Death of a Forgotten Hero

It was three years ago, May 15, that the notorious serial child killer, the Moors Murderer, Ian Brady, had died. Every UK newspaper and news channel had his 1965 mugshot on their front pages or on our screens; many column inches and many minutes of airtime were devoted to his life and his notorious, foul crimes.

Meanwhile, on the same day, in a hospital in East Sussex, my Uncle Edwin died. He was 94. Obviously, having done nothing newsworthy during his life, his death passed unnoticed by anyone outside his family. Fair enough – we can’t mark the death of every elderly citizen. And, like I say, he’d done nothing during his 94 years worthy of comment. Except perhaps, ensuring our continual freedom, the survival of our way of life and upholding our democracy. Oh, and along the way, he’d killed a few people.

You see, back in July 1944, Uncle Edwin, aged 21, crossed the English Channel, along with many other young men, and landed in France. Over the coming months, with a rifle in his hand, he walked eastwards across northern France, through Belgium, Holland and then into Germany. He saw and experienced things that no one should have to see or experience. He was shot at and he killed. He was a lieutenant, so had responsibility. He could also speak German, so one of his jobs on approaching terrified German households was to assure the women that his men were not going to rape them or bayonet their children.

My uncle joined up with three school friends whose surnames began with A, B and C (let’s say, Atkins, Bingham and Collins). All three were killed. For years, my poor uncle suffered terrible survivor guilt over this.

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Death of a Forgotten Hero

It was three years ago, May 15, 2017, that the notorious serial child killer, the Moors Murderer, Ian Brady, died. Every UK newspaper and news channel had his 1965 mugshot on their front pages or on our screens; many column inches and many minutes of airtime were devoted to his life and his notorious, foul crimes.

Meanwhile, on the same day, in a hospital in East Sussex, my Uncle Edwin died. He was 94. Obviously, having done nothing newsworthy during his life, his death passed unnoticed by anyone outside his family. Fair enough – we can’t mark the death of every elderly citizen. And, like I say, he’d done nothing during his 94 years worthy of comment. Except perhaps, ensuring our continual freedom, the survival of our way of life and upholding our democracy. Oh, and along the way, he’d killed a few people.

You see, back in July 1944, Uncle Edwin, aged 21, crossed the English Channel, along with many other young men, and landed in France. Over the coming months, with a rifle in his hand, he walked eastwards across northern France, through Belgium, Holland and then into Germany. He saw and experienced things that no one should have to see or experience. He was shot at and he killed. He was a lieutenant, so had responsibility. He could also speak German, so one of his jobs on approaching terrified German households was to assure the women that his men were not going to rape them or bayonet their children.

My uncle joined up with three school friends whose surnames began with A, B and C (let’s say, Atkins, Bingham and Collins). All three were killed. For years, my poor uncle suffered terrible survivor guilt over this.

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The Amritsar Massacre – a brief outline

On Sunday 13 April 1919, the occupants of the city of Amritsar in Punjab were preparing to celebrate the Sikh New Year. Three days previously, six Britons had been indiscriminately killed by an Indian mob and the British, fearful of further violence during such a potentially volatile occasion, sent in a man ‘not afraid to act.’ That man was 54-year-old Reginald Dyer, and act he did.

Reginald Dyer (pictured) issued a proclamation banning any gatherings of four or more men and imposing an eight o’clock curfew. Those failing to comply risked being shot. Yet word reached Dyer that a gathering of about 5,000 men, women and children (Dyer’s estimate) had converged in a square at Jallianwala Bagh for a public meeting. The square was accessible only via a narrow gateway and otherwise was surrounded by walls. Dyer approached with a unit of about 90 soldiers, mainly Indians and Gurkhas. Although the gathering was unarmed and, it seemed, peaceful, Dyer feared that his small contingent of men would, if things got out of hand, soon be overwhelmed. Deciding attack was the best form of defence, he ordered, without warning, his men to open fire. Bedlam ensued.

With the only entrance blocked, there was no escape from the withering fire that lasted an entire quarter of an hour. People hid behind bodies, others were killed in the circling stampede. Dyer only ordered a stop when he feared his men would run out of ammunition. Without sanctioning any medical aid, Dyer ordered his men out. 379 were left dead, over 1,200 wounded. Dyer did not stop there; in the days that followed Dyer subjected miscreants, as he saw them, to public flogging.

Mistaken concept of duty

At the resultant enquiry, General Dyer was censured for ‘acting out of a mistaken concept of duty’ but survived unpunished. The British press was outraged – not by the lack of punishment but that the British establishment had failed to condone his actions. The Morning Post launched a campaign, raising over £26,000 for the beleaguered general, as they saw him; Rudyard Kipling being one such giver. Reginald Dyer quietly took early retirement and died eight years later humbled perhaps but unrepentant. Indeed, his only regret was that ‘I didn’t have time to do more’.

(Pictured, the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial).

Amritsar was systematic of all that was wrong in post-First World War British India. Mahatma Gandhi wrote of the massacre, ‘We do not want to punish Dyer; we have no desire for revenge. We want to change the system that produced Dyer.’

Amritsar confirmed an uncomfortable truism – that ultimately British rule in India was dependent on force.

The Savage YearsGathered together in one collection, 60 of Rupert Colley’s history articles, The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century. Also available in paperback and ebook formats.

 

Victor Emmanuel III – a brief biography

On 29 July 1900, the king of Italy, Umberto I, was assassinated. The throne passed to his 30-year-old son, who, as Victor Emmanuel III, would reign until 1946, a period which saw both world wars and the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini’s fascists.

Born in Naples on 11 November 1869, the future king was so short, the German kaiser, Wilhelm II, nicknamed him the dwarf, and, in private, Mussolini called him the ‘little sardine’. He ruled over an Italy that had been in existence as a unified nation only since 1871. Despite unification, Italy was a deeply-fragmented society, steeped in poverty and corruption, and ruled over by a succession of weak coalition governments. But, as a figurehead king, Victor Emmanuel III chose to ignore the affairs of state, preferring instead to focus on his vast collection of coins.

World War One

With the outbreak of war in July 1914, Italy initially adopted a position of neutrality despite having been in alliance, the Triple Alliance, with Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire since 1882. Victor Emmanuel favoured participation in the war, partly as a means of enhancing Italy’s reputation on the international stage. Italy duly entered the war in May 1915, not as allies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, but on the side of the Triple Entente allies – France, Russia and Great Britain.

Mussolini

After 1918, Victor Emmanuel again retired to the sidelines as Italy struggled to cope with the post-war instabilities of demobilization, unemployment and inflation. Socialists, communists, anarchists and the newly-formed fascists fought on the streets and on the farms in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing violence.

In October 1922, with the country on the verge of civil war, the rising star of Italy’s right, Benito Mussolini, led the fascist March on Rome, demanding to form a new government. At first, Victor Emmanuel resisted but then, fearing outright anarchy, bowed to Mussolini’s persistence.

The murder of a leading socialist politician and outspoken critic of the fascists, Giacomo Matteotti, in June 1924 almost caused Mussolini’s downfall. Many suspected Mussolini’s involvement and demanded that the king remove Mussolini from power. Ignoring the national outcry, Victor Emmanuel, more fearful of a socialist takeover, threw his support behind the fascists. Mussolini survived.

For the next 18 years, Victor Emmanuel watched without undue concern as Mussolini ruled the country. Following Italy’s invasions of Ethiopia (1935-36) and Albania (1939), Victor Emmanuel was made emperor of the former and the king of the latter. Having never visited either, he renounced both titles in 1943.

(Pictured, Victor Emmanuel III in 1936).

World War Two

Victor Emmanuel opposed Italy’s entry into the Second World War but was unable to prevent Mussolini from declaring war on France and Great Britain in June 1940. Three years later, on 24 July 1943, with Italy staring defeat in the face, the Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 8 (with three abstentions) in favour of a resolution to have Mussolini removed from power.

The following day, Mussolini kept his fortnightly meeting with the king, believing that the vote the previous evening was neither constitutional nor binding. He was much mistaken. Almost apologetically, Victor Emmanuel III dismissed the 59-year-old dictator: ‘My dear Duce, it’s no longer any good. Italy has gone to bits… The soldiers don’t want to fight any more… At this moment you are the most hated man in Italy.’

With Mussolini now arrested and held in captivity, Victor Emmanuel signed the armistice with the Allies on 8 September. A month later, having fled to the town of Brindisi, he declared war on Italy’s former allies, Germany.

Princess Mafalda

The king’s daughter, Princess Mafalda, married a prominent Nazi. When her husband fell out with the Nazi regime, he was arrested and Malfalda was interned in Buchenwald concentration camp, where she died on 27 August 1944.

Republic

On 9 May 1946, a year following the end of the war, Victor Emmanuel was forced to abdicate and leave Italy. He moved to Egypt. He named his son as his successor, Umberto II, three weeks ahead of a national referendum to decide on whether Italy should maintain its monarchy. On 2 June, the nation voted 54.3 per cent in favour of becoming a republic. After 85 years, the Kingdom of Italy was at an end.

Victor Emmanuel III died in exile in Egypt on 28 December 1947, aged 78. His son, Umberto II, died in Switzerland in 1983. (Benito Mussolini, meanwhile, was executed by Italian partisans on 28 April 1945).

Rupert Colley.

Read more about the war in The Clever Teens Guide to World War Two available as an ebook and 80-page paperback from AmazonBarnes & NobleWaterstone’sApple Books and other stores.

 

The Vellore Mutiny – a brief outline

Fifty-one years before the outbreak of the year-long ‘Indian Mutiny’, took place another act of defiance against British rule in India. Lasting but a few hours, the Vellore Mutiny of 10 July 1806 was a mere foretaste of 1857. But the grievances that led to the brief uprising were very much the same as the ones half a century later.

Much of India, at the time, was governed by the East India Company. The monolithic, monopolizing commercial company with its own army had become the de facto rulers of the country on behalf of the British government. The town of Vellore, in southeast India, contained a large fort garrisoned by some 380 British soldiers and 1,500 sepoys. Incarcerated within the fort of Vellore, although in considerable comfort, were the sons, families and servants of Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, who had been killed by the British in battle in 1799. (Pictured the Vellore Fort today)

Religious sensibilities

In 1806, as in 1857, the Indian soldiers, sepoys, feared the British were attempting to undermine their religions in order to convert them to Christianity. A new dress code, introduced in 1805 by the commander-in-chief of the Madras Army, General Sir John Craddock, forbade Hindu soldiers from sporting any caste marks on their foreheads, banned the wearing of earrings and proposed that turbans be replaced by a round hat. Muslim soldiers were to shave off their beards and trim their moustaches. Craddock, in issuing his directive, was going against advice from his Military Board who warned that local religious sensibilities be respected.

United by their grievances, Hindu and Muslim sepoys decided to act. An initial protest resulted in a number of sepoys being lashed.

But in the early hours of 10 July 1806, the rebel sepoys launched their main attack on the fort. The rebels looted and killed, and barged into the garrison’s hospital where they slaughtered men in their hospital beds. 200 British soldiers were killed or wounded. The sepoys declared the eldest son of Tipu Sultan their new leader, hoisting Tipu’s flag atop the fort.

Rescue

The British took refuge on the fort’s ramparts. One soldier escaped, took to his horse and galloped the sixteen miles to the garrison based at Arcot to call for help. A small relieving force of about twenty men, led by Sir Rollo Gillespie, quickly made their appearance at Vellore. (Born in Comber in County Down, Northern Ireland, a statue of Gillespie standing upon a 55-foot high column today dominates the town square, pictured).

Climbing up the ramparts to aid the stricken British still clinging on, Gillespie led a bayonet charge to keep the sepoys at bay. More reinforcements arrived in larger numbers, blowing down the garrison gates and setting upon the rebellious sepoys. By 2 pm, the rebellion had been quashed. Retribution was swift and merciless; executions plentiful. The Vellore Mutiny was over.

Tipu Sultan’s sons and their retinues were resettled in Calcutta. The British certainly did not want to risk them becoming a rallying point again.

Rupert Colley.

Indian Mutiny – a brief outline

On 10 May 1857, the Indian Mutiny, as it became known, erupted in the town of Meerut in northern India. Discontent among the native Indian soldiers, the sepoys, had been simmering for months if not decades but the violence, when it came, took the British completely by surprise. So, what were the causes of the Indian Mutiny?*

An Indian Sepoy, c1835.

By 1857, the East India Company, the monolithic, monopolizing commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto ruler of the country on behalf of the British government, ruled two-thirds of India. The remaining third was overseen by Indian princes who paid tribute to the British. That the East India Company could maintain its authority was down to the might of its huge army, consisting of 45,000 Europeans and 230,000 Indian sepoys. While most sepoys were glad and even proud to serve in the army, their loyalty to it always took second place to their religion

Religious sensibilities

Sepoys of all faiths were concerned for their respective religions. The prospect of being made to serve overseas, for example, alarmed Hindu sepoys as travelling over water was a compromise of caste. (Similar grievances led to a much smaller rebellion, the Vellore Mutiny, in 1806).

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The Hindenburg Disaster – a summary

On 6 May 1937, a tragedy took place that, caught on film, haunted the American consciousness for decades.

Built in Germany in 1935 the 800-foot long Zeppelin airship, the Hindenburg, was considered the height of sophisticated travel. It may only have travelled at 80 mph yet it still provided the fastest means of crossing the Atlantic – twice as fast as the speediest ship. It was akin to being on a luxury liner and had already made dozens of journeys across the Atlantic from Germany to Brazil or America and back. Of course, it wasn’t cheap – a one-way ticket across the Atlantic cost about US$400 (about US$7,000 / £4,500 in 2016).

With the Nazi swastika on its fins, it was named after the last president of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, who had appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933, and who died in August 1934. Joseph Goebbels had, apparently, wanted the airship to be named the Adolf Hitler but the owner of the Zeppelin Company, Hugo Eckener, a known anti-Nazi, refused.

But before it became a transatlantic airship, the Hindenburg began its life as a tool of the Nazi propaganda ministry, run by Goebbels. In March 1936, ahead of a German plebiscite to rally support ratifying the re-occupation of the Rhineland, the Hindenburg was used to drop propaganda leaflets while blaring out loud patriotic music and slogans from huge loudspeakers and broadcasting political speeches from a temporary onboard radio studio. (The plebiscite returned a 99.8 percent vote in favour). On 1 August 1936, the Hindenburg made a special appearance flying above the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics trailing an Olympic flag in its wake.

The Hindenburg‘s last journey

On its 63rd and last, fateful journey, the Hindenburg departed from Frankfurt on May 3, 1937, and was due to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the morning of May 6. But poor weather had delayed its landing by about twelve hours. The captain, Max Pruss, kept his passengers entertained by flying over New York City. (Pruss survived the disaster, dying aged 69 in 1960). The Hindenburg had a capacity for about 70 passengers but on this trip, there were only 36 passengers plus 61 crew.

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Osama bin Laden – a brief biography

 

Born 10 March 1957, Osama bin Laden was one of 52 (or more) siblings born to his billionaire father, Mohammed, and his 22 wives. Osama’s mother, Alia, was 14 when she married Mohammed, his tenth wife, and 15 when she gave birth to Osama (‘young lion’ in Arabic). Osama was the only product of this union. His parents divorced soon after his birth.

Mohammed bin Laden had built from scratch a large building empire in Saudi Arabia and when, in 1968, he died in a helicopter crash – his vast fortune was distributed amongst all his children.

Osama bin Laden stood 6ft 5in tall and married the first of his four wives, a 14-year-old, when he was 17. He had 19 children, of whom his 22-year-old son, Khalid, was killed in the US attack that killed Osama in May 2011.

The Mujahideen

Bin Laden first visited Afghanistan during the early weeks of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89) and helped organise the supply of men, arms and money for the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet invaders.

Following the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia a hero for having contributed to the Soviets’ defeat. During the late eighties, possibly 1988, bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda, meaning ‘the base’.

Following the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1990 the threat to Saudi Arabia seemed real. Bin Laden offered the Saudi king Mujahideen fighters to help defend the country but the king declined the offer and instead allowed 300,000 US troops onto Saudi soil from where they could attack Iraq. Bin Laden heavily criticised the Saudi king to the point his country of birth revoked his citizenship and had him banished.

Al-Qaeda

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The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln – a summary

On 15 April 1865, in Washington DC, Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, died, having been shot in the back of the head the night before by John Wilkes Booth.

Only six days before, Confederate forces under General Robert E Lee had surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant, effectively bringing to an end the American Civil War.

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes BoothJohn Wilkes Booth (pictured), who originated from a famous family of actors and was himself regarded a fine actor, had lived in the North throughout the war but, a great believer in the institution of slavery, his loyalties lay firmly with the Confederate South.

In March 1865 Booth had hatched a plan to kidnap the president but the plan came to nothing. However, following Lee’s surrender, Booth’s determination to punish the man he saw as responsible for the war and the ending of slavery hardened.

On hearing that on the evening of April 14, Good Friday, Lincoln would be at the Ford’s Theatre watching a performance of the farce, Our American Cousin by British playwright Tom Taylor, Booth quickly devised a new plan. Together with two companions, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, Booth planned a triple assassination – of the president, the Vice-President, Andrew Johnston, and Secretary of State, William Seward.

Come 10 pm, the agreed time, the three men went to work. Atzerodt, however, backed out whilst Powell broke into the home of Seward and attacked the Secretary of State with a knife. Seward survived but bore the facial scars for the rest of his life.

Ford’s Theatre

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Mangal Pandey – a brief biography

The events that led to India’s ‘First War of Independence’, or to use its Eurocentric name, the ‘Indian Mutiny’, stemmed from decades of grievances and unrest but it was something quite mundane that sparked the rebellion and it was a single man, Mangal Pandey, that fired the first shots.

The sepoys had been issued with a new Enfield rifle. In order to use the rifle, the soldier had to bite off the end of a lubricated cartridge before inserting the powder into the weapon. The problem was that the grease used to seal the cartridge was made from animal fat – both cow, a sacred beast to Hindus, and pork, an insult to the Muslim soldiers.

The East India Company, the monolithic, monopolising commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto rulers of India acting on behalf of the British government, made amends by substituting the forbidden fats with that of sheep or beeswax. Too late. The sepoys saw it as a deliberate ploy to undermine their respective religions and to convert them, through this perfidious route, to Christianity. The fact this was not the case did nothing to squash the rumour.

The first symptom of unrest came in January 1857, when the recently-opened telegraph office in Barrackpore (now Barrackpur, about 15 miles from Kolkata, or Calcutta) was burned down as a protest against the march of Westernization.

Two months later, on 29 March 1857, also at Barrackpore, a 29-year-old sepoy called Mangal Pandey, staged, in effect, a one-man rebellion. Born 19 July 1827, Mangal Pandey had joined the 34th Bengal Native Infantry regiment of the British East India Company, aged 22, in 1849. Continue reading