The ‘Scramble for Africa’ – Then and Now

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

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

‘Scrambling’ Everywhere But Africa

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First ‘Scramble’

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

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

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

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

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

From ‘Civilizing’ to Conquering

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

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

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

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

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

The New Scramble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 1865 Battle of Riachuelo during the war.

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

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

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

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

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

Creation of the Triple Alliance

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

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

What was he thinking?

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

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

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

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

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

Allied Squabbling

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

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

Preparations for Defense

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

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

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

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

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

Further Reading

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

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

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

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

Russia’s First Female Ruler: Sophia Alekseyevna

In the world of 17th century Russia, women had no rights. The daughters and sisters of the Russian Tsar were kept in a terem, an apartment usually located at the top of a large Russian house, where they spent their lives in isolation and boredom. The world heard of them twice in their lifetimes – with the announcement of their births, and with the announcement of their deaths. From these circumstances, Sophia Alekseyevna rose to rule all of Russia as regent from 1682 to 1689.

Jurij Cerkovnik explains.

Sophia Alekseyevna in the 1680s.

Early Years

Born in 1657, Sophia lived in a terem in her early childhood, but somehow persuaded her father, Tsar Alexis, to break with tradition and allow her to share the lessons of her younger brother Fedor. Together they studied under an eminent scholar, Belorussian monk Simeon Polotsky, who found Sophia to be ‘’a maiden of great intelligence and the most delicate understanding, with an accomplished masculine mind.’’ Securing an education at such an early age proved to be one of her greatest triumphs as it laid the foundation for her later life. 

She was nineteen when her father, Tsar Alexis, unexpectedly died, and her younger brother, fifteen years old at the time, became Tsar Feodor III.

Sophia took the opportunity to further break with tradition. Throughout the reign of her little brother, she began to emerge from the terem to attend councils of state and gradually became included in conversations and decisions, allowing her political views to mature and her confidence in her abilities to grow. With time, she came to understand that her intellectual powers and abilities matched those of the men around her; the only barrier to supreme authority was her sex and the traditions of 17th century Russia.

 

The Boyars

In 17th century Russia, a dozen ranks of nobility stood beneath the Tsar, the highest of which were the boyars who came from princely families with hereditary land titles. These noblemen made up the Tsar’s court, sat in his councils, and competed for the chance to marry their daughters to the ruler of Russia.

Sophia’s mother Maria was Tsar Alexis’ first wife. She came from the powerful Miloslavky family, but in March 1669, Maria died in childbirth. She had born the Tsar thirteen children. Five were boys, but only two would long survive her – Sophia’s brothers Feodor and Ivan, both of whom suffered from severe health issues.

Tsar Alexis, determined to secure the succession, decided to marry again, this time to a woman named Natalya Naryshkina and on May 30, 1672, Natalya gave birth to a little boy history remembers as Peter the Great.

With the death of Tsar Alexis in 1676, his eldest son Feodor became Tsar and, for the time being, the power of the Miloslavsky family was secured. Sophia had the chance to increase her involvement in politics and spread her influence, but when Feodor died six years later, the tensions between the Miloslavkys and the Naryshkins came to a head.

Feodor died without children. The two possible successors were his younger brother Ivan, sixteen at the time, and Peter himself. Ivan was half-blind and had a severe speech impediment, so the ten-year-old Peter was selected as the successor – it was assumed his mother Natalya would rule as Regent until Peter reached his majority.

For Sophia, Natalya’s Regency proved to be an existential threat. History suspects several individuals of being responsible for the upheaval that followed, but only Sophia found herself threatened with seclusion in a convent for the rest of her life. She saw the opportunity to live a meaningful life slipping through her fingers and it was that fact more than any other than most likely gave her the courage to attempt to overthrow Natalya’s regime.

 

The Revolt of the Streltsy

The Streltsy were the first professional soldiers in Russia. Formed by Ivan the Terrible, they soon became the key to power in Moscow.

The Tsar provided them with food and housing, but in peacetime, they did not have much to do and began to engage in trade. Due to their membership in the army, they paid no taxes and soon became very rich, making them less and less interested in soldiery.

The Streltsy hated foreigners and any threats to the orthodoxy, believing a change in the status quo might endanger their position. As such, they did not look kindly upon the Naryshkins and the new Regent Natalya – she had brought Western influence to court when she became Tsar Alexis’ wife.

Sophia fanned the rumors that began to spread among the soldiers. During her brother’s funeral, she had followed the hearse on foot, weeping openly, and suggested Feodor did not die of natural causes. The gossip took off from there. People claimed Ivan had been pushed aside in favor of Peter and now that the Naryshkin’s schemes had succeeded, Natalya and her family would wage an all-out assault on Russian traditions and values. The Streltsy came to hate Natalya and the rest of her family, and it took but a single spark to start the fire.

On the morning of May 15, 1682, two men rode into the Streltsy Quarter (one of them was Peter Tolstoy, an ancestor of the famous writer Leo Tolstoy). They shouted that the Regent Natalya had murdered Ivan. The Streltsy went into a frenzy – they mustered their forces and marched on the Kremlin.

Three days of carnage followed during which Regent Natalya’s brother and her closest advisor were both murdered, along with scores of noblemen. That Ivan still lived did not dampen the Streltsy’s interest in carnage.

When the horror came to an end, Sophia assumed power. She was the natural choice; Natalya was overwhelmed by the tragedy that struck her family, Peter himself was a boy of ten, and some of the most powerful men at the Kremlin had been killed in the chaos.

Sophia quickly pacified the Streltsy, then forced another coronation, this time of her younger brother Ivan. Because Peter had already been crowned Tsar, it was determined that Ivan and Peter would rule as equals, the first time in European history that such an event came to pass – all thanks to Sophia’s cunning maneuvering.

With her younger brother safely installed, Sophia had secured her position as Regent and ruled Russia for the next seven years.

 

Sophia’s Regency and Downfall

Sophia’s reign proved to be a delicate balancing act. The people accepted her Regency and government, but she had to tread carefully so as to never make it seem as though she might usurp power from Ivan and Peter. She tried to declare herself an autocrat on numerous occasions, of course, but never successfully, and she always made sure to back down before too much damage was done to her reputation.

Her greatest success as a ruler is inextricably tied to the cause of her downfall. In a peace treaty with Poland, Sophia secured the control of Kyiv under the Russian state, but in exchange, she was forced to launch two disastrous military campaigns against the Crimean Tatars.

                  It was after the end of the second failed campaign that Peter rose and challenged his half-sister. Disgusted by the military disasters and tired of wondering if his half-sister meant to kill him, the now seventeen-year-old Tsar gradually began to assume control. Sophia found herself powerless to stop it. She attempted to incite another revolt of the Streltsy but failed because circumstances had changed. When she first rose to power, Peter had been a young boy while Ivan was a sickly adult uninterested in ruling. 

The second time around, Peter was a grown man. Sophia could not overcome the realities of her gender; the Streltsy, the Russian clergy, and the rest of the people were unwilling to follow a woman over a male Tsar.

 

Conclusion

Tsar Peter exiled or executed Sophia’s main supporters and banished Sophia to a convent outside of Moscow, where she spent the remaining fifteen years of her life. She died on July 3, 1704, at the age of forty-six. 

The impact of her life cannot be exaggerated. Before her arrival, it was inconceivable for the Russians to imagine a female ruler, but after the death of Peter the Great, four empresses would succeed him. The life of an 18th-century Russian woman was light-years ahead of the life of a 17th-century Russian woman, and it is thanks to Sophia’s character and strength that such massive strides were made. 

Sophia Alekseyevna was a woman who, like many before her, found her life controlled by the realities of her era, but stepped forth in spite of the risks, seized control of her life, and altered Russian history.

What do you think of Sophia Alekseyevna? Let us know below.    

Sources

Massie, Robert K. Peter the Great: His Life and His World. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980, pp. 19-107

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sophia-alekseyevna-1657-1704

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Alekseyevna_of_Russia

Deborah Sampson: The Most Important Female Fighter in the American Revolutionary War?

The American Revolutionary War evokes images of farmers and tradesmen putting down their tools for muskets, ordinary citizens stepping into roles otherwise foreign to them, and a willingness to fight and die for freedom. While the images in our minds of those doing so may flash from iconic officers like General George Washington, to simple privates plowing their way from New England to the mid-Atlantic and back again, history has shown us that not all those who took up arms for the fledgling republic were men. America’s first recognized female soldier, Deborah Sampson, would be a blazing example of America’s women being active in this founding conflict.

Jacqueline Nelson explains.

Portrait of Deborah Sampson. Front of The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, the Female Soldier in the War of Revolution.

Origins

Deborah Sampson was born in 1760 and raised near Massachusetts’ original colony, Plymouth. She was, in fact, believed to be a descendent of both Myles Standish and Governor William Bradford. However, these deep roots would not be enough to save the Sampson children from poverty. Her father, Jonathan, was either lost at sea or abandoned the family when she was only five, and her mother was forced to ship her and her siblings off, individually, to family members willing to take them in. Then, when she was ten, Sampson was bound as an indentured servant and completed her term by eighteen. After, she would work as a teacher and weaver for several years.

At age twenty-one, Sampson went headlong into a war that had been raging for seven years. In 1782, she joined the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment as a volunteer under the alias of Robert Shurtleff/Shurtliff. Recently, a diary belonging to her neighbor was discovered which indicates that she actually tried this scheme earlier that year but was turned away because her disguise must not have been quite up to it. Dressing as a man was not only scandalous, but also illegal for the women of Massachusetts. As a result, she would be demonized by the local church. However, she would not be around to actually face their vitriol, as she tried again in May 1782, forty miles away from home, and was successfully enlisted.

Historians have long questioned why she would venture so willingly into a conflict that had already taken many American lives and had seen devasting conditions for soldiers like those infamous winters in Valley Forge and Morristown. In truth, women can be just as politically, patriotically, or emotionally driven to service as the men of their time. Similarly, as a woman who had lived in poverty her whole life, the promise of regular pay, enlistment bonuses/bounties, and other incentives for soldiers were also just as appealing to women as they were to the men. 

Service

Once enlisted, she would be assigned to West Point, where she served in the Light Infantry Troops. This demanding posting required soldiers to almost constantly be on the move, scouting the enemy, and when necessary, skirmishing with both English soldiers and Loyalist militia. Sampson’s tenure in the service is one that is debated, not in terms of her actual participation, which is undeniable, but her experiences while serving in the light infantry.

Sampson would not escape the war unscathed, and the injuries she sustained are a great example of that debate around her experience in the war. In one skirmish she is said to have received a nasty gash across her forehead from an opponent’s sword, which was treated at a field hospital, but in that same engagement she took two iron balls in her left thigh. Knowing that she would be discovered if this wound was treated, she slipped out of the hospital and back to her own tent, where she is said to have dug one piece of shrapnel out of her leg using a pen knife. Being unable to reach the other, she stitched up her wound with a simple sewing needle and lived the rest of her life with the shrapnel in her leg. Other sources indicate that she was shot in her shoulder and dug the iron ball from there.

Through it all, Sampson had been remarkably adept at keeping her identity secret, but she could not evade discovery forever. After serving for more than a year, she came down with a severe fever while serving outside Philadelphia in the summer of 1783. Her fever became untenable, and she fell unconscious. Not unlike a modern field medic or even your average EMT, medical providers often have to remove clothing to examine the body during treatment. When Dr. Barnabas Binney discovered that Robert was really Deborah, he could, as many would, report this to the closest officer and have her booted out immediately. Instead, he helped her continue to conceal her identity, temporarily, bringing her to his home, where his wife and daughters help to provide her care until she was well enough to return.

Shortly after her return, Dr. Binney would reveal her identity to her commanding officer, General John Paterson. Paterson would give her an honorable discharge on October 23, 1783, one month after the Treaty of Paris was signed, and seventeen months after she joined the army ranks. Some sources even indicate she received the discharge from General Henry Knox, one of Washington’s closest advisors. 

Legacy

Sampson would return to civilian life, marrying and having children, but she continued to struggle with poverty. Like many soldiers, her service did not come with all the rewards it was meant to. Thus, in her later years, she went on a year-long tour, at times in uniform, to lecture about her times in the service. She would also be among many soldiers who pushed for a military pension in rightful compensation for their service, though, sadly, she would not see it before she passed away at age 66. Still, Sampson would be the only woman to be awarded that pension, after much lobbying of Congress from her husband, those who saw her speak, and even founding fathers like Paul Revere and John Hancock. The committee reviewing her case came to the ultimate conclusion that the entirety of the Revolution, “furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage” than that found in Sampson. Sadly, they would come to this conclusion in 1837, ten years after she had passed away.

Sampson is the first recognized woman to join the ranks in the service of America, and in doing so she is the bedrock upon which American servicewomen would build. Hundreds of women are cataloged as having similarly disguised themselves as men to serve in the Civil War. Thousands would serve in the World Wars without the need for concealment through the demand for designated female branches in the armed services. Eventually, progress would lead to the integration of the armed forces, and the continued barriers being broken for women in the service today. Sampson’s headstone reads, “The Female Soldier”, and thankfully, her legacy was just the first of many.  

What do you think of Deborah Sampson? Let us know below.

References

Cowan, Alison Leigh. “The Woman Who Sneaked into George Washington’s Army.” New York Times, July 2, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/arts/design/the-woman-who-sneaked-into-george-washingtons-army.html

Michals, Debra. “Deborah Sampson.” National Women’s History Museum, 2015. Accessed 10/30/2021. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson

“Revolutionary War Diary Reveals New Details about Deborah Sampson, Who Disguised Herself as a Man to Join the Continental Army.” Museum of the American Revolution, July 3, 2019. Accessed 10/30/2021. https://www.amrevmuseum.org/press-releases/revolutionary-war-diary-reveals-new-details-about-deborah-sampson-who-disguised-herself-as-a-man-to-join-the-continental-army

The U.S. and Great Britain: The Birth of The Special Relationship and the Navy 1928-30

We frequently hear about the long-standing “Special Relationship” between the United Stated and Great Britain. In the twentieth century, the two powers bonded closely even as one waxed and the other waned. One superpower replaced another—without armed conflict between them. Only this once has that happened. Peter Deane explains the basis of this relationship through naval agreements from 1928 to 1930.

Herbert Hoover’s inauguration in 1929.

When one considers the “Special Relationship”, one often thinks of Prime Minister (PM) Winston S. Churchill, who made famous the phrase after World War Two (WWII), and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But the real start was in 1929, by President Herbert C. Hoover and Prime Minster J. Ramsey MacDonald. A brief window for foreign policy progress was open, before the Great Depression took hold, when the negotiations leading up to the London Naval Conference of 1930 (LNC) took place. Hoover’s motivations in particular were unsentimental, and neither man sought an alliance. From this distance, the LNC itself seems history trivia: a disarmament conference that did not prevent WWII. However, the Anglo-American negotiations leading up to it left a lasting peace. After 1929, the Empire and the Republic may have had friction, but never was there a question of hostility. As late as 1928 this was not true.

The Situation through 1928

The nineteenth century saw alternate Anglo-American cooperation and friction. The Empire and the Republic shared a common language and some history. In 1902 the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty seemed to Americans to be directed at their new Pacific power. The British interdiction of neutral American trade with the Central Powers during World War One (WWI) was a potent source of hostility among some Americans, particularly within the United States Navy (USN). Naval policy was a primary reason that the USN role was to safeguard belligerent rights, better known as “freedom of the seas”; i.e., American shipping and commerce; i.e., the American economy. The Naval Act of 1916 authorized a Navy “second to none”, but not one particularly suited to war against Germany. All knew the U.S. could out-build any island empire. The U.S. entered WWI only after Germany became a greater hindrance to American shipping than was Britain. 

American entry into the Great War papered over the belligerent rights issue, as did post-War disillusionment among the victors. Pacifist sentiment among them in reaction to the War led to a round of agreements in 1921-1922 aimed at disarmament as a means of war prevention. Among them were the Four Power Treaty which replaced the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and the Washington Naval Treaty which formalized Anglo-American “parity” in capital ships. The post-War Empire simply did not have the resources to out build the Republic.

This predicament sat poorly with some Britons. Churchill wrote that while many thought an Anglo-American war was unthinkable, “everyone knows that is not true…. Evidently on the basis of American naval superiority, speciously disguised as parity, immense dangers overhang the future of the world.” Britain nevertheless enjoyed a merchant marine quintuple the size of the American, with accompanying commercial advantages and many of which vessels could be armed, along with a worldwide set of fueling stations. The American code name for such a war was “War Plan Red.” 

Anglo-American agreement on further naval limitation fell through in 1927 at a conference in Geneva. Many on both sides of the Atlantic felt that the collapse of the talks was due to domination of the talks by the respective naval staffs, who would not compromise. The next year an Anglo-French disarmament compromise was proposed, which primarily limited the class of naval vessels the USN valued most. (This was in part due to French concerns that an Anglo-American rapprochement would distract Britain from its ties with France.) President Calvin Coolidge pulled out of further disarmament talks and signed the Naval Construction Act of 1929 to build more of the non-treaty vessels. 

Rivalry had officially resumed. International consensus was that a multinational disarmament treaty required the Empire and the Republic to settle their naval competition first. 

But in 1928, a new President was elected, who endorsed not only the naval construction bill if it proved necessary, but also naval reduction (not just limitation) by treaty if possible. 

1929: The Statesmen

The new President later recorded in his Memoirs that among basic goals of his administration was: 

“Elimination of friction with Great Britain.

a.     By ending naval competition. 

b.     By ending British expansion of air and naval bases in the Western Hemisphere. 

c.     By settling one major conflict over freedom of the seas by immunizing food ships from submarine attack in time of war.” 

His Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, wrote of his own positions: “He inclined to place primary emphasis on the re-establishment of understanding with Great Britain; returning … to the Atlantic coast he had been shocked to find that anti-British sentiment had greatly increased…. Being himself a confirmed believer in the vital importance of firm Anglo-American friendship, he at once determined to make the repair of relations with Great Britain a cardinal objective…. The obvious first step was to reach agreement on naval limitation … but it was the restoration of understanding with Great Britain that he put first.”

The President was of Quaker upbringing and saw the proper role of the USN as defense of the Western Hemisphere. (The Philippines was to become independent.) The navy was adequate to the task as it was and could be reduced significantly, with much money saved—if Great Britain was amenable. American civilians saw war with Britain as unimaginable. Friction could only be eliminated by civilian leaders.

That same Spring, MacDonald became Prime Minister. He was felt to be something of an Americanophile. Both he and the Foreign Office wanted better relations with the United States and saw naval disarmament talks as the means to that end. 

1929: Preliminary Negotiations

Hoover started in March by making statements favoring disarmament. On April 22, Hugh S. Gibson, American ambassador to Belgium and previous disarmament negotiator, proposed that the U.S. was prepared to develop “a method of estimating equivalent naval values”, such that parity did not mean identicality. (This method was not specified.) Soon known as the “yardstick”, the proposal was received with enthusiasm in both nations—a breakthrough in the naval disarmament issue. “What is wanted,” Gibson concluded, “is a common-sense agreement, based on the idea that we are going to be friends and settle our problems by peaceful means.” One British periodical called it an “American declaration of peace to Britain.” 

In May, Hoover sent as an informal emissary to MacDonald, a journalist named Edward P. Bell, to gauge his thoughts about the matter and relations more generally. These included a possible (unprecedented) visit by the PM to the U.S. for direct talks with the President. The reply Bell cabled to Hoover: “HAVE AUTHORITY MACDONALD STATE THAT IF YOU INVITE HIM VISIT YOU WASHINGTON CANVASS WHOLE QUESTION BRITISH-AMERICAN RELATIONS HE WILL ACCEPT WITHIN TWENTY FOUR HOURS.” 

Hoover was taken aback by the enthusiasm. On June 18, the newly-arrived American ambassador, Charles G. Dawes, gave a prominent speech in which he reiterated the principle of parity and civilian control of negotiations. Dawes was left with the details to negotiate. He and MacDonald did so over the following few months. By the fall, most issues had been agreed. The bulk of issues need to be resolved before MacDonald could visit, not least of all because the Americans wanted to be sure MacDonald would receive a friendly reception in America. 

At his point, Hoover had agreed to forgo the belligerent rights question broadly. That Summer, Macdonald agreed to “parity” according to the yet-to-be specified yardstick, over the objection of his Admiralty. These two concessions, although not linked by anyone at the time, made the deal that made the Special Relationship. It also eased the peaceful rise of the U.S. concurrent with the early decline of British power.

Why did Britain agree to parity? Great Britain was facing financial limits, in part due to the debts incurred to the U.S. for WWI. It could not afford an arms race with the United States and its seemingly endless resources.

1929: The Rapidan Conference

MacDonald’s reception in American cities proved warm and enthusiastic. His meeting with Hoover took place mostly at Hoover’s Rapidan, Maryland, fishing camp. MacDonald parried Hoover’s proposals for immunity for food ships (the Admiralty would not accept this at all)—they agreed this could be discussed after naval disarmament was settled. He declined Hoover’s offer to purchase British naval bases in the Caribbean Sea, including British Honduras, but the bases ceased to expand in subsequent years. They agreed on parity of naval forces and the use of the yardstick even if the yardstick was not fully defined. London was agreed as the setting for the next multinational Naval Disarmament Conference. 

Coverage of the Rapidan meeting generally eclipsed coverage of the October stock market crash. But the time when Hoover could concentrate on foreign affairs was coming to an end. 

1930: The LNC

From our perspective, the LNC was somewhat anticlimactic. The LNC was the last major world conference attended by ship, for the Americans the U.S.S. George Washington, the same vessel which took the Wilson delegation to the Versailles conference. Stimson led the U. S. delegation now, with another Cabinet Secretary—Charles Francis Adams III, Navy—and other members. The negotiators were civilians, not naval officers. Naval men were there as technical advisers only, unlike the failed 1927 meeting. The leading naval powers, Great Britain, the Japanese Empire and the U. S., achieved trilateral agreement on naval limitation as hoped. France and Italy could not agree and withdrew. 

The numbers and details of the London Naval Treaty are not important now. Its effect in Japan is beyond our scope here. But in both Britain and the U.S. it was considered a success and ratified that same year despite some naval opposition in both countries.

In perspective

Nineteen twenty-nine was a “hinge of history”. In the middle of the first half of the twentieth century, a deal was struck. That same half-century saw Germany twice fight violently to dominate Europe, only to founder on British opposition. One of the causes of WWI was the German Empire’s plan to achieve naval equality with the British, intolerable to the British. Yet the British Empire fifteen years later accepted parity, on paper, to the USN. Great Britain decided in this case that another war with the United States was not going to happen. 

This settlement was not without cost to either side. Both Britain and the U. S. were constrained in their potential responses to growing Japanese militarism and aggressiveness, and in their preparations for possible Pacific war. The U.S. quietly abandoned over a century of work in peace and war to preserve freedom of the seas, even merely limited to food ships. Great Britain made sacrifices which in retrospect hastened its decline as a naval power. 

Even the isolationism in the U.S. in the later nineteen-thirties, while a force among the American public, was not felt as antagonism at the highest levels of either nation. Hoover and MacDonald together had put hostility aside for good, and without fully realizing it.

What do you think of the period 1928-30 in Anglo-American relations? Let us know below.

Bibliography

Baer, G. W. One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U. S. Navy, 1890-1990. Stanford, CA; Stanford University Press, 1993 (Chap. 6)

Dawes, C. G. Journal as Ambassador to Great Britain. New York, NY; The Macmillan Co., 1939 (Passim)

Ferrell, R. H. American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929-1933. New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 1957 (Passim, esp. Chaps. 1-3 & 5)

Hagan, K. J. This People’s Navy: The Making of American Sea Power. New York, NY; The Free Press, 1991 (Chap. 9)

Hoover, H. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933. New York, NY; The Macmillan Co., 1952 (Chap. 45)

Jeansonne, G. The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928-1933. New York, NY; Palgrave Macmillan, 2012 (Chap. 7)

Maurer, J. H. and Bell, C. M., eds. At the Crossroads between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference of 1930. Annapolis, MD; Naval Institute Press, 2014 (Passim esp. Chaps. 0-2)

O’Connor, R. G. Perilous Equilibrium: The United States and the London Naval Conference of 1930. Lawrence, KA; University of Kansas Press, 1962 (Passim)

Roberts, A. “When Churchill Dissed America” Smithsonian Magazine, Nov. 2018

Stimson, H. L. and Bundy, McG. On Active Service in Peace and War. New York, NY; Harper Bros., 1947 (Chap. VII:2)

Wheeler, G. E. Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U. S. Navy: A Sailor’s Life. Washington, DC; Naval History Division, Department of the Navy, 1974 (Chap. IX)

A key US Civil War Battle in 1862: The Battle of Shiloh

The Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 is perhaps one of the most overlooked in its overall importance to the outcome of the US Civil War. In this article Curtis J. Smothers explains the battle and how it impacted the war.

The Battle of Shiloh. By Thure de Thulstrup.

The Battle of Shiloh was one of the bloodiest battle ever fought on US soil up to its time, with over 23,000 dead, 13,000 of whom were northerners. But the battle’s outcome had more far-reaching effects:

·       Shiloh nearly ruined the career of Union General U.S. Grant

·       The battle also cost the Confederacy one its best generals, Albert S. Johnston, who was shot in the leg while riding in the thick of battle

However, Shiloh’s importance lies in how it changed Grant's thinking and how it set the stage for Union domination of the Mississippi River, Grant’s going east and the eventual defeat of the Confederacy.

The sobering reality of the war to come

After Shiloh, Grant realized firsthand that the South would not be easily beaten. Before Shiloh, and based on his earlier easy victories at Fort Henry and Donelson, Grant had scant respect for the Confederate fighting spirit and ability. After the carnage and near defeat of his bivouacked, green Union troops, who ran from the hordes of yelling rebels and cowered by the river bluffs, Grant came to know what his subordinate and friend, William Tecumseh Sherman, knew: the war would last for years, and the South would have to be completely crushed.

Grant’s green troops bivouacked, but didn’t dig on

The Battle of Shiloh took place on the western bank of the Tennessee River, where Grant had ferried his nearly 50,000-man army to place called Pittsburg Landing. (Much of the bloodiest fighting took place around a church called "Shiloh," whose name, ironically, is derived from the Hebrew for "peace.") Grant's plans were to wait for reinforcement from General Don Carlos Buell and strike out at the Confederacy with his superior forces with the goal of capturing the major Confederate rail junction at Corinth, Mississippi. Grant, who was not prone to digging in or building entrenchments, figured his raw troops needed to be drilled and shaped up.

Confederates could have won

In the early morning hours of April 6, 1862, Grant was totally surprised by the Confederates, who overran Yankee camps that had failed to even post patrols.

In the ebb and flow of the battlefield on the first day, it was only through the lack of good tactical leadership, experience and good weaponry on the part of the Confederates that prevented a total Yankee defeat at Shiloh. Confederate General Johnston's biggest mistake was going to the battle front. He left orders to his subordinate Beauregard to stay behind and execute the battle plan of cutting off the Yankee retreat to the river, but Beauregard had a different plan, which was to run straight ahead and push the Yankees into the river. As Johnston bled to death after a leg wound, daylight waned and Confederate hopes of victory also died.

Beauregard decided to wait until the next day

The battle of the first day ended after Grant and Sherman rallied to stabilize the Yankee positions. Beauregard, however, figured that he had the better of Grant and would finish off the Yankees the next day. Beauregard also figured that he still outnumbered Grant, but Yankee General Buell's reinforcements arrived the next morning; and Grant's subordinate, General Lew Wallace (the man who wrote the epic Ben-Hur) whose division had taken the wrong road the day before, finally showed up for duty.

Fortunately for the Union, the second day of Shiloh saw a revitalized Yankee force and a massive counterattack that relentlessly pushed the depleted Southerners back towards Corinth, Mississippi.

Grant took a beating in the press, but Lincoln rehabilitated this fighting general

The battle was over, but the recriminations and controversy would continue. Beauregard would be vilified for not pressing his advantage at the end of the first day. Grant would take a beating in the northern press for the massive Union casualties, and would be relieved by General Halleck and demoted to a do-nothing second-in-command position.

In the end, though, Lincoln moved Halleck to Washington, D.C., and gave Grant back command in the West. (Lincoln recognized Grant as a fighter not prone to the "slows" like many other Union generals)

Grant would go on to amass an astonishing record of victories in the west that would culminate in the capture of Vicksburg that would split the Confederacy at the Mississippi. After victories in Tennessee, Grant would come east to eventually end the war. Sherman would go South and due east cutting a swath of destruction that would isolate and cripple the Confederacy. 

Shiloh forged a winning team

The victory of Shiloh solidified the relationship of Grant and Sherman and led them to a more realistic appreciation of the war. Likewise, all the principal victories of the North (out West) in 1863 and 1864 were made possible. If Johnston's Confederate forces won at Shiloh on April 6, the land-naval campaign against Vicksburg, the March to the Sea, and the Siege of Petersburg (below the Confederate capital) might not have occurred at all.

What do you think of the importance of the Battle of Shiloh? Let us know below.

The Japanese Yamato Battleship: Could it have been Decisive in World War 2?

The Japanese Army’s Yamato Class Battleship was an extremely powerful battleship that was launched during World War II. The battleship had incredibly powerful defenses, and had it been in use earlier it could possibly have impacted some key aspects of the war. Here, Daniel Boustead returns and considers its effectiveness, ‘what if’ scenarios, and how events turned against the battleship towards the end of the war.

Yamato battleship during trials in October 1941.

The Yamato Class Battleship was the most destructive ship ever constructed in history. The Yamato Class was created to fulfill a specific technological, strategic, and tactical goal. The technical information alone about the Yamato Class leads to the conclusion it could defeat any ship on the seas, and had events gone differently for the Japanese Military the Yamato Class could have been a game changer! The changing situation of the Pacific War ultimately doomed the Yamato Class ‘s fate - it could have helped Imperial Japan win the Pacific War had the military situation been different and had the battleship been deployed earlier.

The Yamato Class was designed to defeat a huge quantity of enemy naval forces.  According to historian and author James Holland, “The Japanese realized they couldn’t possibly hope to catch United States and Great Britain in terms of numbers of warships so the principle behind it was if we can’t get the numbers we will have a qualitative advantage. So, you build an enormous battleship that is basically the equivalent of two or three and which is capable of taking on multiple warships at any one time”([1]). 

The tactical and strategic role that the Yamato Class was built to fulfill was the Imperial Japanese Navy’s belief that the fate of an entire war would be determined by a great naval clash involving Battleships (2). This theory was supported by the Battle of Tsushima which occurred on May 27th -May 28th 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. Like the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War the Imperial Japanese Navy thought, that the war against the United States Navy would be decided in a single great naval clash involving Battleships ([2]). The Imperial Japanese Navy felt that this decisive naval battle would occur after the Japanese military forces seized the Philippines. The U.S. Military would then mount a military campaign to retake their colony of the Philippines and the Imperial Japanese Navy would then decide to engage the United States Navy in a place somewhere in the western Pacific when they felt the time was right to stop the American advance to retake the Philippines. The Imperial Japanese military forces and their government also wanted to seize the oil and other natural resources of China, the Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, Singapore, French Indochina, Brunei, and Burma. The Japanese Yamato Class was designed to both participate in this decisive struggle and sail across the vast Pacific Ocean.

Technologically advanced

The Yamato Class was a technological marvel that could wipe out any ship by its destructive firepower and was virtually impervious to any ship weapon. It was equipped with 18.1-inch Main Guns which could fire a 3,219 lbs. projectile at a rate of 1.5 rounds per minute (3). The range of Yamato Class’s main gun was 25 miles according to Battlefield historical archaeologist Dr. Tony Pollard (4). No other Battleship’s Main Gun has ever had a maximum range of this distance (5). 

The Yamato Class’s armor and other protection was unrivalled by any other Battleship. The total weight of the armor was 22,534 tons or 33.1% of the design displacement (6). The armored center section featured a main belt of just over 16 inches of armor inclined at 20 degrees, half of which was below the waterline. The lower armor belt was just under 11 inches in the magazines and 8 inches covering the machinery spaces. The ends of the armored citadel was covered by two transverse bulkheads that were covered by armor that was 11.8 inches thick. Deck armor was between 7.9 inches to 9.1 inches, which was thought to be capable of withstanding armor-piercing bombs of up to 2,200 lbs. dropped from 3,280 feet. The front of the barbettes was covered by 21.5 inches of armor plate with sides covered by 16 inches of armor, both specially hardened. The three main turrets had some 26 inches of armor on their face, 10 inches of armor on the sides, 9.5 inches of armor in the rear, and almost 11 inches of armor on the roofs. The conning tower was covered by a maximum of 19.7 inches of steel armor. A torpedo bulge was also fitted, which extended 9.25 feet from the main belt, from the waterline to the bottom of the ship. According to historian Mike Pavelec, Americans brought the Yamato’s 26.1 inches Turret Facing Steel Armor plate, which they found and recovered from a Japanese naval yard after World War II and ran a test on it (7). The conclusion from this test was that they were able only to penetrate the Turret Facing Armor at point blank range. This type of hit would never have occurred under wartime ocean warfare conditions. Therefore, the turret face armor of the Yamato was virtually impregnable. It would have been a suicide mission for any U.S. Battleship to engage the Yamato Class in combat.

American battleships

The American Battleships were thinly armored and outgunned by comparison to the Yamato Class Battleship. The Iowa Class Battleship was only equipped with a 16 inch Main Guns (8). The Armor on the Iowa Class Battleship was between 12 inches to 1.6 inches on the belt, armored deck was between 6 inches and 1.5 inches of armor, bulkheads were equipped with 11.3 inches of armor, and the main turrets were equipped with 19.7 inches of armor. It was considered the best American Battleship of World War II simply because it had a top speed of 33 knots. In contrast the Yamato Class only had a top speed of 27.5 knots (9) - although the Yamato Class could have still engaged and destroyed the Iowa Class Battleship as it was trying to run away because of the long range of its guns.  The reason for this is that the Iowa Class Battleship was so thinly armored.

What if?

The Japanese Military missed many opportunities to utilize the Yamato Class Battleship. It could have been a decisive war-winning weapon. Two examples of this were: Japanese airpower did not destroy two tank farms which contained millions of barrels of fuel oil and they did not destroy the indispensable ship-repair facilities during the Pearl Harbor Attack on December 7, 1941 (10). If the Japanese had destroyed the two tank farms and the ship-repair facilities at Pearl Harbor on that day, and then combined that with an air bombing and submarine shelling campaign led by the Yamato Class on the oil production facilities on the West Coast, and by a knockout sea and air strike on the Panama Canal, it would have crippled the USA’s ability to make war.  If the Japanese had commissioned the Yamato Class sooner, then they would have participated in this theoretical strike, and it would have made a decisive difference. Also, if the Japanese Military and Government had decided to both not attack Pearl Harbor and not invade the Philippines but decided to just focus on taking the British Colonies of Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies, then the American Isolationist political movement may well have prevented the USA from entering both the War in the Pacific and the War in Europe. Japan still would have succeeded in controlling most of Asia and had their decisive naval battle with the British - and not the Americans. However, all of this did not happen. The Yamato was not considered combat ready until May 27, 1942, and her sistership the Musashi was not commissioned until August 5, 1942 (11). By the time the Yamato Class entered combat the seeds for both the destruction of the Yamato Class and the Imperial Japanese Empire were being sealed.

Less effective?

The changing nature of warfare in the Pacific War ultimately doomed the Yamato Class. The Aircraft Carrier became the dominant and most effective weapon in the Pacific War. The effectiveness of the Aircraft Carrier was brutally demonstrated at such battles as Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. These and other such battles caused the Battleship’s influence to be substantially reduced. In addition, the appearance of American Fighter Planes such as the F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair, P-38 Lightening, P-47 Thunderbolt, and the P-51 Mustang from the period of 1942 to 1945 marked the end of Japanese air supremacy in the Pacific. The fact that the Japanese no longer had air supremacy made the Yamato Class now very vulnerable to air attack. Lastly, in 1943 the Americans introduced a new explosive called Torpex, with twice the explosive power of TNT (12). This made the Yamato Class’s Anti-Torpedo defenses obsolete because the previous calculations of how much damage they could absorb was based on a warhead that was full of TNT and not Torpex (1). These factors would spell the destructive end of the Yamato Class. 

The sister ship of the Yamato, the Musashi, was sunk by American air power during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 24, 1944 (13). 1,376 Japanese survivors from the Musashi were rescued; however 1,023 Japanese sailors were lost during the American air attack (14). On April 7, 1945, the Yamato was sunk on its way to attack the American invasion off Okinawa (15). 3,063 Japanese sailors were lost during the American air attack on the Yamato, with only 269 survivors. The Americans losses during the air attack against the Yamato were ten aircraft and 12 aircrew.

No other battleship in history compares to the destructive power of the Yamato Class. The Yamato was created to meet the Imperial Japanese Navy’s need for a battleship to play a key role in their decisive battle strategy scenario. Unfortunately, the Yamato was not ready for Pearl Harbor.  The engineering marvel of the Yamato meant it could wipe out any ship opponent on the sea. If the Imperial Japanese Military had not made some fatal strategic miscalculations on the seas, then the Yamato Class would have been a war-winning weapon! However, this did not happen, and the advent of aircraft carrier warfare spelled an end to the Yamato Class. The Yamato was denied the chance of being a war-winning weapon because of military blunders committed by the Imperial Japanese Military. 

What do you think of the Yamato class battleship? 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.

[1] Holland, James. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016. 

[2] Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 12. 

3 Stille , Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 137. 

4 Pollard, Tony. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016.

5 Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons: Battleship Yamato. Darlow Smithson  Limited Productions.  PBS and National Geographic Channels International. 2016. 

6 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 133. 

7 Pavelec, Mike. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016. 

8 Hewson, Robert. The World War II Warship Guide. Edison: New Jersey. Chartwell Books, Inc. 2000. 44 to 45. 

9 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 141. 

10 Van Der Vat, Dan.  Introduction by Senator  McCain, John. Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy-An Illustrated History. Edison: New Jersey. Chartwell Books, Inc. 2007. 138. 

11 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War.  New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 138. 

12 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 136. 

13 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 139 to 140. 

14 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 140. 

15 Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 141. 

References

Hewson, Robert. The World War II Warship Guide. Edison: New Jersey. Chartwell Books, Inc.  2000. 

Holland, James. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016.

Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons: Battleship Yamato. Darlow Smithson Limited Productions. PBS and National Geographic Channels International. 2016. 

Pavelec, Mike. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016. 

Pollard, Tony. “Battleship Yamato”. Nazi Mega Weapons: German Engineering in WW II: World War II Mega Weapons. PBS. 2016. 

Stille, Mark E. The Imperial Japanese Navy: In the Pacific War. New York: New York. Osprey Publishing. 2013. 

Van Der Vat, Dan. Introduction by Senator McCain, John. Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy-An Illustrated History. Edison: New Jersey. Chartwell Books, Inc, 2007. 

The Incredible Cost of Medieval Cathedrals

In the modern West, many of us are preoccupied with the inaccessibility of houses. Prices seem inaccessible, to own a building has become the preserve of the rich or older generations. Building itself is an ‘unsustainable’ activity, requiring vast amounts of energy and materials. 

In the medieval period, the dynamic of building was far more extreme in its social effects and the resources needed. In this article we discuss the most economically demanding constructions of all: cathedrals. Alfie Robinson explains.

Basilica of Saint Denis, 1655.

The Hierarchy of Medieval Society

A cathedral gets its name from the Latin, cathedra, meaning ‘seat’, or perhaps more tellingly, ‘throne’. It refers to the throne-seat of the bishop that belongs to the cathedral. The connotations of a throne speak to two vitally important facts about the late-medieval church: its institutional wealth and its hierarchical nature. It is worth noting that these are factors that took a considerable amount of time to develop: early-medieval Europe had a much less consolidated and powerful church. Disagreements could still be made about the date of Easter; the Pope did not have a monopoly on the naming of saints.

In the course of the middle ages, this began to change. The twelfth century has been regarded as a ‘fulcrum’ century for some time now, and with good reason. With the help of some respected intellects, medieval life was shaped into that characteristic form which gives us the derogatory sense of ‘medieval’: a world both rigidly ordered and persecuting. Peter Comestor, the great mind who supposedly ‘ate’ knowledge (comedo, ‘I eat’, in Latin) was also a chief opponent of male homosexuality.[1] It is not widely known, but the idea that this sexuality was exceptionally sinful was not common currency in the medieval period. Not, at least, until the twelfth century. Likewise, the pursuance of heretics, Jews, sex-workers and lepers were present anxieties before the 1100s, but they were not as powerful as they were to become.

For the development of this controlling, monarchic society, one should turn to R I Moore’s Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250. That book tells this story with considerable eloquence. But what it does not tell is the cultural history of the same period. The main coincident event, or rather series of events, was the building campaigns of the twelfth century onwards. 

A New Monumental Architecture

Gothic architecture, that quintessentially medieval mode, did not exist until about 1140. In this decade, a particularly ambitious abbot by the name of Suger constructed the west and eastern ends of Saint Denis, a cathedral north of Paris. Involved with these extensions were a number of technical feats, including an astonishingly complex ‘chevet’. This is the name given to the canopy of vaults at the eastern end of the church around the altar, three-dimensional stone structures that are both an engineering challenge to construct and a practical feat to carve. This structure is so complex that there is credible doubt as to whether the Abbot could have actually completed the amount of work he claimed, in a mere four years.[2]

What do vaults and persecution have to do with each other? The coincidence in time may be remarkable, but we cannot assume that one caused the other— the notion is absurd. Structures, however, and the societies that build them, are necessarily related. The payment, and who paid, for these structures is not just an economic question but also a cultural one.

In the early medieval period, there were few church buildings of a truly grand scale. Old Saint Peter’s, the now imaginary mother church of western Christianity is an exception that proves this rule. Were it not swept away by Michelangelo and others’ Renaissance work, viewers would probably be captivated by its great antiquity, but it was a fraction of the size of the present structure. Further away from the center of the faith, even the most important structures were rather small. Saint Denis’ nave, its central space, was rather old by the time of Abbot Suger, and if his accounts of pilgrimages are to be believed, woefully inadequate for congregations.[3] An even better example of the extraordinary difference between early and late medieval building, is the cathedral of Beauvais, also in France.

The nave and choir of this building are utterly mismatched. The nave, again supposedly the central space for congregations, is the size of a modest parish church. It dates to about 1000 AD and has a simple wooden roof. Attached to it is the stone colossus of Beauvais’ cathedral choir, its east end. The choir is multiple times bigger than the nave it is supposed to belong to.

Increasing prosperity and urbanization are the broader factors that enabled the medieval church to build bigger. But the path from the productivity of individuals in their day-to-day lives, to productivity in the masons’ yard and carpenters’ lodge is far from easy. Likewise, although certain cathedrals (Bourges, Chartres, Reims, Amiens) mostly in northern France were built in rapid campaigns, most building work in the medieval period was fitful.

Making Cathedrals Happen

To the present author’s knowledge, there is no such thing as a medieval building contract for a whole cathedral. Contracts that still survive in archives which stipulate costs, workmanship and materials belong exclusively to a class of more modest projects. Many of these are structures like water mills, or jettied wooden houses.[4] The very largest projects that medieval patrons contracted for were collegiate churches (for instance Fotheringhay collegiate church in the fifteenth century), or monastic dormitories (namely at Durham Cathedral, when the claustral buildings were reconstructed at the end of the fourteenth century).[5]

Instead of a contracted time period with an individual craftsperson, cathedrals had to be built by teams of workers. The ‘cash-flow’ for the projects was decided by benefactors’ generosity. Fabric rolls, the documents which compile a huge range of expenses for a given cathedral, also record names in the same way that public galleries often have rooms labeled in honor of a donor. Medieval donors usually hailed from the ranks of nobility, or from the clergy. High secular status was seen to enhance the status accrued by senior priests. As the Book of St Albans, a fifteenth century manual put it: “there is a gentleman [a noble], a churl’s [a non-noble] son made to be a priest, and that is a spiritual gentleman to God and not of blood. But if a gentleman’s son be made a priest he is a gentleman both spiritual and temporal.”[6] Besides, much of the time, the priesthood was simply drawn directly from the aristocracy anyway.

Sometimes these aristocratic clergy look as if they are radical defenders of faith at the expense of temporal, or secular power. Richard Scrope, archbishop of York in the early 15th century, was beheaded for his part in a rebellion over the crown’s taxes. Scrope, in fact, was no ‘proletarian’ bearing arms, but a member of a branch of the very wealthy Scrope family. He and his relatives donated vast sums of money to the construction of York Minster’s eastern end, and their stamp is made in the form of several coats of arms in painted stone which ‘hang’ in the very parts of the church they paid for.

More than voluntary gifts, though, historians must remember that the medieval church levied its own taxes, of many forms. Some of these were fairly explicit, like the ‘tithes’ (from ‘tenth’, Old English) which were taken, often in the form of grain. Monuments to these taxes survive in the form of tithe barns (originally filled with ‘tax’ in the form of grain) which can be found throughout northern Europe. Like the cathedrals, the earliest of these date to the twelfth century. 

Grandeur and Poverty

Some taxes, however, were implicit. A major and extremely problematic form of tax-like burden was the economic impact of pilgrims upon locals who lived near pilgrimage shrines and sites. It was mandatory for such people to provide food and shelter for these visitors, who could number in their thousands. Despite its reputation as ‘the age of faith’, even medieval people had their limits on the amount of economic suffering they could undergo, whether it stemmed from the church or not.

The costs of pilgrimage sites could often cause conflict, not always even at the hands of ‘downtrodden’ peasants but also with the help of outraged nobility too. In 1119, Count William II and his retinue broke into the cloister of Vezelay Abbey (an important pilgrimage site), beat and stoned the monks, among other humiliating assaults. Barbara Abou-el-Haj, the chief scholar on medieval economy and its relationship with violence, puts the contrast between the expense of building and the tensions they caused: “Abbot and town haggle over everything: the quotas of vines, the dean’s servants picking his quota of grapes, fishing and forest rights, pasturage [...] the worst violence in 1152-1155, followed a famine just after the west portal [grand ceremonial entrance] was finished.”[7]

A highly important observation by that most perceptive polemicist, St Bernard of Clairvaux (also 12th century, around the same time as Abbot Suger’s building projects), was that the visible presence of wealth in and around the cathedral would serve only to enhance the desire to give yet more money. As it is in Hamlet, “appetite grew by what it fed on”— or, in St Bernard’s own words: “wealth is derived from wealth [...] wherever the more riches are seen, then the more willingly are offerings made. Eyes are fixed on relics covered with gold and purses are opened” [Conrad Rudolph trans.].[8] This was the case not just for the most wealthy but the least wealthy: hagiographies are replete with instances of the very poorest giving their tiny earnings away, often in the form of wax candles to light holy spaces.

For a deeper understanding of the impact of building on medieval society, one should turn to the remarkable article, also by Barbara Abou-el-Haj: The Urban Setting for Late-Medieval Church Building: Reims and its Cathedral Between 1210 and 1240. Reims cathedral, as she details, was constructed in a campaign which extracted so much wealth away from the city that it actually stunted the growth of the urban zone, well into the early modern period. The burghers who had to navigate hostile taxes eventually did the same as their predecessors in Vezelay: they broke into the Bishop’s prison fortress, beat and murdered his men.

The expense of medieval building was not just economic but social, even moral. Resources could be endlessly funneled towards projects dreamt up by the clerical elite. The only limit to the marshaling of these funds was the breaking point of the community. That limit, in the end, is rather similar to the more famous peasant revolts caused by taxation itself: indeed the same revolts which could engage noble priesthood to take up arms against the state too. The interesting similarity between these two cases is just another demonstration of the fact that, in the medieval period, there was no distinction between secular and religious. 

What do you think of the cost of medieval cathedrals? Let us know below.

[1] Robert Moore, Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

[2] John James, ‘Could Suger Have Built the Choir of Saint-Denis in Four Years?’, AVISTA Forum Journal, vol.1, no2, (1997), 23-25.

[3] See Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of Saint Denis and its Art Treasures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946).

[4] Louis Salzman, A Documentary History of Building in England Down to 1540 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967)

[5] Ibid.

[6] Grammar and spelling modernized. The Boke of St Albyns, after 1486,  Cambridge University Library Inc.3.J.4.1[3636], fol.51.r.

[7] Barbara Abou-el-Haj, ‘The Audiences of the Medieval Cult of Saints’, Gesta, vol.30, no.1, 8.

[8] Conrad Rudolph, The ‘Things of Greater Importance’: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990, 281.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 1: Francisco Solano Lopez’s Earlier Life

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington starts this fascinating series by looking at the years leading up to when Solano Lopez became president.

Solano Lopez in the 1850s.

March 1, 1870. In a swamp in a barely explored region of Northern Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lopez was meeting his end. It was not supposed to be this way for him. After all, he was the “Napoleon of South America,” wasn’t he? He had been raised from birth to lead, to command. How could he go from dictator of his home country, with the power of life and death over everyone and everything he surveyed, to dying in a no-account swamp in a place no one had ever heard of?

Early Life

Francisco Solano Lopez Carrillo was born on July 24, 1826, in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. His father, Carlos Antonio Lopez was one of the great men of his country, a man who served in multiple government positions under the strange and enigmatic rule of Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay. The years after independence were dominated by the rule of Dr. Francia. The policies and style of this eccentric man would habituate the Paraguayan people to dictatorship and following orders unquestioningly. He would even take the title of “Supreme Dictator,” a title unthinkable to even the most hardened despot today. This would be invaluable to Francisco later in life when he would lead his country in the most devastating war South America has, or would ever, see.

At an early age, Francisco was brought into the army, as all young men in Paraguay were. From the time of independence, the country had had to defend itself from neighbors who craved its territory. To the south, many in Argentina wanted to reunite the old Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, which Paraguay had been a part of under Spanish rule. To the northwest, Bolivia had claimed the Chaco region, a barely developed territory with few people living there except native tribes. To the northeast was the South American colossus of Brazil. For Paraguayans, Brazil was the antithesis of their country. Paraguay was a republic, if ruled by a dictator, Brazil was an empire, the Western Hemisphere’s only monarchy. Paraguay had enforced social equality, to the point that marriage was banned at one point if you married someone of the same race. Brazil had a large slave owning plantation aristocracy with titles of nobility and an active slave trade. Brazil coveted Paraguayan land due to geography. The Paraguay River branches off the Rio de la Plata providing riverine access to the Brazilian interior of the Mato Grosso. A sense of being surrounded by enemies, a siege mentality, would shape, and in some ways warp, Paraguayan national consciousness and be one of the leading causes of the great war to come.

While in the military, Francisco would see battle with his father against the Argentinians. He would be made a Brigadier General at the age of only eighteen due to the influence of his father, who by this point had taken over from the now deceased Dr. Francia. Despite the nepotism, Francisco would take his military studies seriously. He studied fortifications and artillery. Fortifications and fixed defenses would be vital for a small nation surrounded by larger ones, each outnumbering Paraguay. Fortification would act as a force multiplier for the Paraguayans in the coming war.

Exposure to the World

When the military situation of the country allowed it, Francisco would be sent by his father abroad, a luxury not allowed to other Paraguayans. He travelled to several nations in Europe as minister, the most important of which for him was France. While there, he became fascinated with the French Second Empire and everything Napoleonic. He would purchase French military equipment, especially uniforms that were copied from the Napoleonic style. He would try to modernize his country’s military, a fact that belies the modern view of him as simply a martinet. He would even get the chance to observe military actions during the Crimean War in Russia. This experience would prove invaluable to him, and it gave him knowledge on the handling of large armies, and especially siege craft. The Crimean War was defined by the siege of Sevastopol, which saw the Allies of Britain, France, the Ottomans, and Sardinia besiege a Russian army that held out far longer than anyone thought possible. Viewing the siege from the besieger’s point of view would give him a unique perspective when the roles for him were reversed during the war.

For Francisco, perhaps the most important thing he brought back with him was Eliza Lynch, an Irishwoman who would go on to be his long-time mistress (marriage was a very strange thing in Paraguay, but that is for another time). She would be his constant companion, closest adviser, and the mother of his children. Some would see her as the devil behind the throne, others would see her and the children as the only comfort the President would ever have.

Leadership Apprentice

Francisco returned from Europe after his grand tour to become the Minister of War under his father. It was a position, at least on paper, that Francisco was eminently qualified for. He had military training all his life, he had observed the latest in military technology and tactics in Europe, and he had some innovative ideas regarding the defense of the country. Yet, the appointment would be used by opponents as an example of the nepotism of his father, and indicative of the way the Paraguayan Republic would be run until Francisco’s death. This view would be reinforced by Francisco’s appointment, just a few years later, as his father’s Vice President and obvious heir apparent.

Paraguay was seen by its neighbors as a strange place. For decades, it had been presided over by Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, the unquestioned dictator. Called "El Supremo," he was considered a revolutionary fanatic by most international observers. He had ruled Paraguay with an iron fist for over 25 years as part of a grand experiment in the implementation of revolutionary and enlightenment ideals. Francia had enforced isolation and attempted to create economic self-sufficiency. Absolute social equality was decreed between those of Spanish descent and the native Guarani people. The nation had repelled repeated attempts to come under the influence and economic dominance of, or be taken over by Brazil, Argentina, and Great Britain. Foreigners were regularly arrested and expelled. The mail was intercepted and read. The police would regularly arrest people in the middle of the night. All these facts would color foreign perceptions of Paraguay. Opinions ranged from the country being a little bit odd at best, and a malevolent dictatorship that needed to be suppressed at worst, but overall, very backward and an outlier in the modern world were the general thoughts on Paraguay, something like how a modern person would view North Korea.

When Dr. Francia died, his successors, eventually leading to Carlos Antonio Lopez, Francisco's father, maintained many of the political and social controls on the Paraguayan people. Despite this, the elder Lopez was extremely interested in building up the economic potential of his country. Lopez was a quite different man from his predecessor. Whereas Dr. Francia was seen as austere and severe, with a lanky appearance and reserved mannerisms, Lopez was overweight and seen as a glutton. Dr. Francia was concerned with his own revolutionary ideals, and the successful implementation of them. Lopez was interested in his country's, and his own by extension, economic benefit. If that meant breaking another taboo, opening the country to foreign contact, then so be it.

Lopez would bring in foreign advisors for military and economic development. New ironworks and foundries were opened to produce weapons. A river monopoly was offered to the United States, though this fell through. Relations were opened with Brazil and rebellious provinces in Argentina, which still claimed Paraguay. One of South America’s first railroads was opened. New iron works, mills, and processing plants were built to increase the economic and military potential of the nation. Military missions with young officers were sent to Europe to learn the latest in war. This is where the horizons of a young Francisco Solano Lopez were broadened. He was dazzled by the militaries of Europe. He was impressed with the great empires of Britain and France. He was determined when he went home to Paraguay, that when it was his turn, he would make his country great.

When his father died in September 1862, Vice President Francisco Solano Lopez moved to make sure the compliant Congress elevated him to the Presidency. His father had the right under the Constitution to name his own successor, but Francisco was not going to leave anything to chance. When he took power, he had grand plans to strengthen his country both internally and externally. However, any grand plans that he had would be very quickly interrupted by a foreign crisis that would lead his country to the brink of annihilation. 

In the brief time of peace that now President Lopez governed his country, he made sure he had total control like his predecessors. He had been head of the military since he returned from Europe, so there were no rivalries for leadership from that quarter. The Paraguayan Congress had been a pliant tool in the hands of his father, and this did not change with the son. Paraguay had a well-functioning police state originated by Dr. Francia. The people were under constant surveillance from neighbors, teachers, even their local priests. The Catholic Church in Paraguay had been nationalized just after independence and all correspondence with the Vatican went through the office of the President. Even the confessional was not sacred. Priests were “encouraged” to report seditious thoughts and criminal plots to the authorities. 

The intense police state belied the personal popularity and magnetism of Lopez. He was fluent in multiple languages and very well read. He could speak French to foreign diplomats and visiting travelers. He would speak Guarani, the local native language, to common soldiers and civilians to show he was one of them. He was one of the best travelled people in Paraguay at the time, had been leader of the military for years, always appearing in a fine French-modeled uniform, and cut a more imposing figure than his grossly overweight father and the spare Dr. Francia. These factors, combined with the awe the office of the Presidency was held, made President Lopez seem the perfect man to lead; soldier, statesman, the best prepared man to take the helm of the nation.

One of the most insufferable things in life is a person who has intelligence and charisma, and they know it. One of the greatest hindrances to the success of Lopez was his colossal ego. He was convinced of his own brilliance. His propaganda machine, newspapers, and the church, would put out only glowing stories and news about the President. He was perfect in every way; the people were told repeatedly. As one example, in Paraguay, even today, his birthdate is listed in 1827 not 1826. Lopez was born too close to the date of his parents’ marriage. To remove the blemish of being conceived out of wedlock, his birthday has been moved in official sources to 1827. Lopez was perfect and the people were to believe he was perfect as well. As would happen to many who had the type of upbringing he had, and laudatory propaganda, his press went to his head. An overinflated ego, and an overinflated sense of his own abilities and brilliance would be a major factor in the lead up to war.

South American Balance of Power

In the South America of the 1860s, peace was kept through a precarious balance between Brazil and Argentina. This balance had been tested several times since everyone concerned had achieved independence from their colonial overlords. Neither power would ever fully trust the other, and their struggles for dominance would influence the two small nations in the region.

The first war between the two countries was the Cisplatine War in 1825. This war saw Brazil and Argentina fight over control of what was called at the time the Cisplatine Province. As the southernmost province of Brazil, it gave the Empire an outlet onto the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, a strategic and economic artery in the area of South America with arguably the most economic potential. Further, access to the mouth of the great river would help Brazil access the interior provinces of the Empire through the river system. Brazil has a formidable mountain range on its east coast, hindering overland transportation and communication. The Rio de la Plata was to be the great highway to the Brazilian interior.

A few years after the adoption of the Brazilian Constitution, which granted autonomy to the province, the people were encouraged to revolt by the newly independent Argentina. The Argentinian leadership had plans to bring the entire Rio de la Plata River valley under their control. After a war that lasted several years, Great Britain brokered a peace. In that peace, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay was created from the Cisplatine Province to serve as a neutral buffer state between the two nations. One concession given to Brazil in the war was a promise of free navigation of the Rio de la Plata. 

For the next forty years, there were many disputes between Brazil and Argentina, but one of the main points of contention for Brazil was to maintain their influence in Uruguay. Since independence, Uruguay had been internally divided. The two groups who constantly battled for political control were the Blancos and the Colorados. They were more than political parties. They were groups that, to an outsider, seemed their only reason for existence was to hate each other. There was, of course, more to it than that, but that is for another time.

This state of perpetual crisis destabilized the balance of power in the whole region. Both Brazil and Argentina were suspicious of the others’ intentions in Uruguay. The Paraguayans were worried that if Uruguay were conquered by one or the other, or the balance of power in the in the region was disrupted, then Paraguay would be the next target. This sense of the balance of power was taken very seriously by Francisco Solano Lopez. The “Marshal,” as was his preferred title, was deeply concerned about the politics of Uruguay when, in 1864, civil war erupted in the country between the Blancos and the Colorados.

Marshal Lopez’s father, Carlos was far more cautious than his son. He had not intervened in multiple Brazilian interventions in Uruguay over the years. While he was interested in opening his country more that Dr Francia was, he was not interested in creating formal alliances or opposing factions in the region. Marshal Lopez, however believed that the Colorado uprising in Uruguay was a Brazilian plot to gain hegemony over the region. The Colorados had received support from Brazil, while the Blancos had received support from Paraguay, as well as from rebel factions within Argentina in the past. These facts, combined with the traditional Paraguayan state paranoia, factored into the Marshal’s mind that Paraguay, and by extension, he, was being targeted.

Brazil would intervene in the Uruguayan War, ostensibly to protect Brazilian lives and property, which would lead to a decisive Colorado victory. The Marshal could not abide by this, as it destroyed the precious balance of power. At the start of the Brazilian intervention, he had sent a message to the Brazilian government, attempting to dissuade or intimidate (depending on how you looked at it) the Brazilians into not crossing the border. The attempt failed. The Paraguayans seized a Brazilian ship, the Marquês de Olinda. This would be the casus belli for the Brazilians to declare war on Paraguay. Thus, would begin the most devastating war in the history of South America, and the great drama of the life of Marshal Francisco Solano Lopez.

Now read part 2 on the start of the War of the Triple Alliance here. 

What do you think of the pre-president life of Francisco Solano Lopez? Let us know below.

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

Incan Brain Surgery: An Analysis of Ancient Neurosurgery

The Inca Empire began in 1438 and lasted until 1572 with the final Spanish conquests of Incan strongholds. But what is little known is that the Incans were notable for brain surgery, with very good success rates for the time. Roy Williams explains.

Inca brain surgery. Source: Thomas Quine, available here.

Many understand the Inca to have been a warlike people with advanced technology capable of creating cities like Cuzco and Machu Picchu high in the Andean mountains. However, few have heard of the Incan technological advancement of successful brain surgery. In a time where medical technology in Europe stood decidedly minimal, the Inca had mastered a technique that is estimated to have success rates ranging from 70-90%.

The style of brain surgery regarding the Inca is known as trepanation. The surgery of trepanation requires removing the scalp tissue and boring a hole in the skull of the patient to allow a reduction of swelling and a draining of fluid. This procedure is believed to have been used to reduce brain swelling caused by head injuries as well as to treat mental illness. The Inca version of the surgery of trepanation did not include anesthetic and would have been extremely painful for the patient. Using obsidian blades, physicians would cut away the scalp tissue and scrape the bone of the skull carefully to open the cranial cavity. While this technique has been used in the ancient world by other civilizations, no other civilization has been recorded with success rates like the Inca. Scholars believe that the Inca refined the surgery over many years and ultimately discovered a suitable method of removing the bone of the skull as well sealing the wound in an effective manner. Discoveries regarding the Inca practice of trepanation point to the use of gourd slivers as a means of sealing the wound in a manner that prevented bacterial infection and allowed for healing. The gourd slivers would act as an airtight seal allowing the area to heal properly. 

Rate of success

In determining the relative success rate of Inca brain surgery, archaeologists have studied the skulls of individuals with evidence of trepanation procedures. In skulls that displayed bone growth around the outside of the hole where the surgery was performed, we can determine that healing had occurred following the surgery resulting in a successful surgery. In skulls where bone growth around the hole cannot be observed, it can be determined that the patient died, and the surgery was a failure. In the discoveries that have been made so far regarding the Inca practice of trepanation, 70 to 90% of all skulls discovered have shown growth allowing scholars to infer that 70 to 90% of all Inca brain surgeries were a relative success. 

When comparing this degree of medical technological advancement with other ancient civilizations, the Inca stand as a technologically advanced civilization. By comparison, the ancient Greeks and Romans also practiced the procedure of trepanation; however archaeological data indicates that the procedure’s success rate hovered around 50%. Regarding the procedure of trepanation, the Greeks and Romans of the ancient world used methods similar to the Incans with methods of either drilling or scraping the bone fragment from the skull to create an opening to the cranial cavity. One significant difference between the Greeks and Romans and the Incans was the use of the gourd sliver, which allowed the wound to heal free from bacterial infection. Whether the Inca understood the nature of bacterial infection and its danger regarding the procedure of trepanation is debatable, but the use of the gourd proved to allow Incan surgeries a higher success rate than their European counterparts. Hippocrates the renowned Greek physician of antiquity and Galen a physician of the Roman empire have been recorded documenting their experiences utilizing trepanation as a treatment for persistent migraines. Regarding the practice and mastery of this procedure, Galen of Rome recommended practicing this procedure on apes before moving towards humans. 

In context

When comparing the medical procedures and the technology of the ancient world, Mesoamerican technological achievement is glossed over at best. When comparing civilizations and their respective achievements too much emphasis is placed upon military prowess and societal stamina. While the Inca of Peru and Chile did not last hundreds of years, they still achieved technological advancements that rivaled the Greeks and the Romans. In taking a step back from the current Eurocentric narrative that puts so much emphasis upon European civilizations and their accomplishments, it remains tantamount for historians and scholars to appreciate the legacy of other civilizations throughout the ancient world including those of the Americas.

Now, read Roy’s article on the Armenian Genocide here and the 1980s Guatemalan genocide here.

Further Reading

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/south-america-s-inca-civilization-was-better-skull-surgery-civil-war-doctors

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/inca-skull-surgery/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326281#The-early-origins-of-trepanation

http://ultimatehistoryproject.com/trephination.html

https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/23/1/foc-07_07_e11.xml