Tsar Alexander III of Russia - A Paranoid Life. Pogroms, Pokers and Blame

Helen Saker-Parsons follows up her article on Tsar Alexander II, and considers how Alexander II’s death influenced his son, Tsar Alexander III. The results included suspicion against those inside and outside of Russia, and making scapegoats of the Russian Jewish population.

Alexander witnessed his father’s body as it was stretchered up the stairs of his home in the Winter Palace; the stubs of his blown-off legs hemorrhaging blood onto the plush carpet. His father was Alexander II, Tsar of Russia and assassinated by social revolutionaries. His son, the new Tsar Alexander III, accepted that he was their target now: affirmation of which came on his return to his own St Petersburg residence, Anichkov Palace, where he discovered a trench had already been dug, encircling the building, and several armed guards put in place. Alexander III knew that his father had survived several assassination attempts, the threats of which lingered throughout his reign. Indeed, the policies the new tsar pursued and the way he lived his life were governed by fear. Although physically strong, he was no match for an organized group of assassins. To protect himself and his family he was forced to assume a near isolated existence, away from the social whirl of the Imperial court; and moreover to introduce a set of domestic and foreign policies which would keep his enemies at a distance.

Tsar Alexander III of Russia in the 1880s.

St Petersburg itself symbolized revolutionary spirit: a contemporary English observer remarked how the city reeked of dynamite. Following Alexander II’s assassination in March 1881, Alexander III took his family and fled to their country residence, Gatchina, some thirty-five miles to the south.  Here he chose to live more like a prisoner than an Emperor. He dismissed the opulent rooms and instead moved into converted servant quarters that were low ceilinged and cramped. He surrounded himself with Victorian bric-a-brac to further the sense of claustrophobia. Rumors abounded abroad about the new tsar’s confinement.  He listened to the advice of his former tutor: the reactionary and influential Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who warned him to “look under all the furniture at night and lock the doors not only in the bedroom, but in all the adjacent rooms, right up to the outside door.” He further advised to “check every evening, before going to bed, that the sentries are still there – their throats can so easily be cut.” Alexander kept a revolver beneath his pillow and allegedly fatally shot an aide-de-camp who surprised him as well as a guard who reached behind his back for a cigarette. Rumors abounded abroad about the new tsar’s confinement. To counter these claims, he and his family took frequent public walks in a nearby park but the image of freedom was an illusion: the park was reached via an underground tunnel from the Palace and a fear of large crowds forced Alexander to delay his coronation for over fourteen months.

Enemies everywhere

It was this sense of mistrust that governed his foreign policy. Often referred to as ‘Alexander, the peace-maker,’ it was more paranoia that forced his decisions. Although he ratified the Three Emperors League with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which his father had initiated in 1881, he failed to further extend the alliance in 1887 when he became suspicious that Austria was acting against Russian interests in Bulgaria. Instead he signed a Russo-German neutrality pact, but again refused to extend this in 1890, when the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm pushed Alexander into the hands of the French. Alexander was suspicious of the ambitious German ruler and in 1892 signed a military pact with France to counterbalance German aggression in Europe. But ultimately the Tsar believed he had only two natural allies – his army and his navy.

Alexander III acknowledged that a threat also existed from within. His domestic policy was governed by his desire to maximize the security of his dynasty. He followed the doctrine of his grandfather, Tsar Nicholas I, with ‘orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.’ Only by having one religion, one people and one leader could he maintain peace within Russia and eliminate threats from the Radicals and Reactionaries. He pursued a policy of Russification, promoting the Slavic elements within the Empire and removing Prussian ones. All aspects of life were affected from Alexander sporting a Slav-like beard to persecuting other religions. Russian art, music and architecture were promoted. School curriculums were altered to reflect the glories of Russia and universities were instructed on what to teach.

Blaming the Jews…

Perhaps his most controversial policy was the persecution of the Jews. Pobedonostsev’s formula for the Jewish was:  ‘one-third was to emigrate, one-third was to die, and one-third to disappear (or be converted).’ Strict quotas were introduced on the number of Jews admitted to higher education and Jews were banned altogether from many professions. Their settlement was restricted to nominated areas and towns closed to them. In 1891, almost twenty thousand Jewish inhabitants were evicted from Moscow. Although the pogroms - which were a feature of Tsarist Russia from 1881 - were not government led, they were welcomed by it. The Jews were a useful scapegoat and a focus for hatred: diverting attention away from revolutionary activity. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 had forced many uneducated peasants into the cities where they came across the wealthier Jews who they resented. This hatred grew as an international agricultural depression was blamed on the Jews who largely controlled the trade and merchant houses.

But the tsar could not divert all hatred from him. The social revolutionaries needed to be suppressed and Alexander achieved this through censorship [the country’s main literary journal Notes of the Fatherland was closed in 1884 for its supposed support of Populist political ideas], the promotion of police powers and consequent clampdown on civil liberties. In 1881 the Law on Exceptional Measures, - in effect martial law - was introduced; meetings of any kind could be banned, and the police were given extensive powers of search and arrest, while liberal judges and officials were dismissed from office. Perhaps most importantly, a new security division of the police was founded - known as the Okhrana. Not only were they responsible directly for the protection of the Tsar and his family but also for tracking down political opponents and radicals. This they achieved through subversion and infiltration. They were successful and effective: by 1894, over 5,400 people had been exiled to Siberia or sentenced to hard labor. The long hands of the Okhrana operated not only from the major cities within Russia but those European hotbeds of revolutionary behavior such as Paris and London.

Alexander III kept his enemies at a distance and flexed his muscles on the international and domestic scene. Even so, his desire to appear powerful and fearless infiltrated every aspect of his life, and ironically was to contribute to his death. At six feet four and with a large stature (his nieces and nephews referred to him as ‘Uncle Fatty’) Alexander III was an imposing physical character. He kept his children amused with feats of strength such as ripping whole decks of cards in half and bending fireside pokers into bizarre shapes. But his most significant display of strength came following a train derailment near Borki in 1888, on one of the few occasions he had travelled beyond the confines of the royal palaces. As bodies lay amongst the tangled mess he reportedly supported the roof of the dining car in which he and his family were travelling, allowing them all to escape. He suffered a trauma to his back and damage to his kidney, heralding the onset of kidney disease that contributed to his death six years later. An alleged tendency towards alcoholism brought about by the stresses of confinement worsened his health. Although Tsar Alexander III escaped the fate of his father and son, he remained imprisoned by the fears his role as ruler of an unruly Russia invoked and ultimately died an untimely death at the age of 49.

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How World War I continues to affect Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and the wider Middle East

In this article, Ben Parten considers the mandate system that was set up after World War I by Britain and France. This system allowed European Powers to rule countries including Iraq, Israel, and Lebanon. And its effects last to this day.

The First World War is called the Great War for a reason; its violence set the tone for the 20th century, and its aftermath posed new challenges to traditional political leadership. Yet, despite the title of a “world” war, the Great War’s global significance is often understated. In America, for instance, young students are often taught that the primary outcomes of the war were that it opened the door to Nazi Germany and established the United States as a world power. Those are both true, but there is one major consequence of the Great War that should be added to that list. To see this other significance, Americans and other Westerners should shirk their Western perspectives and look outside of Europe, particularly to the Middle East and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman’s demise opened up a large swath of land unclaimed by a world power and enabled the Allies to decide how it should be divided. With the Treaty of Sevres, the Allies drew up artificial boundaries for countries that have come to be the states of the “modern” Middle East. However, in the state-making process, the litany of different sects and ethnicities in the region were amalgamated into nominal nations, causing instability that America and other Western powers are still dealing with today.

The Wailing Wall or Western Wall, circa 1920. This site of worship in Jerusalem was to become a site of controversy after World War I.

Great Britain and the Mandate System

Great Britain and France began thinking about how to partition off the former Ottoman Empire in 1916.  As made famous in the motion picture Lawrence of Arabia, the British and the French had been conducting secret negotiations regarding the ownership of Syria. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, as it has come to be known, acknowledged France’s claim to greater Syria while giving Great Britain rights to Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq). As the war came to an official end in 1919, the question of how to officially divide the Ottoman lands was once again raised. Gathering in San Remo, Allied diplomats agreed to divide the lands into separate entities called mandates. These mandates would act as glorified colonies operating under the façade of self-determination and self-governance until their charters expired in the 1940s.

The British desire to control parts of this region derived from its economic interests in the Persian Gulf.  Therefore, Mesopotamia was transformed into the Kingdom of Iraq. Combining the three territorial capitols of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul into Iraq gave the British a strong foothold in the region with direct access to the Persian Gulf and India. The other motivating factor for the British was their pledge to support Jewish settlement in Palestine as promised in the Balfour Declaration. The British incorporation of Jewish settlement in Palestine prompted immediate resistance from local Arab leaders. Thus, the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan was established to provide stability to the region and pacify the local Arabs.

No matter the theoretical objectives behind the British mandates, they lacked practical sense. For instance, Iraq became an ad hoc state where no national sentiments existed. The cities of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra were grouped together when they previously shared a separate and distinct identity. Mosul had a longstanding connection with the mountain lands of Southern Anatolia and Western Syria. Baghdad tended to be more urban, linking itself to east-west trade. Basra identified itself as a self-sustaining seaport, aligning itself more with the Gulf States than with Iraq. Underlying this regional divide was the great sectarian division amongst the populace. Over half of the population were followers of Shia Islam, yet the British named Faysal ibn Husayn, a Sunni, King of Iraq. There was also a large contingent of Kurdish people living in the Northeast portion of the Kingdom. Even under Faysal’s rule, these three distinct religious and ethnic (the Kurds are often identified as their own ethnicity) groups still adhered to clan loyalty and tribal governance, making state led unification and leadership difficult. 

Likewise, continued Jewish settlement in Palestine aroused tension between the Jewish immigrants and the native Palestinians. One of the first outbursts of violence occurred over the right to the access the Wailing or Western Wall. For centuries the Wall has served as a holy site for Jews to pray at in honor of the ancient kingdom of Israel, but the Wall also makes up the Dome of the Rock where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven. As both sides claimed lawful access to the wall, the intensity of the dispute boiled over into violence and riots that spread across the city. This same type of violence erupted again in the late 1930s after the British decided that the mandate was inoperable and recommended a separate Arab and Jewish state.

Greater Lebanon

Problems with the mandate system were not limited to the British mandates. For instance, the French divided their mandate to create Greater Lebanon in 1920 in order to provide refuge to the Maronite Christians, whom the French felt obligated to protect. The Maronites were the primary sect of Mt. Lebanon and Beirut, but the surrounding areas of Greater Lebanon were predominantly Muslim.  To quell Muslim dissatisfaction and ensure Maronite authority, the two sides, along with French help, established The National Pact. The Pact created a ruling government that would always place a Maronite as president, a Sunni as Prime Minister, and a Shi’a as President of the General Assembly regardless of population. The political hierarchy created by the National Pact was spun by the French and Maronite population in a way that celebrated diversity, but, in the end, it only convoluted Lebanese identity. The Maronites saw Lebanon as an extension of the Mediterranean; whereas the Muslims purported that Lebanon belonged to a Pan-Arab world. It is not hard to imagine then that sectarian strife would eventually explode, as it did in the fifteen-year-long Lebanese Civil War.

The primary failure of the mandate system was its attempt to create Western style nationalism in an area where nationalism had neither existed previously nor maintained the proper conditions for statehood. Forcing the number of different sects and ethnicities to exist under one political body was bound to cause fissures and division amongst the political and social structure of those states. Today, the states created by the San Remo Conference are still in existence and the sectarian disunion continues to plague the region. The fundamental difference between now and the years following The San Remo Conference is that the United States has replaced Great Britain and France as the primary intervening power. Since the 1970s America has been forced to deal with the geo-political headaches that were caused by World War I and the policies of its immediate aftermath. Nearly one hundred years after it ended, it is time to reconsider the Great War’s global impact to include the formation of the “modern” Middle East.

By Ben Parten

You can read more about change that World War I brought by reading our short article about women and World War I here.

An Inuit Family with Children in 1917 – Image of the Week

This week’s image is of an Inuit family going about their business in 1917.

Following last week’s quite majestic image, this week we have an image that is altogether more humble.

Historical context seems less relevant for an image as endearing as this. Simply put, the image is of an Inuit family from 1917. Far away from the realities of the Great War, this Artic scene is centered on a boy staring into the camera. It almost looks like he is about to smile. At least it appears that there is a smirk about to appear. His parents are occupying themselves and working away – probably in the same way that Inuit people had been doing for centuries. Almost hidden in the left is a small baby, in the baby’s mother’s pouch. They are all in what appears to be traditional, warm clothing.

The original caption associated with the photo reads:

"AN ESKIMO FAMILY. Tenderness and responsibility in their treatment of children is a virtue of the Eskimo which binds them closer to the brotherhood of civilized peoples."

The image originally appeared in National Geographic in 1917 and is by George R. King.

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George Levrier-Jones

Bizarre World War I – The New Body Armor that Failed

In this relatively light-hearted article, Adrian Burrows tells us about a new World War I military invention that never took off – Body Armor.

The First World War revolutionized warfare on an epic scale. Cavalry became redundant against the machine gun. The deployment of metal monstrosities soon to become known as tanks forever changed infantry’s role in battle. The development of airplanes as weapons of war transformed the battlefield into a three dimensional arena in which military commanders had to consider all avenues in order to finalize their strategy, while the use of poison gas forever changed our ethical and moral standpoint on the rules of warfare. All of these factors meant that officers on both sides faced a never-ending tirade of considerations when thinking about how to defeat their enemies.

However, this article isn’t about any of those military changes; this might make you wonder why they were written in the introduction to this article. To that I would give you this answer: tanks, airplanes and machine guns were all successful in their development and use but that doesn’t interest me at this moment in time. Rather, what I’m going to be considering are the military developments that were not successful. The ones that didn’t take off. The genius (and not so genius) ideas that almost revolutionized warfare… but not quite. First up, I’ll be looking at personal body armor.

Personal Body Armor

Quite frankly the headgear provided to soldiers at the start of the First World War was not fit for purpose. Some provided no protection whatsoever, such as the cloth French Kepi cap - which while it gave no protection to the head certainly made you look incredibly dandy. Other helmets made you a target, such as the German Pickelhaube helmet that had an easy-to-spot spike on top. The development of the Brodie, Stahlhelm and Adrian helmets over the course of the war cut mortality rates and assisted in reducing head injuries. So, some bright sparks considered… Why stop there? If a helmet is good, then surely covering a soldier in a metal suit would be even better! Or would it…?

Brewster Armor.

Brewster Body Armor

In the first picture is the Brewster body armor (named after its inventor Dr. Guy Brewster), developed by the United States Army towards the end of the war. Whilst it was very clumsy and heavy it could withstand the bullets from a Lewis Gun. Its problems occurred due to maneuverability being massively reduced and the small issue of the helmet not turning. This led to visibility for the soldier on the inside being zilch.

This didn’t stop Dr. Brewster from excitedly telling America of his invention. But being a man of both action and science, Dr. Brewster didn’t just tell people about his invention, he demonstrated it. The picture below is of Dr. Brewster in his armor; the accompanying article describes how the American military tested his armor by shooting at the suit while Dr. Brewster was inside it. You would think that one or two shots would be sufficient to prove the protective qualities of the armor, but that was not the case for the American military. Its soldiers unleashed a ‘rain of bullets’ at the good Doctor.  Apparently the military top bods were very pleased as no bullets penetrated the armor’s thick hide. I can only imagine that Dr. Brewster was very pleased about this too. At the end of the experiment Dr Brewster declared that being shot by a machine gun while wearing his armor was only about ‘one tenth the shock which he experienced when struck by a sledge-hammer.’ One has to wonder how he knew what it felt like to be hit by a sledgehammer.

Brewster Body Armor as shown in the article.

Unfortunately for Dr Brewster, his body armor never took off. This has always struck me as a shame, for after all, surely the Brewster Armor was a precursor to a real life Iron Man suit (and let’s face it, we’ve all been waiting for one and the fact that’s it’s 2014 and nobody has invented it yet is terribly disappointing).

Final Thoughts

Clearly the Brewster armor was unsuitable for the requirement of life in the trenches and warfare across no-man’s-land. Yet there is still some fascinating theorizing that suggests that if body armor was provided to soldiers then thousands of lives could have been saved.

The majority of injuries to soldiers in the First World War were caused by shrapnel to the chest and head. Surely then, if a soldier could protect these areas their chances of survival would have drastically increased? The Brewster Armor was absurd in many ways yet at its core Dr. Brewster had a very positive desire - to keep soldiers alive.

Alas, over the four years of the First World War, very few developments were made in the field of body armor; it took some two years for most soldiers to get a metal helmet rather than a cloth cap. Perhaps if someone had managed to design and mass produce effective body armor then hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved by the end of the war.

Adrian Burrows works for Wicked Workshops, an organization that brings historical workshops to primary schools across the UK. They are currently doing many workshops about World War I. Click here to find our more about this great organization.

Want to read more about an unknown aspect of World War I? Click here to find out about the underground battlefield of WWI tunnel warfare.

Selected References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_armor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Body_Shield

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/body-armor2.htm

http://2pep.com/funny%20pics/extreme%20funny%20stuff%20cool%20%20images/Weirdbodyarmorinhistory_149CF/funnyoddityweirdbulletproofvestsbodyarmorinhistory10.jpg

http://www.sepiachord.com/index/retro-body-armor/

http://io9.com/5917559/10-retro-body-armors-that-will-transform-you-into-an-old+school-iron-man

Why is Ukraine in such turmoil? History, Russia and Ukraine...

In this article Stevan Bozanich provides us with some of the historical context to the current problems in Ukraine by looking at three ages in Ukrainian history: the Middle Ages, the Great War, and the very recent past.

Quite often it is helpful to view current events within their historical context in order to understand ‘why’ and ‘how’ things have come about. The events occurring in Ukraine at the moment are no different. Many media reports speak of an East-West divide, with Russian and Western interests vying for control within Ukraine. While this is partially true, this only tells a part of the story. There are a number of other factors involved, but to understand them all a little better, the wider context needs to be seen.

Maidan protests in Kiev. January 2014. Picture: Mikola Vacelychko

Ukraine: Middle Ages to Imperial Russia

Russian and Ukrainian historical and religious identity is traced through a Slavic identity. To Russia the unity of this identity is important and an inseparable element of this identity is Ukraine. In the Middle Ages a confederacy known as the Kievan Rus, an Christian Orthodox group of Slavs, emerged roughly within the modern-day borders of Ukraine. This group was overrun by the Mongols in the 13th century and forced to disperse. Some of them ended up in modern-day Russia, others remained within modern-day Ukraine and made up other parts of other nations such as Belarus. From the 14th to the 16th centuries the people in modern-day Ukraine were controlled by Polish and Lithuanian principalities, and then overrun by Cossacks in the 17th century. With the rise of Russia as an imperial power, a thirty year struggle ensued between Russia, Poland, Turkey, and the Cossacks for control of fertile Ukrainian land. In this struggle everything west of the Dnieper River, which runs through Kiev, went to Poland while everything east went to Russia. By the end of the 18th century Poland itself would be partitioned and the Polish territories of Ukraine would be further divided between Austria and Russia. The Austrian lands became “Ruthenia” and the Russian lands became “Little Russia”; the term “Ukraine” was outlawed within the Russian territories.

First World War

Through the period of Imperial Russia, the idea of Ukraine as a ‘nation’ was non-existent. It was not until the twentieth century, and more specifically around the Great War, that Ukrainian national identity began to be discussed among literate peoples. This urban literate class pushed for the Ukrainian language in schools, newspapers, and books. They also pushed for land reforms and civil rights tied to Ukrainian language-usage. With these social reforms, the people of Ukraine were granted access to schools, courts, and political representation. In 1917, during the First World War, these reforms faced opposition from Russians within these territories and the Russian government. The Ukrainian nationalist movement looked to Russia’s enemies in the Great War, Germany and Austria, for help. This led Germany and Austria to offer assistance to Ukrainian nationalists. Soon enough though, Russia capitulated to Germany with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, effectively removing the country from the war.

With Russia’s defeat Germany granted Ukraine independence through a puppet government that was subordinate to Germany and obligated to supply Germany food from its rich land. Then, as Germany itself faced defeat at the hands of Great Britain and the United States, it was forced to withdraw from Ukrainian lands. As a power vacuum ensued, Polish troops moved in along with Western-backed White Army troops and Russian-backed Red Army troops. This tripartite annexation was important for the ongoing Russian Civil War. The Ukrainian nationalist cause had the smallest slice of the pie, so to speak. By 1921 the Bolsheviks had won the civil war and at the Soviet-Polish Treaty in Riga, Ukrainian territory was once again partitioned. Within Russian-held lands, the Ukrainian nationalists who had sided with Germany and Austria were punished. Josef Stalin, for example, starved the people of Ukraine for their push for independence in what many nations recognize to be a genocide.

In a Modern Context

Ukrainians lived under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for the majority of the 20th century. Upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine was granted independence and its borders drawn using its republic status within the USSR. Because of this, the country is divided amongst Ukrainians, Russians, Tartars, and other ethnic groups. For example, in a recent census, 77% of the population claims Ukrainian ethnicity and 17% Russian ethnicity. In areas closer to the Russian border, the number of Russian speakers becomes the majority. Certainly this is part of the division within Ukraine and many media outlets have picked up on this East-West divide.

However, the problems in Ukraine are deeper than merely East-West. In Donetsk, the former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich stronghold in the far east of Ukraine, approximately 5,000 people participated in the protests in Kiev against the new, pro-Western government. Certainly this is proof of matters being deeper than an arbitrary geopolitical divide. Another region within Ukraine, and one that has been in the news a lot lately as well, is Crimea. In the north of Crimea many people claim to be ethnic Ukrainians, are bilingual and have some Ukrainian loyalty. In the center and south of the peninsula, Tartars make up 15-20% of the population, speak Russian, oppose Russian annexation, and support the Ukrainian revolution. These statistics speak against suggestions of partition along east-west boundaries. No partition would be acceptable to any portion of the population.

With Ukraine caught in the middle of an east-west push and pull, through several annexations and partitions, and a muddled ethno-linguistic population, the current events in Ukraine are convoluted and confusing. While no answers can be found as yet, putting the events occurring in Ukraine within their correct historical context helps us to understand how and why these events are unfolding. History can sometimes offer us an answer to today’s problems, but not always. What history can always do, however, is offer us answers to how we got there.

What do you think about events in Ukraine? How does history help us explain the situation? Comments below.

This article is by Stevan Bozanich. You can read more about Russian history by clicking here to read about the fall and rise of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Selected References

• Rodric Braithwaite, “Ukraine Crisis: No wonder Vladimir Putin says Crimea is Russian,” http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ukraine-crisis-no-wonder-vladimir-putin-says-crimea-is-russian-9162734.html
• Glen Kates, “The Conflict in Ukraine: More Complex Than You Might Think,” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/the-conflict-in-ukraine-more-complex-than-you-might-think/284118/
• Walter G. Moss, <em>A History of Russia, Volume I: To 1917</em>, (London: Anthem Press, 2005).
• Alexander Motyl, “A House United,” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/22/a_house_united
• Brian Whitmore, “Is it Time for Ukraine to Split Up?” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/02/is-it-time-for-ukraine-to-split-up/283967/

The Scientist who World War I wrote out of history

Karl Ferdinand Braun is the unsung hero of wireless telegraphy. He made many great discoveries, but due to World War I, he was forgotten. Here, Kevin K. O’Neill tells us his story.

Many people have memories of the early history of radio development summed up in a single word: Marconi. This is not undeserved as Marconi and the companies he founded were instrumental in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. The transition from the wired telegraph to wireless telegraphy came at a time of turmoil in Europe and was in part driven by different country’s desire for improved communication.

At the outbreak of WWI, verbal radio was still in its infancy and crossing any significant distance in wireless communications was achieved by the "dots and dahs" of Morse Code, whose cultural legacy remains with us in the form of SOS as a distress signal, chosen for its simple three "dots", three "dahs", three "dots" pattern. One of the fathers of this technology remains unsung in much of the world due to Germany's loss of WWI. Despite numerous technical contributions, this man, Karl Ferdinand Braun, remains largely unknown to many English-speaking people.

Most of us in today's world have viewed images on a Cathode Ray Tube, commonly known among English speakers as a CRT.  Before the advent of semiconductor flat panel display technology, every TV and computer sported a CRT as its most prominent feature, but how many know who invented it?  It was Karl Ferdinand Braun.

Braun in 1909.

Success at learning

The youngest boy of seven children, Braun was born in June of 1850 at Fulda, a town northeast of Frankfurt still enclosed in its medieval walls. Despite his father's job as a mid level civil servant, Braun was raised in extreme poverty due to the billeting of Bavarian soldiers in his home. A time of unrest in Germany, Fulda was forced to house many soldiers forcing its inhabitants into sheds and barns, while the poor ate rodents to survive.  Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Braun did attend to school.  Hardly a prodigy, the fact that he had difficulty with mathematics outside of theory was often laughed at later in his life.  Despite this, Braun wrote a book on crystallography when he was 15. Reviewed favorably by several professors it went unpublished due to his age. However Braun was undeterred, publishing several papers on aspects of chemistry before he turned 17.

Braun enrolled in experimental physics, mathematics, and chemistry at the college in Marburg just before his 18th year. Due to his physics professor's musical inclinations his studies were focused on acoustics, which while good at, Braun was not inclined to pursue.  Even so, it is likely that his understanding of the concept of resonance would later play a role in his inspired electrical innovations. Dissatisfied with the scope of his studies at Marburg - with its mere 355 students and unimaginative professors - Braun cleared financial hurdles and went on to the University of Berlin, an undisputed leader in science, after his second semester at Marburg.

In Berlin, an elite physics laboratory existed with only 3 of 265 science students allowed access. Braun, after a single interview with the professor in charge, was allowed use of the lab in complete privacy and at no expense, an honor almost unheard of. Morally and financially compelled to return to Marburg after two semesters to please his father, Braun's next break came when offered a paid internship as a laboratory assistant and lecturer at what was to later become a section of the Technical University of Berlin. This allowed him to stay in Berlin under the tutelage of a Professor Quincke who promoted the spirit of German scientific education, something that was to eventually propagate through much of the academic world. This pairing reaped great benefits for mankind.

Braun's first dissertation earned him the beginnings of a reputation. His acumen for the mechanics of experimentation became evident to all those involved. His contributions to scientific knowledge are too numerous to even outline here, but his discovery of the "diode" effect should be mentioned. This discovery effectively makes him the great grandfather of every semiconductor ever manufactured. Braun was the teacher that every student hopes to get and if they do, they remember him for life.  Braun taught at numerous German universities and his talent for amusing anecdotes once had Kaiser Wilhelm II repeatedly slap his leg and laugh during a lecture.

A history of invention

In the latter half of the 19th century, electricity was working its way into industry and society.  Batteries, generators, lights, telegraphs, and other assorted technologies were being implemented while barely being understood. Braun was asked by early German electricity producers for help with various aspects of energy propagation. With characteristic energy, he tackled the problem by refining ideas published by Roentgen, the discoverer of X-Rays. Braun's solution to probing the inner workings of electrical circuits was the creation of the Cathode Ray Tube.  A long glass tube with the air pumped out and two metal plates with a phosphor coated "screen" of cardboard. Braun was the first to control the horizontal and the vertical by waving magnets around the tube to deflect the electron beam, or cathode ray, which was a discovery in itself. 

Braun, a kindred soul to Tesla and never a businessman by nature, altruistically published his findings with expediency, despite being aware of the enormous fiscal value of his invention. He honed his marvelous tube into what is known today as an oscilloscope, a fundamentally unchanged tool of electronics that is indispensable to any electronic engineer or technician. It was Braun's oscilloscope that first showed the German electricity producers that the electricity they were creating operated at a frequency of 50 "hertz" or cycles per second - a frequency unchanged in Europe to this day. To say the German industrialists involved were pleased with Braun's "Scope" is a huge understatement. Braun contributed many other items to the electric industry and his brother, a successful merchant, founded a company to reap some gain from Braun's inventive mind. The most pervasive legacy of this company remains with us in the form of the Braun electric razor. His tube, known in America as the CRT, is still called "Braunsche Rohre" (Braun's Tube) in German speaking countries and "Buraun-kan" in Japan.

At the tail end of the 19th century "wireless" communication was in its infancy, and utilizing "Spark Gap Transmitters" and releasing barely manipulated EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) assaults into the atmosphere, Braun hoped that someone could pick them up at distances measured in single to double digit miles. If one of these transmitters were "sparked up" today in a modern city, it is likely that all the iPads, iPods, and cell phones in the immediate area would suffer a premature death, all their semiconductor junctions fried at the hands of raw electromagnetic energy.

World War I and change

Ferdinand Braun helped change all that. Braun and Marconi were jointly awarded a Nobel Prize in 1909 for "contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." Marconi even admitted to Braun himself that he "borrowed" several of Braun's patents. It was during his work on wireless telegraphy that Braun invented the first diode, without which there would be no modern electronics as we know it. It was also here that Braun's early work with acoustic resonance came into play as he improved the wireless technology including inventing the phased array antenna.

During the Russo-Japanese war of the early 20th century and before the outbreak of WWI, the combat efficacy of wireless communications was proven by the Japanese sinking of the Russian flagship Petropavlovsk. Baited out of Port Arthur with small ships, torpedo boats were called in as reinforcements by wireless. At the outbreak of WWI, Braun's workplace, then at Strasbourg, was shut down and the city filled with troops. Braun's family was scattered by various circumstances. When the tide of war ebbed Braun returned to Strasbourg to find his university's station locked behind closed doors, being used by the military as one point of the first known radio triangulation efforts to track ships at sea.  The British ships were tracked and the U-boats success at finding prey may have been due to this effort.

Prior to the war, with Marconi's efforts tied up, the only world wide network of communications was set up by Telefunken. Many pieces of this network were destroyed in the early days of the war in an effort to isolate Germany. The Sayville station, outside New York and the last of the offshore Telefunken stations to remain operational, had recently been upgraded and was able to receive reports from Germany.  It came under assault for patent infringements in efforts to shut it down, with Marconi himself scheduled to testify. Braun decided to travel to New York to help counter the British efforts to shut it down. Diagnosed and treated for cancer ten years earlier though, the disease was rearing its head again making Braun aware that this trip might be the last effort of his life. Risking winter travel and the Atlantic blockade (his own son had been caught at sea returning from America and imprisoned), Braun left for New York without much hope of seeing his homeland or family again.  Departing from Bergen, the captain went far out of the normal sea routes, passing just south of Iceland to deliver his "cargo," for, besides Braun and his three companions, the ship was carrying a new transmitter and antenna setup for the Sayville station. Shortly after Braun's arrival in New York he had a pleasant surprise when his son, released from internment by the British, was allowed to return to America.

In part due to Braun's presence, the lawsuit against Sayville went in Telefunken's subsidiary's favor. However Sayville was taken over by the US Navy when America declared war on Germany.

His job done, Braun petitioned the British government for safe passage to Germany but they were non-committal. Braun remained in America under the watchful eyes of British intelligence, and coming to the realization that the British did not want him back in Germany, Braun resigned himself to life in the Catskill Mountains of New York until the war ended. Many American scientific groups, pleased to have a Nobel Prize winner nearby, treated him to feasts and event invitations, easing his isolation.  He continued to write articles on physics, one of his last being "Physics for Women," a practical aid to housewives everywhere. In 1918 Braun slipped and fell. He broke his hip, went into a sickbed, and never arose. He passed away shortly thereafter.

Scientist, teacher, innovator, and patriot to his country, Braun was a remarkable and admirable man written out of history by the winners of WWI. The next time you view the iconic 1960s TV show The Outer Limits’ introduction, with its elemental display of oscilloscope functionality, take a moment to reflect upon a 20th century without the Cathode Ray Tube.  Braun was the first to control the horizontal and vertical, bringing much of physics in to crystal clarity. Life would not be the same without his wonderful "Braunsche Rohre" and other miraculous inventions.

This article is by Kevin K. O’Neill.

You can read another article by Kevin, related to ghosts and science in the 19th century, here.

When the Spanish met the Aztecs – Image of the Week

Our image of the week looks at the time the Spanish Conquistadors took Tenochtitlan, modern day Mexico City.

We’re yet to foray closely into the history of Latin America on the site, and even though we have shared a few images, thought that we would start to make amends.

Following Christopher Columbus’ founding of the Americas in 1492, European interest in the continent grew. The Portuguese and Spanish were the two European countries best able to explore the New World and set about doing so with gusto – and much violence. The Spanish Conquistadors went on to cause many problems for their ‘heathen’ foe while they were on the look out for gold. On one foray, they attacked the Aztec Empire, and eventually reached Tenochtitlan, modern day Mexico City, and laid siege to the city in 1521.

Our image shows the moment in which Hernan Cortes led his Conquistadors in a major attack on Tenochtitlan, an attack that would result in its fall in August 1521. The painting shows this mighty battle, with the Spanish, launching themselves into the city in armor and on horseback, about to cross a bridge. In the background we can see a grand Aztec pyramid and mountains in the distance.

Catch all of our articles by subscribing to our rss feed - click here.

George Levrier-Jones

When the Cold War became Hot – The Summit Series between the USSR and Canada

In this article, Matthew Struth tells us the story of the Summit Series, a number of ice hockey games that took place at the height Cold War. These games took place during détente and were anything but friendly…

When the American ping-pong team played in China in 1971, it was seen as a step toward negotiation and cooperation between the USA and China in the Cold War. A year later, Canada made its own attempt to bridge the gap with the USSR, using a game so dear to both nations’ hearts: ice hockey. This was the Summit Series.

The Summit Series, widely considered to be the eight best played and the eight bloodiest and dirtiest ice hockey games of all time, was not called that at the beginning, but it’s a name that has since gained widespread acceptance.

In 1972, Leonid Brezhnev ruled the USSR with an iron but intelligent hand. However, Canada was still dealing with the aftermath of the October Crisis; only the idea of hockey kept even nominal unity in the country. It was in these conditions that Canadian Sports Executive, Joe Kryczka, announced the Canada-USSR Series.

The belief was that the Canadians would easily trounce the Soviets. Even in the Eastern Bloc, the thinking was that Canada would win easily. Orders from Moscow were to play well and win a couple of games. Even the Kremlin didn’t believe the Soviets would win.

The Canadians got one of the greatest wake-ups in their history though: that when it came to hockey, there were others who could match up with the best in the National Hockey League (NHL).

When the first game was done, the Soviets won with a humiliating seven goals to Canada’s three.

A Canadian hockey rink has never been so quiet.

Paul Henderson of Canada celebrating a very important goal in the USSR in September 1972.

On to the USSR

The Canadians were devastated. It showed that just because you could pay a player a lot of money, it did not make him the best in the world. The image that Canadians had always had was that they were the best at hockey, that it was their game, but now... Now Canada struggled with identity, a problem it has always been faced with. Then the game turned to war.

The second game in Toronto saw Canada strike back. Vengeance was on Canada’s mind; the Soviets had humiliated them, and they wanted to return the favor. And they did, with a 4-1 win. The Canadian media soon took to derisively calling the Soviet players “robots” for their lack of emotion while playing the game, an insult that the Soviets took as complimentary for hard-working men. The third game was a tie, but tempers on both sides rose.

The fourth game is the one that Canadians like to forget, if only because of the rude and dishonorable way the Canadian team played. Players held down the Soviet goalie, among other acts that today would have a player expelled from the NHL. The nation was mad at the team and began booing them. This was how Canadians played? But worse, it hurt the team. Some on the team, like Ken Dryden, agreed with the fans, and knew they deserved the boos.

The next four games played in Moscow were not about a shared love of hockey but about the ideological war taking place in the world. The players on the ice mirrored the feelings of the opposing sides as blood was drawn and threats were screamed. To the players, particularly Phil Esposito and Paul Henderson, this was the battle between communism and capitalism.

3,500 Canadians made the trip to the very heart of the Soviet world to cheer on their team. To the Muscovites, the sight was confusing and abnormal. The Russian audience was silent and stoic, while beside them Canadians screamed and cheered.

Blood on the ice

The first game in Russia and fifth in the series saw another Soviet victory. And in the sixth, Canada won; followed by another win in the seventh game.

It was in the seventh game that the unforgivable happened: Soviet player Boris Mikhailov kicked out several times with the blade of his skate, and Canada’s Gary Bergman suffered the worst of it. Bergman’s shin pad was cut through, and his leg was left bleeding. Mikhailov has always regretted the act.

The final game was infamous for the way it played out. Both teams saw winning as crucial to their way of life. The Soviets changed the referees and ordered them to cheat for the USSR. The move infuriated the Canadians, who were more nervous about their position as more militia men were ordered in. Even the Soviet team didn’t like the calls that were handed out, but they could do nothing. An uncounted goal led to unrest as Canadian hockey agent Alan Eagleson tried to have the goal counted, but he was grabbed by militia men. As they were hauling him away, the Canadian players attacked the militia men and freed Eagleson. In the end, Canada scored the three goals needed to first tie, then win, the game.

The NHL adapted and began to use the Soviet methods of training and drilling after the games, methods still in use today. They also brought in rules and regulations that would lessen the physically violent side of hockey, rules that are still contested and disputed. The Series gave Canadians a boost too; hockey was still their game, and they were the best at it. But it was a more respectful Canada that came out of the Series, one that was less arrogant about their game but could still claim to the world that it was the best at it.        

The Summit Series healed a nation and gave respect to an enemy. Indeed, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russians and other Eastern Europeans were welcomed into the NHL, having more than proven themselves in the Series. A common love for hockey also helped keep the détente period alive, as both sides could now look to a similarity that helped one seem less alien and less of an enemy. But like the détente period, it was not a kind, peaceful event. It was marked by trickery and cheating on both sides, and stood as the example that, though bridges were being built, mistrust and the need to win were a concern on everyone’s minds.

Now, after the hardships of the games have passed, many of the players on both sides look to the others as some of the greatest players ever to hit the ice.

You can find out more about détente by reading our introductory ebook about the middle years of the Cold War here.

Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Assassinations and Assignations - Cat or Rat? The Tsar with many lives and loves

In this brilliant article with a twist at the end, Helen Saker-Parsons tells us the story of the various assassination attempts on 19th century Russian ruler Tsar Alexander II. And his compelling and complicated love life – or lives…

Historically, it is a bear that symbolizes the Russian Imperial Court. But for Alexander II, Tsar of Russia from 1855 to 1881, there are more suitable creature comparisons. His was a reign marked by assassination attempts and sexual assignations. He appeared to have the many lives of a cat but was also referred to as a rat – a love rat. For though it was customary for imperial rulers to take mistresses, Alexander II appeared to move beyond what was acceptable, even for a Tsar.

But has history misjudged his sexual misdemeanors? Or could it be argued that it was his awareness that as a cat his lives were not infinite which pushed him towards his love-rat behavior?

Tsar Alexander II, circa 1865.

Attacks on a ruler

Alexander II oversaw a period of upheaval and change in imperialist Russia. Nick-named ‘the liberator,’ it is the emancipation of the serfs for which he is most renowned. But how the country adapted to change was to leave the Tsar vulnerable, with enemies amongst both the radical reformers and conservative factions. Alexander survived several attempts on his life, firstly from lone assassins and then by the Nihilist group, Narodnaya Volya [People’s Will]. His first near-miss he later referred to “as the event of April 4 1866.” On this date the elbow of Dimitry Karakozov was reportedly nudged as he aimed his revolver at the Tsar leaving the Summer Garden in St Petersburg. When the Tsar questioned the captured wannabe assassin as to what he wanted, the latter apparently replied: “nothing.” During the 1867 World Fair, Polish immigrant Antoni Berezowski attacked Alexander’s carriage but his pistol misfired and hit a horse instead. On April 20 1879, Alexander was out walking when he spotted an armed man, 33 year old former school teacher, Alexander Soloviev, approaching. The Tsar fled, running in a zigzag pattern so that all five of  Soloviev’s bullets missed him.

The People’s Will was founded in 1879 with the principal policy of killing the Tsar. In November their initial attempt to bomb his train route at three points failed. The train diverted from the first point; the dynamite failed to ignite at the second as it did at the third – when a tunnel dug to the track from a rented apartment passed through sandy soil and flooded. On the evening of February 5, 1880, one of their members, employed as a stoker at the Winter Palace, set off a charge in the guard’s rest room aimed to coincide with the Tsar and his family gathering to eat in the dining room above. Eleven people were killed and a further thirty wounded but the Tsar and his family were not amongst the casualties, having fortuitously delayed their meal. Poor time-keeping saved Alexander on The People’s Will’s third attempt when one of their terrorists turned up too late to blow up a bridge over the Catherine Canal which the Tsar was set to cross. The fourth attempt was abandoned when the Tsar changed his travel plans thus avoiding the road that had been mined. For their fifth effort The People’s Will returned to tunneling and rented an apartment from which to burrow and bomb one of Alexander’s frequent haunts. But the terrorist group failed to represent everybody’s will and one of their neighbors denounced them.

Alexander II had survived eight times and a cat is known to have nine lives. That eventually an attempt on his life should be successful seemed an accepted fact both by Alexander and his contemporaries. The British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, had remarked in 1874 that the Tsar always looked sad questioning “Whether it is satiety, or the loneliness of despotism, or fear of a violent death, I know not” and Peter Kropotkin describes the events of March 13, 1881 ‘the tragedy developed with the unavoidable fatality of one of Shakespeare’s dramas.’ On this Sunday, Alexander was travelling his usual route when a bomb was thrown under his carriage. He alighted to inspect the damage and console the wounded Cossacks who accompanied him. A second, as it happened suicidal, terrorist, Ignatei Grinevitski, seized the opportunity to throw another bomb; this time with more success. The Tsar’s legs were blown off by the blast and chunks of his flesh, combined with that of others caught in the blast, littered the lying snow. The dying emperor was taken by sleigh to the Winter Palace. His mutilated body was met by members of his family. His grandson, who later became Tsar Nicholas II and was to meet a violent demise himself, described that “there were big red spots on the carpet - when they had carried my grandfather up the stairs, blood from the terrible wounds he had suffered from the explosion poured out.” Alexander’s body was taken to his quarters, passed the secret passageway, which led down to another series of rooms. It was the presence of these and his mistress and children housed there which gained him the reputation of a rat.

A history of lovers

Alexander II had many admirers, not least Queen Victoria, whom he first met in 1839, when both were barely out of their teens. She wrote in her diary: ‘I really am quite in love with the Grand Duke; he is a dear, delightful young man.’ During his month-long visit to England the two went on horse rides in Windsor, attended balls at Buckingham Palace and even spent half an hour alone behind closed curtains in the royal box at the theatre. But Alexander’s father, Tsar Nicholas I, feared a marriage would result in his son having to give up the Russian throne to become British Prince Consort. He ordered him to Germany where a more suitable suitor awaited; writing: ‘Back to Darnstadt. Don’t be a milksop.’ The parting was not without emotion and Alexander left Victoria his prized dog, Kazbek, as a leaving present. They were not to meet again until 1874 by which time Victoria was dismayed by his changed appearance and openly critical of his indiscretions.

Alexander II’s subsequent marriage to the German Princess – who became known as Maria Alexandrovna following their wedding in St Petersburg in April 1841 – was initially a happy one and she bore him eight children. Alexander’s virility was proven and there were rumors of other offspring; including twin girls born to the British Ambassador’s wife. But it was also the death of his children that reminded him of the fragility of life. His firstborn by Maria, a daughter Alexandra, died aged seven from tuberculosis and Alexander kept her nightgown beneath his pillow for the rest of his life. Their eldest son and heir, Nicholas, also died from consumption in 1865. Both tragedies contributed to Maria’s frail health, something that had already taken a severe down-turn after the birth of her final child in 1860. Diagnosed with tuberculosis and instructed to spend more time in warmer climates, her husband built a sanctuary for her in the Crimea. Her absences paved the way for his infidelities.

Amongst his lovers was an eighteen year old, Marie Dolgorukaia. But it was her sister Catherine who was to steal the Tsar’s heart. After the death of their father, Alexander II had taken on their guardianship and enrolled the girls in the Smolny Institute, in St Petersburg. It was on a visit here that the sisters grabbed his attention. Firstly Marie was employed as a Maid-of-Honor to his wife whilst performing more personal functions; but after less than a year the Tsar turned his eyes to her younger sister Catherine, almost thirty years his junior. Following a brief platonic period, their relationship turned sexual and intensely passionate. Catherine too was appointed as a Maid-of-Honor and assigned her own suite of rooms in the Palace, directly above the personal rooms of the Tsarina.

One love too far?

It was the flaunting of the affair and the damaging effect it had on the Tsarina’s heath that angered many, especially the couple’s children. But Alexander’s first assignation with Catherine, in July 1866, came only a few months after the initial attempt on his life. The awareness that there would be other assassination attempts must have prevailed. He had survived a second by the time Catherine bore their first child together. At a time when life seemed precious and short Alexander turned away from his often morose and religiously maniacal wife towards the intensely sexual mistress. Proof of their passion can be read in the thousands of sexually explicit letters exchanged between them, with almost everyone referring to the act of love-making or ‘bingerle’ [their pet-name for it]. The regularity of his rigor even led to the Tsar’s physicians placing him with a six-week sex-ban. During this period Catherine wrote ‘I confess that I cannot be without your fountain, which I love so… After my six weeks are over I count on renewing my injections.’

It was the permanent presence of the mistress in rooms above the wife that attracted particular criticism. It is alleged that Maria was often disturbed by the noises of Catherine’s children and even as she lay dying was purported to have uttered: “Why is there no one to check those unruly bastards?” But perhaps the most controversial and biggest bone of contention was Alexander’s rush into a morganatic marriage with Catherine forty days after his wife’s death in the summer of 1880. Although tradition dictated a year of mourning, the attempts on Alexander’s life had intensified. He was only too aware of his mortality. He wrote to his sister, Olga, on his decision: ‘I would never have married [Katia Dolgorukova] before a year of mourning if not for the dangerous time we live in and for the hazardous attempts I expose myself to daily which can actually and suddenly end my life.’

History highlights the weaknesses of Russia’s leaders, especially its monarchs who were born, not elected, to rule. Alexander II, like Henry VIII, was blinded by lust. But here was a man who acknowledged he was to be assassinated; who was aware that eventually an attempt would succeed and his many cat-lives would run out. Peter Kropotkin wrote he was: ‘a man of strong passions and weak will.’

And so on closer examination of his flaws it could be argued that the creature most closely characteristic of Tsar Alexander was neither cat nor rat - but that of a typical human being.

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

You can also read more on Russian history in this article on our blog about Grigori Rasputin here.

Selected References

• Pyotr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid

• Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The last great Tsar

The Divine Right of Kings, Nursery Rhymes and the English Civil War

In the first of a new series, Myra King starts to tell the story of the English Civil War.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row.”

Sound like a sweet, children’s rhyme? Well it’s not.

It actually refers to Queen Mary I of England. A woman so violent and psychologically imbalanced she earned herself the name, Bloody Mary. This queen, the first child and eldest daughter of King Henry VIII, had the strange idea that her God was punishing her with infertility because she was too tolerant of Protestants. This was an unfortunate belief as her father, 40 years before, believed his God was punishing him with infertility because England was not Protestant. And so, Henry broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and changed the religion of the England. This might not sound catastrophic, but in an era when science and reason barely existed, belief in the church was all these people had. And Henry took it away from them. He replaced it with a church that saw him as the unquestioned leader. This tyrannical leader then burned monasteries, killed monks, stole their gold and hanged all those who questioned him.

Queen Mary I of England

Henry earned himself two of his own nursery rhymes, “Little Jack Horner” and “Old Mother Hubbard.” Once again, this might not seem important, but this shows us the turning tide of public opinion towards monarchs. Throughout the history of England, the question of who reigned had always been more important than how they reigned. The law called “The Divine Right of Kings” meant that the monarch was seen as God’s choice; he was a chosen person to rule over their land. Therefore, who were the commoners to question who ruled? A king was a king was a king was a king. If he wasn’t a good one, hopefully the next one would be better. And that was the end of it. The common man had no say.

Or did he?

Henry VIII destroyed his reign and the love of his people by gutting England of its long standing religion; of putting wives aside, or worse, killing them; of starving the nation for his wars; of murdering all those who opposed him. The people remember him by mocking him in rhyme. His son, and successor, did not rule for long enough to live in infamy. But his daughter, Mary, will always be remembered as the blood-thirsty, psychopath she was.

The poem, “Mary, quite contrary,” refers to Mary’s garden that in reality was the growing graveyard her religious genocide caused. Mary, unlike most of the rest of England, had never abandoned Catholicism. Upon her disastrous marriage and second phantom pregnancy, the Queen decided that England would once again be Catholic, and all Protestants should be tortured and burned. Silverbells, Cockleshells and Pretty Maids were all torture devices used heavily in her reign. Mary earned herself even more rhymes: Ladybird, Ladybird, Three Blind Mice, and Goosy Goosy Gander, as well as a handful that have not survived into modern times. Despite their sweet words, these rhymes depict the hell that Mary brought to the realm. More hated than her father had ever been, Mary lives on despite her death four hundred years ago. Although, only children, their mothers and pre-school teachers still speak of her. Rhyming happily to a poem forged in the blood and torture of the Protestants she destroyed.

Henry and Mary serve to prove the changing opinions of the English people. Their chosen monarch could be evil, they now saw. Their chosen monarch could be cruel and unjust; their policies wrong; their beliefs and rules could be against the wishes of England.

Common men of the past had quietly accepted their kings without complaint. But those kings had abused their people. Those kings had destroyed the trust put in to them.

And so when James I and his son, Charles I, insisted on the law of the Divine Right of Kings despite England not wanting that law, England no longer wanted their Kings.

You can read Myra’s first series of articles on the Wars of the Roses by clicking here.

References

• Who's who in British History by Juliet Gardiner
• British History by Miles Kelly
• Rhymes.org.uk