THE EIGHT-NATION ALLIANCE’S CAPTURE OF THE TAKU FORTS, June 16-17, 1900

During the Boxer Rebellion, an Eight-Nation gunboat squadron bombarded the Chinese forts situated at the mouth of the Hai (Peiho) river. A force of c. 900 sailors (mostly Japanese, British, Germans and Russians, but also Austro-Hungarians and some Italians) under the command of Imperial German Navy captain Hugo von Pohl then disembarked and stormed the forts. 

Art by German artist Fritz Neumann (1881-1919).

The forts were armed with 177 guns, mostly muzzle loaders, and a few 15 cm Krupp guns. General Lo Young Yan’s Chinese suffered 800 casualties, the Allies 138. The fluvial access to Tianjin was open. This aggression pushed the Qing government definitively to the side of the Boxers and the Chinese army was instructed to resist foreign military forces by all means.  

Russian officer and marines next to a 15cm Krupp gun on the South Taku fort. Photograph by German naval officer Friedrich Carl Peetz of S.M.S. Herta. More from this collection: https://repository.duke.edu/dc/friedrichcarlpeetz

Today, only two forts remain, one on the south shore and the other on the north shore of the Hai River. The South fort has been rebuilt for touristic purposes and opened to the public in 1997 together with the Dagukou Fort Ruins Museum.  

Map showing the Taku forts in 1900

 

 

 

 

A reconstruction of the Taku forts, Dagukou Fort Ruins Museum.

LONDON HAS FALLEN: PEASANT REBELS TAKE LONDON, June 12-14, 1381

In May 1381, a series of highly unpopular poll taxes designed to help pay for the war against France triggered a peasant’s revolt. England was already exhausted by the Black Plague’s deaths on a massive scale and by crippling taxes. The rebels marched on London to oppose the institution of the poll tax and to demand economic and social reforms. There was no Royal army to defend the capital. 

On June 12, rebels from Kent and Essex led by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw merged their forces. They were armed with weapons including sticks, battle axes, old swords and bows. On the 14th, the rebels, who were looting and killing, destroyed John of Gaunt's Savoy Palace and stormed the Tower of London. They caught and beheaded Archbishop Simon Sudbury, and also Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer whom the peasants hated most of all. Boy-King Richard II of Bordeaux (who was only 14 at the time) met the rebel leaders to defuse the situation. Reforms such as fair rents and the abolition of serfdom were proclaimed by the King in an attempt to gain time. 

Illustration by Cecil Langley Doughty for Look and Learn of August 12, 1967.

 

During further negotiations, rebel leader Wat Tyler was murdered by the King's entourage. Noble forces subsequently overpower the rebel army, the rebel leaders were captured and executed. Richard revoked his concessions at once. 

 

The Townspeople of Cambridge then sacked the buildings of the University. Towards the end of June – beginning of July, revolts spread to St Albans and East Anglia, but they were quickly suppressed. The Norfolk rebels were defeated at the Battle of North Walsham (25 or 26 June). That effectively ended the revolt. 

 

On the 15th of July, “radical” priest John Ball was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of the King at St Albans for his part in the Peasants' Revolt. His head was displayed stuck on a pike on London Bridge, and the quarters of his body were displayed at four different towns. In response to the Peasants' Revolt, Parliament then passed the Treason Act making the starting of a riot high treason. 

THE ANGLO-PORTUGUESE ALLIANCE WAS ESTABLISHED 648 YEARS AGO

 

The Anglo-Portuguese alliance was born out of converging strategic interests: An alliance between France and Castile in 1369 had caused great concern at the English court. Through the alliance with Castile, which had one of the largest fleets in Western Europe, France had access to Castilian sea power. Therefore closer union with Castile’s western neighbor Portugal was a logical step to counter this threat. 

 

Added to this was a dynastic interest as the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, had a legitimate claim to the throne of Castile through his wife, Constance, daughter of Pedro I (1334-1369). With military victory in the Iberian Peninsula and a Plantagenet on the Castilian throne, it would only be a matter of time before France would be forced to the negotiating table. 

 

The treaty was signed on June 16, 1373 between King Edward III of England and King Fernando and Queen Leonor of Portugal. It established a treaty of "perpetual friendships, unions [and] alliances" between the two nations. 

Battle of Aljubarrota from A Batalha graphic novel by Pedro Massano, 2014.

 

In the aftermath, England sent a failed expedition to Portugal in 1381-2 under Edmund of Langley in an attempt to push Castile out of the war. Undisciplined English troops caused outrage by raiding Portuguese towns and killing inhabitants whilst exclusion from Portuguese-Castilian peace negotiations in 1382 drew English resentment. 

 

After the death of King Fernando I, Joao of Aviz sent ambassadors to England to request permission to recruit mercenaries. The Portuguese ambassador Fernando Afonso de Albuquerque, Master of the Portuguese military order of Sant'Iago da Espada succeeded initially in raising only a modest force of approximately 800 Anglo-Gascon troops. Nevertheless these soldiers would play a laudable role in the eventual defeat and withdrawal of Castilian forces from Portugal particularly with their contribution to the victory over Castilian troops at the battle of Aljubarrota (14th August 1385). 

Treaty of alliance between king Edward III of England and Fernando I of Portugal, 16th June 1373 (British National Archives: E 30-275)

Joao I was recognized as the undisputed King of Portugal, putting an end to the interregnum of the 1383–1385 Crisis. The Treaty of Windsor in 1386 established a pact of mutual support between the countries.

 

Although not invoked until several centuries later, the terms of the alliance were to be called upon during the 18th and 19th centuries when Portuguese independence was again threatened. In 1762 Anglo-Portuguese forces successfully defeated a Spanish invasion force and again during the Peninsula war of 1808-1814, Anglo-Portuguese troops under the Duke of Wellington thwarted Napoleon’s attempts to conquer Portugal, most notably at the battle of Buçaco (27 September 1810) which allowed Viscount Wellington and Portuguese General Luís do Rego Barreto to resume the retreat of their 52,000 men into the previously fortified Lines of Torres Vedras, a contiguous line of fortifications extending from the Tagus River to the ocean.  

Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd and the 52nd at Buçaco, 27th September 1810 by Christa Hook. The Royal Green Jackets Museum, Winchester.

 

 

 

COLONIZATION, WARS AND SLAVERY: HOW THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE STARTED IN 1518

Bartolomé de Las Casas explained how the African transatlantic slave trade actually started in the West Indies: In August 1518, for 25,000 ducats, Flemish Baron Laurent de Gorrevod, of H.R.E Carlos V’s private Council, granted a license to abduct and transport 4,000 Africans from islands situated in the Gulf of Guinea to the Antilles to the brothers Centurione, Genoese bankers in Seville. These bankers, in turn, sold their license to various settlers, making a profit of some 275,000 ducats (Historia de Indias, 1527-1547, Book III).

Théodore de Bry, African slaves working in mines in the New World

In 1528 a similar license was granted to Bartholomeus Welser, a powerful German banker of Augsburg who claimed to descend from Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius! Carlos V provided the Welsers with privileges within the African slave trade as a reward for their financial contributions to his Imperial election in 1519. In 1523 they started their own production of sugar in Santo Domingo and were granted the entire Venezuela in March 1528. 

 

The number of sugar mills boomed, and so did the number of grants to traffic enslaved Africans from West African chiefdoms in exchange for brass and guns. “As a result, the Portuguese, who had long been capturing black slaves in Guinea, for whom the Spanish paid good prices, increased the trade by whatever means possible and the Africans themselves, seeing the demand, warred among themselves to sell slaves to the Portuguese”.

A King (Oba) of Benin receiving Portuguese traders in the 16th century by Angus McBride. According to Duarte Pacheco Pereira (Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, 1506), the Benin Oba “was usually at war with its neighbors and takes many captives, whom we buy at 12 or 15 brass bracelets each."

 

Some of the enslaved Africans “escaped their misery by fleeing to the woods and from there cruelly attacked the Spaniards” such that “no small Spanish settlement was safe…”.

At the end of the 1540s, Las Casas, who had promoted the replacement of Indigenous slavery by African slavery, eventually changed his mind. He recognized that the Portuguese actions against Africans in Guinea were no less unjust than the Spanish against Indigenous Americans in the New World.

FOUR DAYS' BATTLE: DE RUYTER'S TURNS THE TIDE DURING THE 2nd ANGLO-DUTCH WAR (June 11-14, 1666)

Michiel De Ruyter, the "Terror of the Ocean" is the most illustrious Admiral of the Dutch Golden Age. In the 17th century, the Dutch Republic, the world’s dominant trade nation, was at war for sixty years because of commercial and maritime rivalry. Although the Dutch had the largest fleet in Europe, they would face England, a maritime power on the rise, allied with Portugal, Sweden, and later Louis XIV’s France. The Navy of the Republic had to protect overseas shipping lanes, but also repel any naval invasion of Dutch territory. Revered as savior of the nation, De Ruyter would become the most celebrated of Dutch seamen, and one of the most able commanders of the 17th century. 

Dutch Council of War on the De Zeven Provinciën, De Ruyter's flagship, June 10, 1666 (detail), art by Maarten Platje from the well-known engraving by Willem van de Velde the Elder.

 

After the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Lowestoft (June 1665), Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt replaced the deceased Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer by De Ruyter. This led to bitter rivalry with Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Tromp, a political enemy of De Witt. De Ruyter’s blaming Admiral Cornelis Tromp for the defeat at the St. James’s Day battle the following year resulted in Tromp’s resignation from the Navy until 1673, when the two commanders were reconciled.

 

De Ruyter worked closely with Johan De Witt to expand the Dutch Navy, building new, larger and better-armed ships, instead of relying on armed merchantmen, and improving their organization. The flagship of the Republic, De Zeven Provinciën, was fitted with 80 bronze guns. 

 

Until then, the favored Dutch tactic was of undisciplined mêlée, with individual ships boarding and attempting to capture their opponent, leaving the battle with their prize. With De Ruyter, fighting in line and ensuring fleet discipline became the basis of Dutch standard tactic in the new Fighting Instructions approved by the States General in August 1665. Faulty captains were trialed, some executed, others banned. 

 

The fleet was divided into three distinct squadrons, each with a clear chain of command. Signaling was improved, and the principle of the concentration of superior force against part of the enemy fleet was adopted. Finally, regiments of soldiers, the Korps Mariniers, were deployed aboard the ships.

These reforms soon paid off. During the rest of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), De Ruyter’s achieved victory at the Four Days’ Battle, soon followed by even more stunning successes... 

 

The English fleet was stronger than that of the Dutch, but on receiving intelligence that the Duc de Beaufort was preparing to land troops in Ireland, the English divided their fleet, sending the more powerful vessels into the Channel, still leaving 56 warships off the Kentish coast. De Ruyter, deploying his 84 warships to prevent the English breaking out into the North Sea, mauled the vessels off the Kent coast and then inflicted severe damage on the vessels returning from the Channel.

 

IMPERIAL EPIC WAR MOVIE KHARTOUM WAS RELEASED 55 YEARS AGO!

-General Charles Gordon: “Colonel, what are the chances of my sacking you as my aide?”

-Col. John Stewart: “If any exist, General, please be assured that I'd be the first to point them out to you!”

Directed by Basil Dearden, Khartoum, a British epic film released in early June 1966, was a big-budget, fact-based account of the Siege of Khartoum (1884–85), in which General Charles Gordon led an unsuccessful defense of the Sudanese city against an army headed by the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdī. The interiors were filmed at Pinewood Studios in England in five weeks, with actual location shots in Egypt lasting ten weeks. Since the film is entirely from the British perspective, the Mahdist warriors are depicted as an undifferentiated mob of bloodthirsty howling fanatics. The paddle steamer early in the movie which takes Gordon and Scott from England is the Princess Elizabeth. Built in 1927, she was a veteran of the May 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, where she made four trips carrying British soldiers back to Britain. 

Movie still from Khartoum with Charlton Heston as Charles Gordon, and Richard Johnson as Colonel John Stewart

 

Khartoum was on the list of Martin Scorsese’s 130 “guilty pleasures”:

“I like anything about the British in the Sudan; I love the 1939 version of Four Feathers. In Four Feathers, the British avenge the killing of "Chinese" Gordon in Khartoum by the Mahdi, the holy redeemer. Khartoum takes place ten years earlier. Charlton Heston, as Gordon, is marvelous; and Laurence Olivier has a lot of fun as the Mahdi, with a space between his front teeth. It isn't very good filmmaking, but it has a mystical quality about it. This was a holy war. At the end -- when Mahdi killed Gordon, and then six months later he died himself -- it was as if the two of them canceled each other out, religiously and historically. It's a story I want to be told, over and over again, like a fairy tale.”-Martin Scorsese, Film Comment Magazine, May-June 1998. 

Movie still from Khartoum with Charlton Heston as Charles Gordon

Although a failure at the box office, Khartoum earned critical praise for its intelligent and entertaining retelling of the historical event. Khartoum has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes!

-Photograph: Movie still from Khartoum with Charlton Heston as Charles Gordon, and Richard Johnson as Colonel John Stewart.

BATTLE OF ROCROI, May 19, 1643: TWILIGHT OF THE TERCIOS

At Rocroi, 22-year old Louis Duc d'Enghien defeated the Spanish Army of Flanders led by experienced General Francisco de Melo and Maestre de Campo Paul-Bernard de Fontaines. This decisive victory took place only five days after the accession of young Louis XIV, late in the Thirty Years' War. It is considered the turning point of the perceived invincibility of the Spanish tercio.

 

The Habsburgs had 27,000 men, the French 23,000. The French army attacked, but the infantry in the center were bested by the Spanish. The cavalry on the French left, advancing against Enghien's orders, was also thrown back. But the cavalry on the French right, under the command of Jean de Gassion, routed the Spanish cavalry opposite. 

 

Enghien was able to follow this up by attacking the exposed left flank of the Spanish infantry. Spanish cavalry made a successful counter-attack to drive off the French cavalry, but were checked by the advance of the French reserve.

 

Enghien now carried out a huge cavalry encirclement, sweeping behind the Spanish army and smashing his way through to attack the rear of the Spanish cavalry, which was still in combat with his reserves. The Spanish horse was put to flight, leaving the Spanish infantry to carry on the fight.

The French were twice repulsed by the stubborn Spanish squares, so Enghien arranged for his artillery and captured Spanish guns to blast them apart. The German and Walloon tercios fled from the battlefield, while the Spanish remained on the field with their commander, repulsing four cavalry charges by the French and never breaking formation, despite repeated heavy artillery bombardment. Enghien then offered surrender conditions just like those obtained by a besieged garrison in a fortress. Having agreed to those terms, the remains of the two tercios left the field with deployed flags and weapons. Enghien himself had conceived and directed the decisive victory. 

Battle of Rocroi by Ugo Pinson

The total Spanish losses were about 7,000 dead, wounded, or captured. French losses were about 4,000.

The Battle given at Rocroi proved to be a resounding victory for the French Royal army under the Duc d’Enghien. Until then, the tercios were considered invincible. Combining a force of trained pikemen and the fire of the arquebusiers, the tercios were the tool of Spanish domination in Europe throughout the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. 

 

To defeat them, the impetuous Duke of Enghien compensated for his numerical inferiority by his speed of maneuver and by making extensive use of his cavalry, routing the opponent’s own mounted forces, before falling back on the tercios’ rear and attacking them from all sides. The Army of Flanders lost most of its forces, including Maestre de Campo Paul-Bernard de Fontaine and 250 flags. This stunning victory against the renown Spanish tercios was unprecedented.

 

While Spain continued to use tercios, other European nations moved away from them, and even Spain was modifying them before they were eventually consigned to the memories of a glorious time in Spain's past.

 

A majority of historians, including myself, consider that this is clearly the beginning of the end of the Spanish predominance in Europe and of the tercios: There is one more Bavarian-Imperial victory at Tuttingen in November of the same year. At Montijo the next year the Portuguese defeated the Spaniards. At Nördlingen in 1645 the French defeated the Imperials. At Lens in 1648 once again Condé defeated the Spaniards. In 1654 at Arras this time it was Turenne who defeated the Spaniards. The last Spanish victory against the French was at Valenciennes in 1656, but 3 years later at Les Dunes Turenne crushed the Spaniards and this victory led to the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Thus, the only clear Spanish victory after Rocroi was Valenciennes and the last one. 

WHEN BYZANTINE EMPEROR KONSTANTINOS XI THREATENED SULTAN MEHMET II WITH CIVIL WAR

In February 1451, the 18-year old Mehmet II became Sultan for the second time following the death of his father. Immediately, he had to deal with Karamanid attacks on Ottoman lands in Eastern Anatolia. Emperor Konstantinos XI of Byzantium, attempting to use this situation to the Empire’s advantage, decided to attempt a risky strategy of disruption as he thought that he had an ace in the hole...

 

A great-grandson of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, Orhan Çelebi, lived as a hostage in Constantinople. Other than Mehmet II, Orhan was the only other claimant to the throne. Murad II had previously agreed to pay annually 300,000 aspres for Orhan being kept at Constantinople, but this time, Konstantinos XI asked for a doubling of Orhan’s allowance or otherwise to release him, potentially sparking an Ottoman civil war.

 

Mehmet's Grand Vizier, Çandarlı Halil Pasha received the ambassadors at Bursa. The Grand Vizier was the main force in the Ottoman Government counseling the new Sultan against war and an attack on Constantinople. Because of the blatant provocation, he lost his temper with the Byzantine messengers, supposedly exploding in anger: 

 

"You stupid Greeks, I have had enough of your devious ways. The late sultan was a lenient and conscientious friend to you. The present sultan is not of the same mind. If Constantine eludes his bold and impetuous grasp, it will only be because God continues to overlook your cunning and wicked schemes. You are fools to think you can frighten us with your fantasies, and that when the ink on our recent treaty [1449] is barely dry. We are not children without strength or reason. If you think you can start something, then do so. If you want to proclaim Orhan as Sultan in Thrace, go ahead. If you want to bring the Hungarians across the Danube, let them come. If you want to recover the places which you lost long since, try it. But know this: you will make no headway in any of these things. All that you will achieve is to lose what little you still have".

 

The threat of releasing Orhan gave Mehmet a pretext for concentrating all of his energy and resources on seizing Constantinople, his true goal since he had become Sultan. He began large-scale preparations immediately. He sent a message to Konstantinos: “Either surrender the city or stand ready to do battle.”

Photograph from the Panorama 1453 Museum, Istanbul

The Byzantines had greatly underestimated the young Sultan. On 2 April 1453, Mehmet's advance guard arrived outside Constantinople and began pitching up a camp. On 5 April, the Sultan himself arrived at the head of his 60,000-men army and encamped within firing range of the city's Gate of St. Romanus. The most important siege in History had begun…

BLOODBATH AT MAGDEBURG DURING THE 30 YEARS' WAR, May 20, 1631

"I believe that over twenty thousand souls were lost. It is certain that no more terrible work and divine punishment has been seen since the Destruction of Jerusalem. All of our soldiers became rich. God with us." -Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim.

 

The Sack of Magdeburg of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg on 20 May 1631 by the Imperial Army and the forces of the Catholic League is considered the worst massacre of the Thirty Years' War. Magdeburg, then one of the largest cities in Germany and about the size of Cologne or Hamburg, never recovered from the disaster, 25,000 inhabitants lost their lives.

In the early morning of May 20, the conquest began with heavy artillery fire. Soon after, Pappenheim and Tilly started marching against Magdeburg. The city's fortifications were breached and Imperial forces were able to overpower armed opposition and open the Kröcken Gate which allowed the entire army to enter the city, plundering its rich stores of goods. When the city was almost lost, the garrison mined various places and set others on fire.

 

After the city fell, the Imperial soldiers supposedly went out of control and started to massacre the inhabitants and set fire to the city. The invading soldiers had not received payment for their service and took the chance to loot everything in sight; they demanded valuables from every household that they encountered. Otto von Guericke, an inhabitant of Magdeburg, claimed that when civilians ran out of things to give the soldiers, "the misery really began. For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten, and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people."

 

It took only one day for all of this destruction and death to transpire. Of the 30,000 citizens, only 5,000 survived, most of them had fled into Magdeburg Cathedral. Tilly finally ordered an end to the looting on May 24, and a Catholic mass was celebrated at the Cathedral on the next day. For another fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent disease.

 

I highly recommend the 4th episode ("Devastation") of the great TV documentary Die Eiserne Zeit - Europa im Dreißigjährigen Krieg (The Iron Age - Europe in the Thirty Years' War) that is centered on this dramatic event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coxgDQPyNUA

APOCALYPTIC DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROYAL, HOME OF THE JAMAICA STATION, June 7, 1692

“I found the Ground rowling and moving under my Feet, upon which I said, Lord, Sir, what’s this? Governor John White replied very composedly, being a very grave Man, ‘it is an Earthquake, be not afraid, it will soon be over’. But it increased, and we heard the Church and Tower fall; upon which, we ran to save ourselves. I quickly lost him, and made towards Morgan’s Fort, which being a wide open Place, I thought to be there securest from the falling Houses: But as I made toward it, I saw the Earth open and swallow-up a Multitude of People, and the Sea mounting-in upon us over the Fortifications”-Reverend Emmanuel Heath, Rector of Saint Paul’s church, 1692.

Fate of Port Royal by Robert W. by Nicholson for National Geographic, February 1960 edition.

English Admiral William Penn had captured Jamaica from Spain in 1655. As an attack from Cartagena was always possible, construction of Fort Cromwell began to defend the harbor in 1656. By 1692 five forts defended the port. A town was founded in the vicinity of the cay and the settlement was soon populated by an array of sailors, merchants, craftsmen and prostitutes. Originally called Point Cagway, it became Port Royal with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660; at the same time Fort Cromwell was renamed Fort Charles. From 1668, Royal Navy warships began to be permanently stationed there in what became the Jamaica Station. 

Henry Morgan enters Port Royal triumphantly in 1671 by William Gilkerson (1936-2015).

 

Although Port Royal was designed to serve as a defensive fortification guarding the entrance to the harbor, it assumed much greater importance. Its well positioned location within a well-protected harbor and its flat topography surrounded by deep water close to shore, made it an ideal place for loading, unloading and servicing of large ships. Ships' captains, merchants, and craftsmen established themselves in Port Royal to take advantage of of the trading and outfitting opportunities. As Jamaica's economy grew and changed between 1655 and 1692, Port Royal grew faster than any town founded by the English in the New World, and it became the most economically important English port in the Americas. In the early 1690s, Henry Morgan’s port city was home to 7,000-10,000 people, almost half directly involved with privateering.

Contemporary engraving of the Port Royal's 1692 disaster

 

By 1692, the dense city, the largest and most affluent English town in the Americas at this time, had 2,000 buildings, including brick buildings of up to 4 storeys. At the time, Francis Hanson wrote that there was more wealth per resident in Port Royal than in London!

Then, it all came crashing down, literally: At 11:43 am on Saturday 7th of June 1692, the hub of the British Caribbean was hit by a devastating earthquake, causing 33 of the city’s 52 acres to sink straight down into the liquefied substrate beneath the buildings in a matter of just 3 minutes. The town was hit by a tidal wave shortly after the earthquake ended and many people who had been half buried by the quake were drowned. The 32-gun, 5th rate HMS Swann was carried by the tsunami over the top of many houses, before crashing on the roof of Lord Pike’s mansion. She sank in middle of the ruins. In the 1980s, the shipwreck was identified underwater at the ends of Lime and Queen Streets by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. 

Destruction of Port Royal by Andrew Howat

 

An estimated 2,000 people were killed on that day, with 3,000 more dying in the chaotic aftermath from injuries, the ensuing pillaging, hunger and disease. What was left of Port Royal, once connected to the rest of the island by a narrow strip of land, was now an island. The Palisadoes cemetery, where Henry Morgan had been buried just 4 years before, was one of the parts of the city to fall into the sea; his body has never been subsequently located. Of the five forts that once protected the island, only Fort Charles remained. The loss of Port Royal was a sudden, catastrophic event that forever changed the English Caribbean. 

Port Royal before the 1692 earthquake by Peter Dunn

-Read more on Port Royal’s history: https://jamaicaportroyal.com/archaeology.html and check out this National Geographic documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1VLUevIWIs

ART OF THE DAY: DEFENSE OF THE FORTRESS OF BAYAZID BY THE RUSSIANS (June 8-28, 1877) by LEV LAGORIO

 During the short Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, the Orthodox balkanic coalition led by Russia against the Ottoman Empire scored a number of resounding victories. It was also marked by brutal “ethnic cleansing” of minorities – Christians, Muslims and Jews - by all the parties involved. Adrianople had fallen, Russian troops came as close as 11 km from Istanbul. The firm intervention of Britain stopped them from taking the capital of the Sultans and the Dardanelles, as they came under the threat of the British Mediterranean squadron led by Vice-Admiral Geoffrey Phipps-Hornby stationed at Besika Bay, ready to engage the Orthodox coalition “as to not repeat the bloody blunder of [the battle of] Navarino”-British Prime Minister Disraeli. 

Siege of the citadel of Bayazid by Lev Lagorio, painted in 1891, Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers and Signal Corps, Saint Petersburg.

 

 

 

 

In the Caucasus theater, on April 18, 1877, Bayazid (Doğubayazıt in Ağrı Province), 15 km southwest of Mount Ararat, was occupied by the detachment of Lieutenant General Tergukasov, who then moved on, leaving a small garrison in the city. Captain F. Shtokvich was appointed commandant of the Bayazet citadel (the Ishak Pasha Palace). On June 6, 11,000 Turks under the command of Brigadier General A. Faik Pasha, occupied the city and blocked the 1,700-men strong Russian garrison in the citadel. On June 8, Turkish troops attempted to storm the citadel but were repulsed. The Kurdish irregulars plundered the city, carrying out a complete extermination of the local Armenian population. For 23 days, the garrison repelled all the attacks, and on June 28 it was finally saved by the troops of the Erivan detachment of General Tergukasov. During the siege, the garrison suffered 286 casualties.

After the war, under the terms of the San Stefano Peace Treaty (March 1878), Bayazid and the adjacent territories were ceded to Imperial Russia. But according to the decisions of the Berlin Congress (June-July 1878), this was reversed and Bayazid and the Alashkert Valley were returned to the Ottoman Empire. 

End of the siege of the citadel of Bayazid on June 23, 1878.

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Viennese authorities were unhappy with this extension of Russian power, and Serbia feared the establishment of Greater Bulgaria would harm its interests in former and remaining Ottoman territories. Britain would defend its interests in Constantinople, in Egypt, Suez, and the Persian Gulf by war if necessary. For Prince Aleksandr Gorchakov, “the British find it hard to understand a war of religious and national sentiment, and being incapable of one themselves, they consequently look for arrières pensées”. As for Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, the Balkans were simply “not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier”!

The British fleet in the Dardanelles with ironclads Alexandra, Agincourt, Achilles, Monarch, Invincible, Rupert, Swiftsure, Hostpur, Defense, Thunderer, Raleigh, Ruby, Sultan, Temeraire and Research: 1. The Fleet nearing the town of Kum Kaleh; 2. The Fleet entering the mouth of the Dardanelles. The Illustrated London News, 1878.

  

Disraeli never dissimulated his sympathy for the Ottoman cause vs the Balkan Christians:

“I find the habits of this calm and luxurious people [the Ottomans] entirely agree with my own preconceived opinions of property and enjoyment, and detest the Greeks more than ever”. (Miloš Ković , Disreali and the Eastern Question, 2007). 

William Gladstone, on the other hand, was fiercely in favor of “humanitarian intervention” on behalf of the Christians and disliked the Turks: “Upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law. For the guide of this life they had a relentless fatalism: for its reward hereafter, a sensual paradise.”

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DAY: IJN BATTLESHIP MUSASHI DURING EARLY SEA TRIALS, JUNE-JULY 1942

The 72,000 tons (fully loaded) battleship, flagship of the Combined Fleet, remained in commission just over two years, from August 1942, until she was sunk at the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in October 1944, after being struck by at least 17 bombs, 19 torpedoes and 18 near misses.

-Colorization by Atsushi Yamashita. This photo is actually a clever composite made from three separate images during her trials at the Kure Naval Arsenal, and reveals a wealth of detail about the ship's massive upperworks. The sides of the conning tower had 50 cm of armor.

ART OF THE DAY: PASTOR ZWINGLI BLESSES THE SOLDIERS OF GLARUS. BATTLE OF NOVARA, June 6, 1513, by MARK CHURMS

Huldrych Zwingli, the Swiss leader of the Reformation, was present at the battle as chaplain of the soldiers of Glarus. According to his successor Heinrich Bullinger he “behaved honorably and bravely during the battles [of Novara and Marignano] with advice, words and deeds.” The function of chaplain was indeed crucial for morale.

The battle was particularly bloody, with 5,000 to 10,000 casualties on the French side, and 1,500 for the Swiss pikemen, mostly suffered from the French artillery. After the battle, the Swiss executed the hundreds of German Landsknecht mercenaries they had captured who had fought for King Louis XII. 

 

Novara would be the last Confederate victory; Two years later, they were defeated at Marignano by the French using a combination of artillery, cavalry and infantry. Zwingly also participated in that battle. He died at the battle of Kappel in October 1531 at age 47, his body was taken by the victorious Catholic army and burned for heresy. 

 

-Medieval Warfare Magazine, 2013 Vol III, No. 2.

-About the artist: Mark Churms is a free-lance military artist. Originally from the UK, Mark now lives and works in the USA. The artist’s website: https://markchurms.com/.

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DAY: LOCAL SELF-DEFENSE PERUVIAN MILITIA AGAINST THE SHINING PATH, April 12, 1990

 After the Sendero Luminoso's (Shining Path) attacks in Chuppac, Department of Ayacucho, which occurred on April 8, 1990, the people of that community set up peasant patrols with the support of the Peruvian Army. Between 1980 and 2000, the armed conflict in Peru claimed the lives of some 70,000 people making it the bloodiest war in Peruvian history since the European colonization. 

-Photo by Jorge Torres. Yuyanapaq, Para recordar. Relato visual del conflicto armado interno en el Perú. https://issuu.com/kath.../docs/yuyaexhibitbook_singles_part1

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DAY: BRAZILIAN DREADNOUGHT MINAS GERAES, 1913

Minas Geraes was built by Armstrong Whitworth & Company shipyards in Newcastle-on-Tyne, Britain for the Brazil. It entered service in the Brazilian Navy in April 18, 1910. When launched, the Minas Geraes was the most powerful warship ever built. In South America, Minas Geraes and her sister ship São Paulo kindled a naval arms race among Brazil, Argentina, and Chile that lasted until WW1.  

Photo taken during the Battleship’s visit of the U.S. in June-July 1913.  

U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Shortly after entering commission, in November 1910, both Dreadnoughts experienced widespread racial mutinies among the crewmen stationed at Rio de Janeiro. The mutiny that lasted 5 days, involving 2,000 crewmen, was called “Revolta da Chibata”, Revolt of the Lash. On the Minas Geraes, João Batista das Neves the Captain of the ship and other officials were killed. The two battleships and 7 other warships were then used by the rebels to bombard Brazilian Army forts, the Naval Arsenal, naval bases and even the Presidential Palace, causing panic and consternation. Only by offering general amnesty did the Brazilian government reclaim the warships. Fear of new rebellions paralyzed the entire fleet for months.