World War do in 1917? As we shall see, these three men all served their nation’s military in different ways.

The Assistant Secretary

FDR, with Secretary Daniels and the Prince of Wales, in Annapolis, 1919.

While the war raged overseas, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Theodore’s cousin) was a member of the Wilson administration serving as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. At the start of war, Roosevelt publicly called for an increase in the size of the US Navy by 18,000 men. This got him into trouble with Wilson and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels, who were trying to maintain a state of neutrality. Roosevelt had to recant his statement, and learned not to step on his superiors’ toes.

By July of 1915, the administration was coming into line with Roosevelt’s beliefs on naval expansion. Increased action in the Atlantic Ocean, including the sinking of the Lusitania, convinced Wilson that the military needed to be updated and enlarged to improve the nation’s defenses. Daniels and FDR presented a plan calling for the construction of 176 new ships, including ten battleships. This was approved by the president and Congress.

Even with these preparations, the US Navy was relatively small when war was declared. This had changed by the end of the war, when the force had expanded to almost a million sailors on over 2,000 vessels. Roosevelt had a hand in this, proving to be so good at gathering military supplies that he had to be asked to share the navy’s material gains with the army.

According to biographer Jean Edward Smith, FDR’s greatest wartime work was the creation of a North Sea antisubmarine chain of mines. While the initial plan was not Roosevelt’s, his promotion of the idea and the technology to accomplish it was what led to it being implemented. The chain wasn’t installed until the summer of 1918 and it was never fully tested, but estimates of German U-boats destroyed by the mines range from four to as many as twenty-three.

Above all, Franklin Roosevelt wanted to serve in the military during the war. He knew how his cousin’s military exploits helped with his political career and wanted to follow in his footsteps. Theodore Roosevelt even encouraged Franklin to enlist. Unfortunately for FDR, his talents working for the administration meant that Wilson and Daniels would never let him leave his post.

Roosevelt did eventually make it to the Western Front, but not as a soldier. In the summer of 1918, he was sent as part of a Senate committee to inspect the situation in Europe. He insisted on going to the French battlefields, including Verdun and Belleau Wood, and came within one mile of the German front lines. Little did he know, his future vice president was serving in an artillery unit not too far away.

Captain Harry

Harry S. Truman in France, 1918.

Harry S. Truman volunteered when war was declared, and the former Missouri Guard member was elected an officer in the artillery formations being organized in the Kansas City/Independence region. After training in Oklahoma, the units sailed for France, arriving on April 13, 1918.

On July 11, Truman took over command of Battery D. The battery had had issues with their previous commanders, but Truman soon earned their respect. Indeed, according to author Robert Ferrell, these soldiers would in the future be Truman’s political base, willing to do anything to support the man they called “Captain Harry.”

Truman’s battery saw action in the Vosges Mountains, Meuse-Argonnes and Verdun. Before Meuse-Argonnes, the captain marched his battery for twenty-two nights to reach their destination. During the two weeks there, Truman’s men sometimes fired their guns so often that, according to the battery’s chief mechanic, “...they’d pour a bucket of water down the muzzle and it’d come out of the breach just a-steaming, you know.”

Verdun was a particularly grizzly posting. The area where the unit was stationed was part of the 1916 battlefield, so every shell that landed around the battery would churn up graves from the previous action. Truman would describe waking up in the morning and finding skulls lying nearby. The battery would serve at Verdun until the end of the war.

While Truman was learning to become a leader of men under fire, one of his future generals was fresh out of West Point, desperate to join in the action, but continually thwarted in his attempts.

Ike

Dwight D. Eisenhower, with tank, in Fort Meade.

Dwight D. Eisenhower graduated from West Point in 1915, sixty-first in a class of 164. Despite his wishes to be posted in the Philippines, he ended up in Texas. When the United States entered the war, Eisenhower was appointed regimental supply officer of the new 57th Regiment.

Unfortunately for the ambitious Ike, he proved to be an excellent training officer and was turned down every time he requested a transfer to Europe. Like Roosevelt, he was too valuable to let go. He was soon transferred to Fort Meade to help organize the 301st Tank Battalion, one of the United States’ first tank units. He was supposed to leave for France with the 301st as its commander, but at the last minute was told that he would remain behind (once again) to set up a training base, Camp Colt, to be located on the old Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Eisenhower did a fantastic job setting up Camp Colt, which soon held more than 10,000 men training on the site of Pickett’s Charge. Due to a lack of tanks, they would use guns mounted on flatbed trucks to practice firing at targets while in motion. Finally all was going well and Eisenhower was scheduled to leave for Europe with the next group of recruits, but the war ended just as they were preparing to leave.

War to End All Wars?

As the war ended, these three men probably thought what most others did: this war was the last of its kind to be fought. Eisenhower would remain in the army. Truman would return to Missouri and try his hand in business. Roosevelt would continue in politics, running for vice president on the unsuccessful 1920 Democratic ticket. Little did these three men know that they were destined to meet in just over a couple of decades, fighting the next world war.

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References

Aboukhadijeh, Feross. "U.S. Entry into WWI" StudyNotes.org. StudyNotes, Inc., Published November 17, 2012. Accessed May 16, 2014.

Duffy, Michael, ed. “Primary Documents- U.S. Declaration of War with Germany, 2 April 1917.” FirstWorldWar.com. Published August 22, 2009. Accessed May 16, 2014.

Duffy, Michael, ed. “Primary Documents- William Howard Taft on America’s Decision to go to War, 13 June 1917.” FirstWorldWar.com. Published August 22, 2009. Accessed May 16, 2014.

Ferrell, Robert H. Harry S. Truman: a life. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1994.

Korda, Michael. Ike: An American Hero. New York: Harper, 2007.

Smith, Jean Edward. FDR. New York: Random House, 2007.

Photos

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/npc2007000705/resource/ (FDR, with Secretary Daniels and the Prince of Wales, in Annapolis, 1919)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_S._Truman_WW_I.jpg (Harry S. Truman in France, 1918)

http://www.ftmeade.army.mil/museum/Eisenhower_with_Tank.jpg (Dwight D. Eisenhower, with tank, in Fort Meade)

The man who wanted to resurrect George Washington

William Bodkin tells us the fascinating story of William Thornton, the man who wanted to resurrect George Washington after his death.

Humanity has often exhibited a desire to exalt the great individuals of an age; indeed, the study of history itself often lends itself to not just the memorialization of these men and women, but their continued veneration after their time on earth. Occasionally, this veneration takes on a desire to keep the person’s physical body present with us. For example, the newly canonized Pope John XXIII lies in state at the Vatican for pilgrims to visit. At the other end of the spectrum, Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Russian Soviet Federative Republic and then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, lies still in his mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square. And following the death of George Washington, first President of the United States of America, one individual had quite a different plan; not to have the great general and widely hailed ‘Father’ of the United States lie in perpetual state, but to bring him back from the dead.

Washington on his Deathbed by Junius Brutus Stearns. 1851.

William Thornton was a medical doctor, schooled at the University of Edinburgh. Not content with this simple profession, he was also an inventor, painter, and architect (though he lacked formal training in the latter). He designed the United States Capitol building, served as the first ‘Architect of the Capitol’ and the First Superintendent of the United State Patent Office.[1] Often described as an authentic ‘polymath’, he was a Renaissance man of the American Enlightenment.

WASHINGTON AND BEING BURIED ALIVE

Thornton shared with many of the time the preoccupation with the dangers of being buried alive, or with people returning from what seemed an all but conclusive death. In his youth in Britain, Thornton had been a member of the “Royal Humane Society,” which despite its familiar name, was devoted not to the protection of animals, but was rather a group organized and devoted to preventing human drownings and to attempt to resuscitate the newly or near drowned.[2]

George Washington shared these views. That is to say, while he did not share Thornton’s preoccupation with bringing back the newly dead, he wanted to make certain he was not buried alive. In the hours before his death from “acute bacterial epiglottitis”[3], an infection of the entrance to the larynx that made it all but impossible for him to eat, Washington instructed his personal secretary, Tobias Lear, to have him “decently buried” and to “not let me be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead.”[4]

As Washington lay in his final illness in December 1799, Thornton, long a friend of the President, was invited by one of Martha Washington’s granddaughters to tend to the dying man.[5]  Thornton, then supervising construction of rental property in the District of Columbia that Washington owned,[6] left for Mount Vernon at once, confident of being able to relieve Washington of his discomfort by means of a tracheotomy. But Washington died on December 14, 1799, a few days before Thornton made it to Mount Vernon to attend to him. Thornton himself describes his reaction:

When we arrived, to my unspeakable grief, we found him laid out a stiffened corpse. My feelings at that moment I cannot express! I was overwhelmed with the loss of the best friend I had on earth.[7]

True to form, though, death would not deter Thornton from his efforts to save his new nation’s first president:

The weather was very cold, and he remained in a frozen state for many days. I proposed to attempt his restoration in the following manner. First and by degrees and by friction to give him warmth, and to put into activity the minute blood vessels, at the same time to open a passage to the Lungs by the Trachea, and to inflate them with air, to produce an artificial respiration, and to transfuse blood into him from a lamb. If these means had been resorted to, and had failed all that could be done would have been done, but I was not seconded in this proposal; for it was deemed unavailing. I reasoned thus. He died by the loss of blood and the want of air. Restore these with the heat that had subsequently been deducted, and as the organization was in every respect perfect, there was no doubt in my mind that his restoration was possible.[8]

LIVING FOREVER

Calmer heads, however, prevailed and Thornton was prevented from enacting his plan. Perhaps as a consolation for a friend, Thornton’s demand that Washington’s body be enclosed within a lead coffin was granted,[9] but his stated reason for doing so, that Washington might be entombed one day in an eventual monument to honor him in the District that now bears his name never materialized.  Martha Washington insisted her husband remain in the family vault at Mount Vernon.[10]

Thornton remained a believer in the merits of his plan, wondering if it were possible, or if it would be right, to attempt to bring back to life “one who had parted full of honor and renown; free of the frailties of age, in the full enjoyment of every faculty, prepared for eternity.”[11] Was Thornton a genius or madman?  His widow, perhaps quite naturally, believed the former, recording in her diary that the good doctor had been told by a member of Congress that he was living a hundred years too soon and that his views were to vast to be embraced by the men of the time.[12]

If Thornton was ahead of his time, it is likely that it was more than 250 years, and not a century as that unnamed Congressman speculated. Recently, studies were published suggesting that blood transfusions from younger animals, that use their stem cells, may hold the key to reversing certain effects of the aging process.[13] The wisdom of this, to be sure, must also be debated. Would the United States have benefited from having George Washington bestride it in perpetuity? Could anything have been accomplished had John Adams and Thomas Jefferson been alive to quarrel with each other for the last few centuries, instead of their proxies and ideological inheritors undertaking the task? Fortunately for us, these questions, though tantalizing closer, remain for historians, scientists, and philosophers to debate until they (possibly) become reality.

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[1] Paulson, George. Dr.William Thornton’s Views of Sleep, Dreams and Resuscitation.  Journal of the History of Neuroscience, 18:25-46 (2009)(“Paulson”).

[2] Paulson, 42

[3] Mitgang, Herbert, “Death of a President: A 200 Year Old Malpractice Debate,” New York Times, December 14, 1999

[4] Thompson, Mary V. “Death Defied: Dr. Thornton’s Radical Idea of Bringing George Washington Back to Life”  George Washington’s Mount Vernon website, www.mountvernon.org

[5] Paulson, 44

[6] Paulson, 44

[7] Harris, C.M., ed. “The Papers of William Thornton,” University of Virginia Press (2009), p. 528 (“Harris”).

[8] Harris, 528.

[9] Thompson

[10] Paulson, 44

[11] Harris, 528

[12] Paulson, 44.

[13] Villeda, Saul, et. al. “Young Blood Reverses Age-Related Impairments in Cognitive Function and Synaptic Plasticity in Mice (Nature, 2014).