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.

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.”

MILITARY LEADER OF THE DAY: JACQUES DE LINIERS (1753-1810), THE FRENCH KNIGHT OF MALTA WHO FOUGHT FOR SPAIN AND SAVED BUENOS AIRES.

By Eric G. L. Pinzelli,
June 27, 2019 

After graduating from the Order of Malta military school at age 15, Jacques de Liniers (from a very ancient French noble family) was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant of Cavalry in the Royal-Piémont Regiment at Carcassonne, France. In 1774 Liniers enlisted as a volunteer in the Spanish campaigns against the Moors in Algiers.

At the campaign's conclusion, Liniers took an exam as a Midshipman in Cádiz, to serve as a volunteer for the Spanish Crown. In 1775 he earned the rank of Ensign in the Spanish Navy. In 1776, under the orders of Pedro de Cevallos, Liniers sailed to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata and took part on the occupation of Santa Catarina Island in Brazil and the attack on Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay).

In 1779, Liniers was an officer on the San Vicente which part of the Spanish-French Naval Squadron fighting the British Royal Navy in South America. Liniers distinguished himself during the American Revolution. In 1780, with a few sloops, he captured a three-masted ship of 24 guns. In 1782, during the siege of Port Mahon, under fire, he moved to where two British ships had collided, which were laden with arms and ammunition. He seized the ships and conveyed them to the Spanish lines. He was promoted to Frigate Captain.

A few months later Liniers took part in a new expedition against the city of Algiers, in North Africa. When Madrid tried to negotiate with the local dey, Liniers was entrusted with the mission. The Spanish court rewarded Liniers for his diplomatic successes, promoting him to the rank of captain and entrusting him with the command of the Río de la Plata in 1788 to organize a flotilla of gunships.

In June 23, 1806, a British expeditionary force of 1,700 men landed on the left bank of the Río de la Plata and invaded Buenos Aires, which had been abandoned by the Viceroy. Liniers remained in the city in disguise, staying in the Dominican convent. At the altar of the Virgin, he vowed to return with the flags of the occupiers. He escaped to Montevideo and, with the help of its governor Pascual Ruiz Huidobro, galvanized the people, raising a troop of 1,200 volunteers.

He embarked with this liberation army on a few schooners, which joined a French privateer corvette and local militia. Landing on August 4, Liniers and his men rushed across the marshes to Buenos Aires. The city was recovered after fierce street fighting that ended with the storming of the cathedral, which had been fortified by the British. British General William Carr Beresford capitulated and offered his sword; true to Liniers's vow, British flags (those of the Highlanders regiment and Green St. Helena) were transferred to the church of the convent of the Dominicans, where they are still held.

When a second larger British invasion with 11,000 men was imminent, the Real Audiencia of Buenos Aires confirmed Liniers as commander-in-chief, and appointed him as interim viceroy.

The British forced entered into the city and found a strong resistance, and many battalions were defeated, while others tried to resist at strategic points. Whitelocke suggested a truce, which was rejected by Liniers, who also attacked the British ships within cannon range. After suffering 311 killed, 679 wounded and 1,808 captured or missing Whitelocke's defeat was complete, and Liniers demanded that all British forces be removed from the territories of Viceroyalty, including the Banda Oriental, in no more than 2 months, as well as an exchange of prisoners. Whitelocke accepted the conditions and surrendered.There was a large number of celebrations after the victory against the British. Liniers was officially appointed as viceroy in May 1808, and awarded the title of "Count of Buenos Aires".

When the May Revolution took place in 1810, Liniers decided to come out of his retirement and organized a monarchist uprising in Córdoba. Jacques de Liniers was defeated, captured, and executed without trial.

Painting: Reconquest of Buenos Aires by Charles Fouqueray, Museo Histórico Nacional, Buenos Aires.