Friday, July 7, 2017

Damn, Girl-Artemisia I of Caria

Artemisia really pissed off the Athenians. Why? Because she led attacks against Athens, and won. How much did the Athenians hate Artemisia? Ten thousand drachmas worth of hatred. That's about a quarter million US dollars in today's currency.

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Our girl
Artemisia was the queen of Caria, a region in the north of today's modern Turkey. Like many ancient queens before her, Artemisia was never meant to rule. She became queen when her husband died, and her son was too young to rule. She took to her role of queen regnant like a fish to water. She took advantage of the Carians previous alliance with the Persians to do a little conquering

It was 480 BCE, and King Xerxes of Persia was going after the Greek city states, specifically Athens. Artemisia gathered a fleet, and sailed out to help him. When she got there she joined King Xerxes' war council, where she became one of his most trusted and valued advisers.

Artemisia is well known for two really big moments in this war, and after that she more or less disappears from history. The reason we know about her at all is because of her #1 fan, Herodotus, who wrote so much about her in his record of the battle of Salamis (one of the two really big moments), that he's been accused of leaving out important parts of that battle, because he was too busy fangirling over Artemisia. Honestly though? #relateable. After reading about her, I'm fangirling too.

Why? You ask. What are these big moments? You demand. Why the hell haven't you gotten on with telling us what she actually did? You further inquire. I was looking for a good transition okay, shut up, I'll give you what you want.

Artemisia I's two big moments both came during this invasion of Greece. Though she was named after Artemis, she should have been named after Athene, because she demonstrated both great wisdom, and great skill in battle.
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King Xerxes
  1. So our bud Xerxes had destroyed Athens, and he was trying to figure out if he wanted to go for the rest of Greece, or nah. Partially as a test of his advisers, and partially because he was indecisive, Xerxes had his buddy, Mardonius, go around to each of his advisers, and ask them what they thought he should do, should he engage the Greeks in a naval battle, or pull back. All of Xerxes' advisers told him he should engage the Greeks in naval battle, except for Artemisia, who pointed out that the Greeks had a better navy than the Persians, and that it would be a much better strategy to simply starve the Greeks into submission. Everyone thought she would be executed for cowardice, boy were they surprised when Xerxes conceded that she was right. However, Xerxes also decreed that majority ruled, and proceeded to start the battle of Salamis.                                                                            
  2. The Battle of Salamis was a naval engagement between the Persians and the Greeks, and, as Artemisia predicted, it wasn't going so well for the Persians, because, as might be expected for a nation made up entirely of small islands, the Greeks had a damn good navy. Despite the fact that her advice had been blatantly ignored, Artemisia brought her men to the party anyways. Things were proceeding as normal, men falling overboard, ships going up in flames, utter carnage as per usual, when Artemisia found herself caught between the advancing Greek forces, and the ships of her Persian allies. There was no escape, and it might have been the end for her, except for the fact that she had the foresight to have a greek flag in her hold as well as a Persian one. She had her men take down the Persian colors, and hoist the Greek ones. Then, to make sure the Greeks really thought she was one of them, she attacked the ships of the nation of Calynda, a fellow Persian ally whose king, Damasithymus, Artemisia particularly disliked. The Greeks were deceived, convinced that she was either a Greek or a Persian defector. Artemisia made it out of the battle alive, and though Damasithymus was upset, Xerxes thought she was brilliant, and honored her by having her take his two sons to Ephesus, because nothing says thank you quite like a royal order to babysit.
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Artemisia
Following this, Artemisia isn't mentioned again. She passed out the rest of her life if not in peace, then not in particularly memorable unrest. Presumably, her son became king after her, though there is no record of his reign, just as there is no record of Artemisia's husband.

It should be noted that some of the deeds of Artemisia II are sometimes assigned to Artemisia I. It is generally agreed upon that Artemisia I's fame ends here, and Artemisia II has her own set of illustrious accomplishments. 

Sources

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

I Thee Wed-More or Less-But Mostly Less

Have you ever wanted to get married to someone of an inferior social rank, but didn't want to risk causing a national crisis? If so, than a morganatic marriage may be for you.

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Franz Ferdinand (of WWI fame) and his wife, Sophie, had
a morganatic marriage.
Morganatic marriage, or 'marriage of the left hand' is a kinda-sorta marriage, in which someone, usually a man, of a royal house marries a person of lower rank, usually a commoner, with the stipulation that the spouse, and all children from that marriage will not inherit any lands or titles. It sounds like kinda a shitty deal, but it was the only way for many royal and noble people to marry the person they loved in the time before the 20th century.

Aside from inheritance, a morganatic marriage behaved exactly like a normal marriage. The couple was married in a church, and all children were declared legitimate. Bigamy was still prohibited, and women still took their husband's last name. The only difference in these aspects, is that when marrying the husband would extend his left hand to the bride, instead of his right, to symbolize a morganatic or 'of the left hand' marriage.

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Czar Alexander II and his wife, Princess
Ekaterina Dolgorukova. Though Ekaterina
was a princess at the time of their marriage,
their marriage was still morganatic. Also shown
are their children, Georgiy and Olga.
The word 'Morganatic' comes from the German word for morning. This references the 'morning gift', or a gift given by the husband to the wife the morning after their wedding. This gift was usually a tract of land, or a similarly useful item that could support the woman and her children should the husband die. This gift remained the sole property of the wife, and should the couple divorce she would still retain it.

Morganatic marriage has most frequently been used to avoid a general uprising should a person of royal rank decide to marry 'beneath them'. Social rules were more strict in times gone by, and part of being a nobleperson was the understood obligation to marry for the benefit of the state instead of oneself. Doing contrary to that could land a person in serious trouble (To this day both Sweden and the United Kingdom have laws saying that the monarch has to approve the spouse of any royal family member.). But sometimes true love just couldn't be stopped, and so to deal with the social strictures of the time, morganatic marriage was the compromise.

Sources

Friday, June 30, 2017

Damn, Girl-Lakshmi Bai

Rani (Queen) Lakshmi Bai is often called the 'Joan of Arc of India', and with good reason. At just 22 years old she seized control of the kingdom of Jhansi, and spearheaded a revolt against the British. Like Joan, Lakshmi's life was short, but she certainly caused the English a lot of trouble.

Image result for Lakshmi BaiLakshmi was the daughter of a scholar and a king's adviser. She was raised with the young men of the court, and in addition to learning the usual school subjects, she was also trained in combat. She was, by all accounts, a lovely and intelligent young lady, and the age of fifteen, she married Raja Gangadhar Rao, Maharaja of the kingdom of Jhansi.

The couple were married for about ten years until Gangadhar died of illness. They had no surviving children, and so they had adopted a young cousin, Damodar Rao, as their own, and the throne passed to Damodar, despite the fact that he was only five years old.

Enter the English. The English had a policy at the time of stealing every bit of land they could. It was no different with Jhansi. In a move reminiscent of the Romans dealings with Boudicca, the English refused to recognize Damodar as being the rightful heir, and they moved in to take control. Lakshmi was granted a pension of 5,000 rupees a month, and Damodar was allowed to keep his palace, but control of Jhansi had ceded to the enemy.

Now, as you might imagine, the Indians were non too pleased with this arrangement. Big shock, I know. The Indians weren't very fond of having the British in their country in general, but then the English went a step too far, or the Indians thought that they did.
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See, the English had enlisted thousands of sepoys, or native Indian soldiers, both Muslim and Hindu. When their superior officers introduced the Enfield Cartridges, the soldiers balked. They had heard rumors that the cartridges were greased with beef and pig fat. As the soldiers had to put the cartridge in their mouth to tear off the end before they could load it in the gun, they would be getting a small amount of beef or pork in their mouth, and, as you may no, beef and pork are serious no-nos in Hinduism and Islam respectively.

So the sepoys were being difficult. And by 'being difficult' I mean they were in revolt. To add to that, local revolutionaries in Jhansi had risen up and killed all the English civil servants and their families. This is when Lakshmi took control of the situation.

The narrative splits into two parts from here. Some sources claim that Lakshmi took instant control of the situation, and started hacking away at the English. There were even rumors that she'd started the revolt in the first place. Other sources claim that she took control of Jhansi in the name of the English, and asked them what to do. They never got back to her, so she just did what she wanted until the English pitched a fit a few months later.

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The statue of Lakshmi at Jhansi
Here is where the story comes back together. The English soldiers marched on Jhansi, and besieged the fort where Lakshmi was living with her adopted son. Lakshmi commanded her soldiers as well as the rebels, and though they held the fort for a long time, they eventually had to escape.

From there they fled east to Gwalior. There had been skirmishes along the way, and by this point Lakshmi's forces were tired and few in number. In a last ditch effort against the English, Lakshmi tied her son to her back, armed herself with two swords, and plunged into battle. It was in this battle that she was killed.
 Today Lakshmi is remembered as a brilliant Indian queen who fought for freedom from the English. She is revered by the Indians, and her statue watches over Jhansi to this day.

Sources
Encyclopedia Britannica
Maps of India
History Net
The Famous People

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

General Frost vs. Europe

When making a 'Top Ten Places Not to Invade In The Winter' list, Russia inevitably comes in number one (with Greenland and Canada following close after.). There were multiple occasions in history, when European leaders thought it might be a good idea to poke the Russian Bear with a stick. Some, like the Mongols, were successful, most, like pretty much everyone else, were not.

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St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow.
Russia's pretty big, which makes it difficult to defend and control. Russia's long history of internal conflicts (more recently in Georgia and Chechnya) prove this. However, Russia has a secret weapon-General Frost.

You've probably guessed this, but General Frost is a poetic name for winter. Russia is far north, and has some pretty gnarly cold spells. We're talking spit freezing before it hits the sidewalk cold. The winter snows cover everything, and the country more or less goes into hibernation. Nothing grows, and game isn't always plentiful. If you haven't prepared, you're dead. 

So, despite its size, Russia is pretty well defended. They have reasonable armies (and more recently nuclear weapons) to help the in the summer, and unlivable conditions in the winter. However, that hasn't stopped some people from trying to invade Russia in the winter.

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Charles XII
The Swedes were the first (as far as I can dig up) to try invading Russia in the winter. They were the first, so they get a bit of a pass. Sweden itself is northerly, and it's not like they had someone else's mistakes to learn from.

Although, quite frankly, even if there had been someone else's failed attempts to learn from, it is doubtful that that would have stopped Charles XII, the young, brash, and ridiculously successful King of Sweden. Charles was a genius military commander, and dangerous risk taker. He frequently dove into battles with forces that vastly outnumbered his own, and usually came out victorious. Charles was That Kid. You know, that kid in school who claimed to never study for a test, and then got full marks. Charles was the monarchy equivalent of that kid, and, quite frankly, the rest of Europe was a little sick of it.


See, Sweden at the time was something of a world power. They'd taken most of the land around the Baltic sea. The only things they didn't own was Denmark and Norway (Norway belonged to Denmark). This worried the Danes, as well as the newly minted Czar of Russia, Peter the Great. So, to combat the Swedish, the Danes, Russians, Poles and Saxons (part of modern Germany) all decided to gang up on Charles. They were banking on his youth and inexperience (Charles was only 18 at the time). Bad decision. Charles was not only something of a genius, but he had good advisers, ad he listened to them. When the Danes came for Sweden, Charles snck into Denmark, and took them down. Then he turned his eyes to Poland, and successfully installed a King favorable to Sweden. Done with Poland, he turned his eyes to Russia.

Charles had had great success with small armies that attacked quickly and unexpected. He adopted the same strategy in Russia. In 1700 he attacked Narva, a town in Modern Estonia. He was outnumbered about 3 to 1, and it was the middle of a blizzard. Remarkably, but also unsurprisingly, Charles won.

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Peter the Great, czar of Russia at the time
of Charles XII's invasion.
The Swedes continued across Russia like this, but the Russians, as per the usual, implemented a scorched earth policy, leaving nothing for the Swedes to eat. The Russians then cut off the Swede's supply lines. Despite all this, the war wasn't going too badly for the Swedes, until General Frost stepped in.

1709 was one of the coldest winters of that era. 2,000 Swedish soldiers died from cold in a single night. Northern Russia wasn't a good place to hang out, so, against the council of his advisers, Charles decided to winter with his buddy Mazeppa in the Ukraine.  

Ivan Mazeppa was a former Russian ally who wanted to get the Russians out of Ukraine. He told Charles of his plan to start an Ukranian rebellion, and invited Charles to invade. Never one to pass up new territory, Charles agreed.

Thing was, most of Charles' forces were very ill, and couldn't fight. Charles himself had been wounded. Additionally, the Russians found out about the planned uprising, and moved to quash it before it even began. So when Charles arrived in Ukraine he had much fewer Ukrainian troops than expected, and only the skeleton of an army.

Realizing the fight was already lost, Charles escaped with 2,000 of his sickest men, leaving the rest of the army behind. The Russians caught up with them, thoroughly defeating the 16,000 Swedish forces left behind.

Next up to the plate was the young French protegee, Napoleon. The year was 1812, and Napoleon had had it with Russia. Russia was supposed to be his ally. They were buds. They were part of the continental system, they had no reason to fight each other, and they promised each other that neither of them would trade with England. It was a good arrangement. For France.

What Napoleon failed to realize was that this arrangement wasn't helping out Russia very much. Russia needed trade with the English to bolster its economy, and France had done the unthinkable--they helped Poland.

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Napoleon Bonaparte, making sure
his ribs are still there.
Well, Napoleon couldn't handle that sort of betrayal, not from an ally, so he invaded Russia to teach Czar Alexander a lesson. He gathered some 450,000 men (give or take), the largest military force ever assembled in Europe to that point (probably). With his typical modesty, Napoleon named his forces the 'Grande Armee'

Now, I have absolutely zero historical evidence to back this up, but I imagine Czar Alexander's reaction to Napoleon's invasion was something like 'lol wut?', and he slipped on his shades, and watched the French armies confidently walk into his territory, just knowing that they wouldn't last a year in Russia.

As I mentioned, there's no historical evidence, but it's a pretty amusing picture.

What is fact, though, is that the Russians put up very little resistance to the French at first. Instead of standing to fight, they let the French take the towns of Vilna, Vitesbk, and Smolensk, virtually without a fight. Instead of fighting the Russians torched the cities and all surrounding crops, leaving the French to die of starvation, exposure, and sporadic attacks. This worked very well. Tens of thousands of soldiers died of starvation, exhaustion, and dehydration. Many more deserted.

The Russians didn't stand and fight until the French were just 75 miles from Moscow. The French and Russians were fairly evenly matched, and each suffered heavy losses. The Russians, however, decided not to stick around. They set fire to Moscow, all of Moscow's food storage, and left, leaving only a large amount of hard liquor behind.

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Czar Alexander I
So, while they French may have been merrily drunk, they were also starving. Napoleon had decided to stay in Moscow for a while, and wait for Czar Alexander to make peace, but Czar Alexander decided to sit back, and let winter take care of things. Eventually, Napoleon threw in the towel, and decided to head back to France, just as winter was approaching.


Now, this went as well as you might expect, which is to say, poorly. The Russians were determined that the French stay out, so they drove the remnants of the Grand Armee along the same route they came in on. If the food options had been picked over before, they were completely nonexistant on the way back. The Russians kept the French from ranging further afield to find further sustenance. Added to that was the cold. Many men froze overnight. Dead bodies were stacked up against walls to provide insulation, and tales were told of men slitting open their horses, and climbing inside them to keep warm. The French died in massive waves, and only 20,000 of them returned home to France.

Then there's Hitler. As I'm sure you well know, nothing good ever starts with Hitler, and this is no different. Stalin was in charge of Russia at the time, and both of these repugnant knaves should have studied their history. Had they done so, many lives would have been saved, because:

  1. Hitler would have known better than to invade Russia. 
  2. Stalin wouldn't have insisted that no city be surrendered, and instead adopted the scorched earth tactics that has kept Russia independent for so many generations.
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Adolf Hitler, looking unfriendly as usual.
Instead, Hitler and the Germans were the ones scorching the earth, and the citizens of the USSR were being attacked by not only the Germans, but their own government. Stalin ordered that deserters and suspected traitors be shot, not to mention his abhorrent policy of relocating ethnic minorities to Siberia.

Having conquered France, Hitler needed to get on with the rest of the world. Conquering the UK would be a difficult, and not entirely worthwhile endeavor, so he decided to go after his land and resource rich neighbor, the USSR. This was the start of 'Operation Barbarossa'. 

Germany and the USSR had signed a non-aggression pact two years before, but Hitler still considered communism a major threat to the German Empire he wanted to build. Because Nazi Germany didn't do anything by halves, Hitler planned to completely wipe out the communist population of the USSR, not just the Jews, Romani, Homosexuals, and political dissenters that he usually went after.  

Hitler started by forming a group of elite troops called the Einsatzgruppen. He sent these soldiers into Russia to murder Jewish males, communist leaders, and anyone who looked like they might start a resistance, en masse. He then gathered a force of more than three million soldiers, and stormed Russia's frontier. While Allied powers had repeatedly warned Stalin about a German invasion, Stalin had refused to listen, and was caught by 'surprise'. 

Unlike his predecessors, Stalin refused to give ground. He ordered that no city surrender or be abandoned. As a result of that three million USSR soldiers were taken captive in Kiev. Instead of evacuating the countryside, and torching all the crops, villagers were ordered to stay put, and anyone suspected of disloyalty or cowardice was shot. Because of this the Germans were able to subsist off the crops of the small Russian villages, and were able to penetrate further into USSR territory.

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Josef Stalin, committer of mass genocide
and luxurious mustache model.
Looking through the lens of history, Hitler has done far better than expected. However, according to Hitler and company, the invasion of the USSR was taking far longer than expected. Hitler had expected the invasion of Russia to go like the invasion of France, quick and relatively painless. But the Russians held out far longer than he'd expected. By the time the Germans were ready to head to Moscow, winter wasn't too far away.

And, in a move that will surely have you banging your head against the nearest flat surface, the Germans did not have any winter supplies. They hadn't expected to stay the winter, and so they were completely unprepared. They started to slowly retreat, but before they could get out of Russia entirely, war had flared up again in the west with the invasion of Normandy. 

Unlike previous invasions, the failure of Operation Barbarossa was not a decisive win for the Russians. Had another front not opened up Hitler would have most likely started the invasion up again in the spring. The German soldiers were able to subsist off the food they found in the countryside, all they lacked was warm clothing. Had Stalin stuck to the proven tactics of his forerunners, and set everything on fire, WWII may have gone much differently.

Sources