Category Archives: History

Arts, Books, First World War, History

Books/History: ‘Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War’…

HISTORICAL REFERENCE WITH A DIFFERENCE

As the centenary of the Great War approaches, a tide of new books about it is due for publication. It must be the most written-about war in history.

Richard van Emden’s ‘Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War’, though, is a World War I historical reference with a difference. Emden is a specialist who has found a literary niche, little explored, charting the personal contacts between Britons and Germans and their feelings about each other as the war progressed.

It began on both sides in a blaze of patriotic bluster. Crowds poured into Berlin’s main thoroughfare, Unter den Linden, as they did in London’s Piccadilly and Pall Mall. In Berlin they bellowed, ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles’; in London, ‘Rule Britannia!’

The phrases of the hour in Britain were: ‘We must stand by France’ (German troops were already in Belgium) and ‘It will be over in three months’. Why three months, nobody precisely knew.

There were many more German immigrants in Britain than Britons in Germany. They faced internment, with dire consequences for their families, who were eventually supported by meagre grants from their government.

There was fury in Germany at Britain’s declaration of war, along with widespread feelings of betrayal. Only the previous year, George V visited his cousin the Kaiser, and was pictured wearing a ‘pickelhaube’ – a spiked, plumed German helmet matching the German leader’s. Now King George was pictured on a postcard as ‘der Judas von England’.

The Kaiser was honorary colonel of a regiment of British dragoons and an Admiral of the Fleet to boot. His British orders and decorations were packed in brown paper and delivered to the British Embassy with a message that he had no further use for them.

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NEVERTHELESS, he ordered that the English Church in Berlin, built as a present to his English mother, was to be kept open, and its pastor, the Rev Henry Williams, left at liberty for the duration.

The diaries of Rev William’s are much quoted, describing how life in Germany deteriorated when the Allied blockade began to bite.

Anti-German feelings ran high in Britain at the war’s opening and flared again with the sinking of the Lusitania off Southern Ireland in 1915, drowning more people than the Titanic had.

A remarkable book reveals how warring troops bonded in the trenches.

A remarkable book reveals how warring troops bonded in the trenches.

There were riots in the Lusitania’s home port of Liverpool, with the shops of German immigrants being looted and burnt. This rancour was markedly absent from the front line in Flanders, where the famous Christmas truce took place in 1914. Everyone knows that it started with men in both trenches singing Christmas carols and shouting ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other, then climbing out of their trenches to exchange gifts and friendly talk in no man’s land.

In some places the truce lasted into January, until orders came from above that war must be resumed. Officers on both sides synchronised their watches, agreeing to start again in an hour, saluted each other and went back to their respective trenches.

Those in the higher echelons of the British Army were furious at the spontaneous fraternising – pictures of which appeared in the newspapers. When Christmas approached in 1915, they threatened dire punishment if it should happen again.

But it did – at least in the Scots’ Guards section of the front. Their company commander, Sir Iain Colquhoun, agreed to a German suggestion of a truce to bury the dead lying in no man’s land. This developed into full-scale fraternising. The Germans danced to a mouth organ.

Captain Colquhoun was court-martialled and reprimanded. All leave was cancelled for six months as punishment.

Some other friendly contacts were surprising. When the British took over part of the French sector in 1915, they were met with a message left on the barbed wire, fixing a rendezvous for the exchange of newspapers.

One British officer was told that German officers had been in the habit of crossing over in the evenings for a game of bridge with their French opponents. That stopped when they found the British waiting for them.

Many deserters crossed the line at night to surrender and escape further fighting. A Sergeant Dawson, bogged down in the mud of no man’s land, could only wait to be captured. When he surrendered to the five Germans who pulled him out, they assured him: ‘No, we are your prisoners. Take us to your headquarters.’ He was helplessly lost, but they knew the way.

Prisoners were remarkably well-treated. Captain Wilfred Birt, who died in Cologne hospital after a stoic struggle with painful wounds, was given a slap-up military funeral in the cathedral by Germans. Serving British officers were invited to attend, and were allowed free passage back to their side afterwards.

Another imprisoned British captain was allowed three weeks’ leave to go home to see his dying mother. He gave his promise to return, kept his word … then set about trying to escape as usual.

The highest display of mutual esteem occurred between the fighter pilots who were in combat above the lines. They carried no parachutes, as they were too bulky for narrow cockpits. So when a machine caught fire, the pilot was faced with the choice of burning or jumping.

German pilots made a habit of finding their victims, alive or dead. If dead, they dropped details of their names and burial sites over the British lines. If alive, they would invite them to a slap-up meal in their mess.

Both sides were ruthless to each other in the air but observed the rules of chivalry on the ground. When the German ace Max Immelmann was killed, a British pilot dropped a wreath and message of condolence on his airfield.

When fellow ace Werner Voss was shot down doing battle against seven opponents at once, the victorious pilot said: ‘If only I could have brought him down alive.’

This illustrated the difference between personal combat and the industrialised warfare of machine guns and artillery barrages on the ground. When it was possible to know your enemy individually, hatred was seldom shown.

A brigadier, Hubert Rees, who was captured during the Germans’ last offensive in March 1918, was ordered to a car that took him to the top of a plateau. Here he was ushered forward to meet the Kaiser, who questioned him then said: ‘Your country and mine ought not to be fighting each other. We should be fighting together. I had no idea that you would fight me.’

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HE ASKED: ‘Does England wish for peace?’ Rees replied: ‘Everyone wishes for peace.’

After the Kaiser had gone into exile and Rees had been released from captivity and was wandering about Berlin, he witnessed the return of the Prussian Guards to the city, often described as a ‘triumph’.

Rees had a different word for it – pathetic. ‘Companies of boys and over-age men. Officers without swords. Rusty weapons, broken-down horses drawing limbers. As a military spectacle it was lamentable.’

As British troops occupied the Rhineland, a British guardsman wrote: ‘The people welcomed us as rescuers from anarchy.’ Also from starvation. Their British ‘guests’ were a vital source of food from the Army’s well-stocked canteens.

The ban on fraternisation had to be lifted. ‘Our fellows would open their tunics to show their scars. The German boys would do the same,’ wrote a private soldier. Only weeks after they had been doing their best to kill each other, they behaved like comrades in arms.

– ‘Meeting the Enemy: The Human Face of the Great War’ written by Richard van Emden is published by Bloomburg at £20.

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First World War, History, Second World War, United States, Warfare

History is littered with examples of chemical and biological attacks…

…Damascus suffered an appalling gas attack in which hundreds died, but other incidents in history have been much worse.

IT was a singularly evil chemical weapons attack, but tragically the hundreds killed in Damascus just two weeks ago were the latest victims in a long history of the use of poison gas to kill soldiers and civilians. This entry is an examination of past atrocities where many exacted an even greater toll:

IRAQ AGAINST THE KURDS… Saddam Hussein’s regime used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from around 40 villages in northern Iraq. On March 16, 1988, he carried out the most deadly attack, dropping poisons including mustard gas, sarin and VX on the town of Halabja. Men, women and children choked to death in the indiscriminate attack.

The atrocity prompted the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, an international pact banning production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons. Only seven nations (including Syria) are not signatories. The death toll in Halabja was reported as being up to 5,000.

IRAN-IRAQ WAR, 1980-88… Hussein used sarin and mustard gas against Iran to tip the war in Iraq’s favour and forced Tehran to negotiate. But newly declassified CIA documents revealed recently the US knew about the use of chemical weapons but refused to act because Washington feared an Iranian victory. Up to 20,000 people were killed in the 8-year war.

VIETNAM… Between 1965 and 1975, in the bitter war against North Vietnam, the US dropped millions of tons of incendiary napalm to defoliate dense forests in which enemy fighters were hiding. The jelly-like substance ignited and stuck to skin, burning through muscle and bone, causing hideous injury and often death. America also dropped 50 million tons of Agent Orange, a super-strength chemical herbicide, to destroy all plants. But poisonous dioxins seeped into the soil and water supply, entering into the food chain and leading to severe health problems and disabilities for generations. More than a million people perished, as well as 400,000 Vietnamese children born with birth defects were recorded due to exposure to Agent Orange.

HITLER… Hitler refrained from using chemical weapons in battle but millions of Jews were transported to extermination camps, notably Auschwitz in Poland, and were suffocated in gas chambers using cyanide-based Zyklon B. Some six million Jews died in the Holocaust, plus gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and Soviet prisoners.

WORLD WAR TWO… Between 1937 and 1945, Japan launched both chemical and biological attacks while invading China. Emperor Hirohito authorised use of toxic gas on more than 2,000 occasions. In 1941, members of a secretive Japanese research and development facility (Unit 731) airdropped fleas contaminated with the bubonic plague on the Chinese city of Changde. Tens of thousands were reported killed.

ITALO-ABNYSSINIAN WAR… Ignoring the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical or biological agents in war, Mussolini’s Italy unleashed mustard gas during its invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Retaliating for the killing of one of its pilots, the air force dropped up to 500 tonnes of poison. An estimated 15,000 perished.

FIRST WORLD WAR… Known as the ‘chemists’ war’ for introducing deadly poison to combat. In 1915, at Ypres, Belgium, Germany opened thousands of canisters of chlorine upwind of Allied troops, condemning many to an agonising death. By 1918 chemical weapons had proliferated on both sides – including phosgene, cyanide and mustard gas. Horrified by the effects, 15 countries signed the Geneva Protocol. Around 90,000 were killed and more than one million people were injured.

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Arts, History, Philosophy, Science

Quantum Leaps: Robert Hooke…

1635 – 1703

Perhaps one of the most ‘underrated’ scientists of the seventeenth century, Robert Hooke, an Englishman, experimented and made advances in a wide range of scientific areas. Yet because of this breadth of coverage, he seldom developed any of his concepts to their fullest extent. This explains why he rarely gained credit for them. Indeed, it is arguable that his role as a provider and facilitator to others is his most important legacy.

Boyle’s Assistant – The most obvious example of his contribution to others was the work he undertook with Robert Boyle at Oxford, where they met in 1656. Boyle, as the aristocrat, was clearly the dominant partner in the relationship, in social terms at least. Hooke, as his assistant, acted on Boyle’s instructions, yet many of his creations were worthy inventions in their own right. The most obvious example is the air pump that he devised in 1659, the most efficient vacuum creator of its time. It enabled Boyle to go on to make many of his discoveries.

Provider of Ideas – Moreover, Boyle was responsible, albeit indirectly, for keeping Hooke in his position as jack of all sciences, master of none. The aristocrat had been influential in having Hooke elevated to the position of Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society in 1662. While the prestige of the role pleased Hooke, the job requirement of showing ‘three or four considerable experiments’ to the Society at each of its weekly meetings was almost certainly the factor that ensured Hooke would never have the time to develop any of his findings fully.

A Source of Ideas – Another scientist to whom Hooke felt he had provided source material was the Dutch physicist Christian Huygens. Huygens is credited with creating the influential wave theory of light, which he published in 1690. Yet as early as 1672, Hooke had explained his discovery of diffraction (the bending of light rays) by suggesting that light might behave in a wave-like fashion.

In 1662, Robert Hooke became the first Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society. In 1670 he discovered the ‘law of elasticity’.

In 1662, Robert Hooke became the first Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society. In 1670 he discovered the ‘law of elasticity’.

Isaac Newton vehemently argued against Hooke’s theory of light, beginning a bitter feud which would continue for the rest of Hooke’s life. Hooke also claimed to have discovered one of the most important theories credited to Newton, arguing that the latter had plagiarised his ideas from correspondence between the two during 1680. Certainly, Hooke’s letters suggested some notion of universal gravitation and hinted at an understanding of what later became Newton’s law of gravity. In spite of this, though, it is unquestionable that Newton’s mathematical calculations and endeavours in proving the law give him a much stronger claim.

Robert Hooke’s countless experiments did, however, result in some other discoveries solely credited to him. He was, for example, the first to describe the universal law that all matter will expand upon heating. He is credited with the law of elasticity, discovered in 1670. Also known as Hooke’s Law, it states that the strain, or change in size, placed upon a solid – when stretched – is directly proportional to the stress, or force, applied to it. Hooke was also the first person to use the word ‘cell’ in the scientific sense understood by us today, after observing the properties of cork under one of the powerful microscopes that he had developed. This word was used in his 1665 work Micrographia or Small Drawings, which also included many other advances such as Hooke’s theory of combustion, as well as other discoveries of the microscope. These included crystalline structure of snow, and studies of fossils which led to the proposition that they were the remains of once living creatures. He suggested that whole species had lived and died out long before man, centuries before Charles Darwin came to the same conclusion.

Hooke also made discoveries in astronomy, locating Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, and proposed that the huge planet rotated on its axis.

Further accreditations – Hooke’s inventions were greatly influential. He either invented or significantly improved the reflecting telescope, compound microscope, dial barometer, anemometer, hygrometer, balance spring (for use in watches), quadrant, universal joint and iris diaphragm (later used in cameras). He also showed impressive vision, foreseeing the development of the steam engine and the telegraph system.

Beyond this he was an accomplished architect who designed parts of London following the great fire of 1666.

Inset – In 1662, Robert Hooke became the first Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society. In 1670 he discovered the ‘law of elasticity’.

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