What was the Berlin Conference?Posted By: Elles Houwelingon: December 18, 2018In: News  Print   Email

Sub-Saharan Africa was one of the last regions of the world that remained largely untouched by European imperialism, although that all changed in the 19thcentury. At the end of the 18thcentury, European explorers started mapping out the interior of Africa and by 1850, most of the African continent had been discovered by European explorations.

This newly discovered land, however, led to increased tensions between European states that were already competing for colonial dominance. In 1884, at the request of Portugal, Germany’s first chancellor Otto von Bismarck organized a conference for all the major western powers to negotiate the issue of control over Africa.

This event became known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 (aka the Congo Conference or the West Africa Conference). Not only was this a turning point in the history of Africa, it was also the establishment of Germany as a colonial power.

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At the time, 80% of the African continent remained independent and indigenous people were treated as trading partners. But over time, due to various factors, such as diplomatic maneuvers, colonial explorations, and the discovery of numerous valuable resources (i.e. gold, timber, rubber, etc.), interest in the continent increased dramatically.

The Berlin Conference aimed to end the competition between European powers during the “Scramble for Africa”. The following fourteen countries were represented at the Conference: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden-Norway (who were unified in 1814-1905), Turkey, and the USA.

The General Act covered several key points. For one, the Conference “resolved” the issue of slavery, as it contained a clause prohibiting the transatlantic slave trade. Furthermore, the Free State of Congo was established, which was one of the initial and key causes of the conflict. The 14 signatories were allowed to trade freely throughout the Congo Basin, and the Niger and Congo rivers were made free for ship traffic.

The Principle of Effectivity was established, which meant that European powers were not allowed to set up colonies in name only. Moreover, the act established regional boundaries for each colonial power, giving them an exclusive right to “pursue” the legal ownership of land in the eyes of the other European powers.

The conference sped up the process of colonization, and by 1914, the African continent was fully divided into fifty countries. Britain was the biggest “winner”,

gaining control over Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Furthermore, they also controlled the Gold Coast with Nigeria and Ghana.

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France came in second with control over most of western Africa, including the Ivory Coast, Benin, Mali, French Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. Other notable colonial powers were Belgium, that controlled the Democratic Republic of Congo, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

The outcome was an ill-defined, rigid grid of borders that divided the continent into irregular territories. The new boundaries were superimposed over the existing borders, completely disregarding the pre-existing division of indigenous cultures. The consequences are still evident today, as it merged together disparate groups who were historically enemies, leading to numerous conflicts on the African continent.

Battle of Tours

On 10 October 732 Frankish General Charles Martel crushed an invading Muslim army at Tours in France, decisively halting the Islamic advance into Europe.

The Islamic advanceAfter the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632 AD the speed of the spread of Islam was extraordinary, and by 711 Islamic armies were poised to invade Spain from North Africa. Defeating the Visigothic kingdom of Spain was a prelude to increasing raids into Gaul, or modern France, and in 725 Islamic armies reached as far north as the Vosgues mountains near the modern border with Germany.

Opposing them was the Merovingian Frankish kingdom, perhaps the foremost power in western Europe. However given the seemingly unstoppable nature of the Islamic advance into the lands of the old Roman Empire further Christian defeats seemed almost inevitable.

The Islamic Umayyad Empire at its greatest extent.In 731 Abd al-Rahman, a Muslim warlord north of the Pyrenees who answered to his distant Sultan in Damascus, received reinforcements from North Africa. The Muslims were preparing for a major campaign into Gaul.

The campaign commenced with an invasion of the southern kingdom of Aquitaine, and after defeating the Aquitanians in battle Abd al-Rahman’s army burned their capital of Bordeaux in June 732. The defeated Aquitanian ruler Eudes fled north to the Frankish kingdom with the remnants of his forces in order to

plead for help from a fellow Christian, but old enemy: Charles Martel.

Martel’s name meant “the hammer” and he had already achieved many successful campaigns in the name of his lord Thierry IV.

Martel’s name meant “the hammer” and he had already many successful campaigns in the name of his lord Thierry IV, mainly against other Christians such as the unfortunate Eudes, who he met somewhere near Paris. Following this meeting Martel ordered a ban, or general summons, as he prepared the Franks for war.

The Battle of ToursOnce his army had gathered, he marched to the fortified city of Tours, on the border with Aquitaine, to await the Muslim advance. After three months of pillaging Aquitaine, al-Rahman obliged.

His army outnumbered that of Martel but the Frank had an solid core of experienced armoured heavy infantry who he could rely upon to withstand a Muslim cavalry charge.

With both armies unwilling to enter the bloody business of a Medieval battle but the Muslims desperate to pillage the rich cathedral outside the walls of Tours, an uneasy standoff prevailed for seven days before the battle finally began. With winter coming al-Rahman knew that he had to attack.

The battle began with thundering cavalry charges from Rahman’s army but, unusually for a Medieval battle, Martel’s excellent infantry weathered the onslaught and retained their formation. Meanwhile, Prince Eudes’ Aquitanian cavalry used superior local knowledge to outflank the Muslim armies and attack their camp from the rear.

Christian sources then claim that this caused many Muslim soldiers to panic and attempt to flee to save their loot from the campaign. This trickle became a full retreat, and the sources of both sides confirm that al-Rahman died fighting bravely whilst trying to rally his men in the fortified camp.

The battle then ceased for the night, but with much of the Muslim army still at large Martel was cautious about a possible feigned retreat to lure him out into being smashed by the Islamic cavalry. However, searching the hastily abandoned camp and surrounding area revealed that the Muslims had fled south with their loot. The Franks had won.

Despite the deaths of al-Rahman and an estimated 25,000 others at Tours, this war was not over. A second equally dangerous raid into Gaul in 735 took four years to repulse, and the reconquest of Christian territories beyond the Pyrenees would not begin until the reign of Martel’s celebrated grandson Charlemagne.

Martel would later found the famous Carolingian dynasty in Frankia, which would one day extend to most of western Europe and spread Christianity into the east.

Tours was a hugely important moment in the history of Europe, for though the battle of itself was perhaps not as seismic as some have claimed, it stemmed the tide of Islamic advance and showed the European heirs of Rome that these foreign invaders could be defeated.

First Sino-Japanese War

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) was Japan's first overseas war after she came out of isolation in the 1860s, and saw the rapidly modernised Japanese armed forces inflict an embarrassing defeat on less successfully modernised Chinese forces. Most of the fighting took place in Korea and Manchuria, although the Japanese also invaded Shantung province and several islands, and there were important battles at sea.

For many years Korea had been just as closed to outsiders as Japan, apart from her relationship with the Chinese Empire, where Korea was regarded as a subordinate kingdom. In 1876 the Japanese negotiated a treaty with Korea, opening Korea up to foreign trade for the first time. Three ports were opened to the Japanese and consulates established. Japanese trade with Korea quickly expanded, with Japanese and Western goods flooding to Korea and Korean food coming to Japan.

Until 1876 Korea had seen herself as a subsidiary to China. The treaty with Japan caused great controversy and pro- and anti- Japanese factions emerged. In 1882 the Taewon'gun, a retired former leader of Korean, led a revolt against King Kojong and Queen Min. The rebels attacked the Royal Palace, narrowly failing to capture Queen Min. They burned down the Japanese legation in Seoul and seven Japanese officers were killed. The Taewon'gun was briefly restored to power, but the Chinese intervened, arrested him and imprisoned him in China. Six battalions of Chinese troops were posted in Korea to prevent a repeat of the uprising.

After this uprising the Japanese negotiated with the restored Korean government. The Koreans agreed to apologise for the loss of Japanese lives, pay a fine and allowed the Japanese to post troops at their Seoul legation. At about the same time the Japanese began to prepare for the possibility of a war with Korea or with China.

In 1884, during a clash with the French, the Chinese withdrew three of the six battalions. This encouraged a pro-Japanese revolt, helped by the Japanese minister at Seoul. The revolt was successful, and for a short spell King Kojong led a pro-Japanese, anti-Chinese government. The remaining Chinese battalions in Korea quickly overthrew this new government. A number of Japanese were killed and some of the leaders of the deposed government fled to Japan. In 1885, in the aftermath of this affair, Japan and China signed a new treaty in which they agreed to withdraw all troops from Korea and give the other government notice if they needed to send them back. The Japanese had effectively been given permission to send troops to Korea.

In the aftermath of these disturbances Japanese public opinion supported further intervention in Korea and a number of secret societies were formed with the aim of destabilising Japan's neighbours so that the Japanese government would be forced to intervene. This tied in with a generally expansionist mood in Japan (not always militaristic in nature - the period also saw a campaign to establish Japanese communities in the west and to increase trade).

The tension began to rise again in 1894. In March the pro-Japanese Korean leader Kim Ok-kyn was assassinated in Shanghai and his body taken to Korea for mutilation as a warning to those seen as traitors. The Japanese secret societies began to agitate for war and their efforts played a part in the outbreak of the Tonghak Insurrection. This led to the outbreak of a revolt led by members of the Cult of Eastern Learning, a religious organisation that had been banned in the 1860s and had then gone underground. The rebels wanted both the Chinese and Japanese to leave Korea, but their actions had the opposite effect. The Korean government asked China to send troops, and a 2,500 strong expeditionary force was sent to Asan, forty miles to the south-west of Seoul. The Japanese saw this as a breach of the Tientsin treaty and they sent 8,000 troops to the port of Inchon (then known as Chemulpo). These troops then moved to Seoul, where on 20 July they seized control of the Korean government. By this point the original revolt had been put down by Korean troops, but the damage was done and Japan and China both prepared for war.

Pre-war Fighting

On 25 July 1894 the first fighting of the war took place, at sea off the west coast of Korea. Two Chinese warships heading west ran into three Japanese cruisers. In the resulting Battle of Asan or Phung-Tao (25 July 1894) the Japanese forced one Chinese cruiser to flee, destroyed a modern Japanese gunboat, sank a troopship that arrived after the fighting was over, and captured a late-arriving Chinese gunboat.

At about the same time part of the Japanese army at Seoul moved south to attack the Chinese based at Asan. The two armies clashed at Songhwan (29 July 1894) in the first overseas battle fought by a Japanese army for 300 years. The battle ended as a Japanese victory, but most of the Chinese army managed to escape to the north and joined the main army at Pyongyang.

The War

War was officially declared on 1 August 1894. Both sides rushed reinforcements to Korea. The Chinese were unwilling to risk another naval clash with the Japanese and so their troops came via the Yalu River (the border between Korean and China) and the northern ports. The Japanese were able to land at Inchon (Chemulpo), at Pusan in the far south-east of the country and at Wonsan (at the eastern side of the neck of the peninsula).

The first land battle of the war came on 16 September at Pyongyang, where the Chinese had decided to make a stand. Most sources agree that the Chinese had 14,000 men in the garrison, but estimates of the size of the Japanese force vary from 10,000 up to 20,000. The Chinese were handicapped by a lack of unity amongst their troops, which formed four separate small armies. The Japanese were able to defeat each of these forces in turn and captured the city after inflicting around 7,000 casualties on the defenders. After this success the Japanese advanced north towards the Yulu River, the next Chinese defensive position.

As the Japanese advanced up Korea the Chinese decided to ship reinforcements to the Yalu River on the border between China and

Korea. The Chinese fleet escorted one troop convoy to the Yalu in mid-September. The Japanese moved north in an attempt to intercept them and at the resulting naval battle of the Yalu River (17 September 1894) the Chinese lost five of the ten ships in their main line of battle. The survivors escaped to Port Arthur and then to Wei-Hei-Wei, but the Japanese had won control of the seas.

The Chinese built strong defensive positions on the Yalu River, but the Japanese were able to get across undetected on 24 October. They were then able to attack the Chinese fortifications from the Chinese side of the river, and after five hours of fighting on the morning of 24-25 October the Chinese were forced to retreat (land battle of the Yalu, 24-25 October 1894).

After this success the Japanese force split in two, with one thrust pursuing the defeated Chinese and one heading for Mukden, the capital of Manchuria. The Japanese won a series of sometimes hard-fought battles, often against larger but badly led Chinese forces. Hai-ch'eng fell on 13 December, leaving Mukden vulnerable.

Early in 1895 the Chinese went onto the attack, and launched a fierce attack on the Japanese at Hai-ch'eng. This attacked ended in failure and the Japanese were able to go back onto the offensive. The cities of Niuzhuang and Liaoyang fell by 4 March and the fighting in Manchuria was effectively over.

Japanese Second Army

While the Japanese First Army advanced into Manchuria, on 24 October 1894 the Second Army, with the 5th Division, landed on the Chinese coast to the north-west of Korea and advanced towards Port Arthur. A first attack on the port on 19 October was repulsed, but a second attack, on 21 October, convinced the defenders to withdraw. The Japanese entered the city on 24 October, and the first of a series of sacks of Chinese cities began. The capture of Port Arthur denied the Chinese one of their main northern ports, and also saw the Japanese capture a vast amount of military equipment.

The Shantung Campaign

In mid-January the Japanese opened up another front, this time in Shantung Province. Their target was the naval base at Weihaiwei, where the survivors of the Naval Battle of the Yalu had taken shelter. The Japanese arrived outside the port on 30 January 1895, where they found themselves faced by formidable fortifications. Unfortunatly for the Chinese the defenders were less impressive than the guns, and the forts were captured by 2 February. The fleet was now doomed. The Japanese carried out s series of attacks on the remaining part of the fleet, sinking both of the two Chinese battleships. On 12 February Admiral Ting Ju-ch'ang surrendered the port and committed suicide.

The End of the War

The Japanese were now ready for the second phase of their plan. This involved an invasion of the Pescadores Islands, which began on 23 March 1895 and saw the Chinese defenders defeated in a three day battle. The

second part was to have been a two pronged attack on Peking, with troops coming from Shantung and from Manchuria. This campaign wasn't needed. The Chinese government was ready to seek peace, and on 17 April 1895 the two sides signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. In this treaty the Japanese gained the Pescadores, Formosa (where they had to fight a short war to establish control), Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula, and were to be paid a large indemnity.

These successes worried some of the European powers. Russia, Germany and France combined to force the Japanese to give back Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula, but China's reprieve was short-lived. The Russians soon forced them to give them a lease of Port Arthur and the rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway, which linked Port Arthur to the Trans-Siberian. This in turn worried Britain, who acquired a lease of Weihaiwei to watch the Russians at Port Arthur. This European pressure angered many in Japan and laid the seeds for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which would see the Japanese win just as convincingly when fighting one of the great European powers. In China herself the defeat helped encourage anti-foreign sentiment, and played a part in the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion. It also undermined the prestige of the Qing dynasty, and thus played a part in the collapse of Imperial rule in China in 1911.

The South Sea Bubbleby Ellen Castelow

All through history, one subject appears again and again. How to make a lot of money quickly!

The first recorded case in England was that of a State Lottery in 1569. The tickets were on sale at the west door of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The name of the winner is not recorded.

In 1720 the whole of England became involved with what has since become known as The South Sea Bubble.

In 1720, in return for a loan of £7 million to finance the war against France, the House of Lords passed the South Sea Bill, which allowed the South Sea Company a monopoly in trade with South America.

The company underwrote the English National Debt, which stood at £30 million, on a promise of 5% interest from the Government.

Shares immediately rose to 10 times their value, speculation ran wild and all sorts of companies, some lunatic, some fraudulent or just optimistic were launched.

For example; one company floated was to buy the Irish Bogs, another to manufacture a gun to fire square cannon balls and the most ludicrous of all “For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is!!” Unbelievably £2000 was invested in this one!

The country went wild, stocks increased in all these and other ‘dodgy’ schemes, and huge fortunes were made.

Then the ‘bubble’ in London burst!

The stocks crashed and people all over the country lost all of their money. Porters and ladies maids who had bought their own carriages became destitute almost overnight. The Clergy, Bishops and the Gentry lost their life savings; the whole country suffered a catastrophic loss of money and property.

Suicides became a daily occurrence. The gullible mob whose innate greed had lain behind this mass hysteria for wealth, demanded vengeance. The Postmaster General took poison and his son, who was the Secretary of State, avoided disaster by fortuitously contracting smallpox and died!

The South Sea Company Directors were arrested and their estates forfeited.

There were 462 members of the House of Commons and 112 Peers in the South Sea Company who were involved in the crash.

Frantic bankers thronged the lobbies at Parliament and the Riot Act was read to restore order.

As a result of a Parliamentary inquiry, John Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and several members of Parliament were expelled in 1721.

King George I also became involved as his two mistresses, the Countess of Darlington and the Duchess of Kendal, were heavily involved in the South Sea Company and were blamed by the populace as being responsible.

When out in her carriage, one of the ladies was jeered by a mob. “Goot people, why do you abuse us? We come for all your goots”. (She had a very strong German accent.) A voice from the crowd shouted back “Yes,

dam ye, and for all our chattels too!”

Robert Walpole, who had been against the South Sea Company from the beginning, took charge and sorted out this terrible financial mess. He was made Chancellor of

Exchequer and he divided the National Debt that had been the South Sea Company into three, between the Bank of England, the Treasury and the Sinking Fund.

The Sinking Fund was made up of a portion of the country’s income that was put aside every year, and eventually stability returned to the country.

We read about the South Sea Bubble today and wonder how so many people got involved in such a dubious undertaking.

But it must be said, if something similar was to be launched today, who would not be tempted at the thought of a great deal of easy money!! R.I.P. the virtual dot com bubble.

A Turning Point For Europe: The Siege of Malta 1565History Hit 3 mins 03 Nov 2018

The Siege of Malta was one of the most pivotal battles in European history. The Great Siege, as it is sometimes referred to, occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire invaded the island, which was at the time held by the Knights Hospitalier – or the Knights of Malta as they were also known.

It was the end of a long-running contest between a Christian alliance and the Ottoman Empire who battled to take control of the entire Mediterranean region.

A long history of hostilityTurgut Reis, an Ottoman Admiral, and the Knights of Malta, had long since been enemies. The island’s position near the very centre of the Mediterranean made it a prime target for the Ottoman Empire, and if the Ottomans’s could successfully capture Malta it would make it easier for them to take control of other surrounding European countries.

In 1551, Turgut and Sinan Pasha, another Ottoman Admiral, invaded Malta for the first time. But the invasion proved unsuccessful and they instead transferred to the nearby island of Gozo.

A fresco depicting the arrival of the Ottoman Armada at Malta.Following these events, the island of Malta expected another imminent attack from the Ottoman Empire and so Juan de Homedes, the Grand Master, ordered the strengthening of Fort Saint Angelo on the island, as well the construction of two new forts called Fort Saint Michael and Fort Saint Elmo.

The following years on Malta were relatively uneventful but the ongoing battles over the control of the Mediterranean continued.

The Great SiegeAt dawn on 18 May 1565, an invasion, which became known as the Siege of Malta, began when a fleet of Ottoman ships arrived at the island and docked at Marsaxlokk harbour.

It was the job of the Knights of Malta, led by Jean Parisot de Valette, to protect the island from the Ottoman Empire. It is thought that the Knights had just 6,100 members (around 500 Knights and 5,600 other soldiers largely recruited from the

Maltese population and other armies from Spain and Greece) compared to the 48,000 strong Ottoman Armada.

When other islanders saw the imminence of the siege many of them took refuge in the walled cities of Birgu, Isla and Mdina.

The first place to be attacked was Fort St Elmo, which the Turkish invaders thought to be an easy target that had little defence. Despite this, it took over four weeks to capture the Fort, and in the process several thousand Turkish soldiers were killed.

Undeterred, the Turks continued to attack the island and launched assaults on Birgu and Isla – but each time they found resistance of a much greater level than they anticipated.

Malta witnesses a bloodbathThe siege lasted for over four months in the intense heat of the Maltese summer. It is estimated that around 10,000 Ottoman deaths were inflicted during the siege, and that around a third of the Maltese population and original number of Knights were also killed – and it was one of the bloodiest battles in history,

But, however unlikely it seems due to the imbalance in the power of each side, the Ottoman Empire was defeated and Malta was victorious. It is one of the most celebrated events in history and marked a new era of Spanish dominance in the Mediterranean.

The Highland Clearancesby Terry Stewart

The Highland Clearances remain a controversial period in Scotland’s history and are still talked of with great bitterness, particularly by those families who were dispossessed of their land and even, to a large extent, of their culture, over the period of around 100 years between the mid 18th to 19th centuries. It is still considered a stain on the history of the Scottish people and is also a main contributing factor for the relatively enormous world-wide Scottish diaspora.

By the mid 1800s there was a tangible North-South divide within Scotland. There was an idea of the Highland culture and way of life being ‘backward’ and ‘old-fashioned’, out of step with the rest of Scotland and the recently United Kingdom. Those people in the south now identified more with their southern counterparts than with the old clan culture of the highlands and islands. Southern Scots saw themselves as more modern and progressive, with more in common in language and culture with their southern, English neighbours.

However the Highland culture, ancient and proud, was fiercely independent and rooted in incredibly important traditions of family and fealty. The clans such as Macintosh, Campbell and Grant had ruled their

lands in the highlands for hundreds of years. The Highland Clearances changed all that however, and altered a distinct and autonomous way of life. The reasons for the highland clearances essentially came down to two things: money and loyalty.

James VI and I

Loyalty

As early as the reign of James VI in Scotland, cracks were beginning to appear in the clan way of life. When James ascended the throne of England in 1603, he moved south to Westminster and ruled Scotland from there, only visiting the nation of his birth once more before he died. James was a suspicious king (his distaste for witches has already been noted!) and did not completely trust the clan leaders in Scotland to rule without his supervision. He feared opposition and plotting. Although to be fair to James it was this canniness that led him to foil the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, although of course the threat there did not come from Scotland. In order to better maintain control of the North and to prevent the clan chiefs from superseding his power with their people, James kept the chiefs away from their clans for extended periods, requiring them to do duties that kept them away from their people. This was to ensure that the peoples’ allegiance remained to their King and not to their clan Chief.

Bonnie Prince Charlie

Things worsened for the clans after the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 when the Stuarts were replaced by William of Orange and the Hanoverian dynasty. There were many Scots still fiercely loyal to the Stuart monarch, and this led to several Jacobite uprisings in

support of Prince Charles Edward Stewart, or ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, who was James VII’s grandson. The Jacobites wanted to oust what they saw as an illegitimate ruler and reinstate the Stuart king. There were several rebellions with this as the intended outcome, and there was a swell of support for the Jacobite movement in the highlands. This was further fostered in many ways by the Act of Union of 1707: many Scots felt betrayed by this and there was widespread opposition to the joining with England. This led to further support for a return of the Stuart monarchy and by consequence, the Jacobite rebellions.

From 1725 onwards, garrisons manned by English soldiers or ‘redcoats’ sprung up all over the Scottish Highlands, notably at Fort William and Inverness. These were to suppress Scottish opposition to the King and to remind the highland clans that they were subject to English rule.

The final and bloodiest rebellion was led by Bonnie Prince Charlie himself in 1745 and it

culminated in the slaughter at Culloden in 1746. The Jacobites faced the English redcoats on an open field and were almost annihilated. They were no match for the might of the British army and the losses suffered by the highlanders were catastrophic. The Jacobites were around 6,000 strong whereas the British army numbered around 9,000. Of the 6,000 Jacobites, 1,000 are thought to have died, although the exact number is unknown. Many of those who died were clansmen; some tried to escape but were hunted through the countryside and slaughtered. Some prisoners were

taken to London where around 80 were executed, including the last man to be beheaded in Britain, Lord Lovat, Clan Chief of Fraser. He was beheaded at the Tower of London in 1747 for high treason for his part in supporting the Jacobite rebellion. The Battle of

Culloden was to be the swan-song of Highland Clan culture, the last stand of a way of life that had existed for centuries.

What happened after Culloden?

After the initial swift and bloodthirsty retribution for the Jacobite rebellions, laws were instigated to prevent any further groundswell of support for the previous monarchs. In 1747 ‘The Act of Proscription’ was passed. Clan tartan had become popular during the Jacobite years and this was outlawed under this new act, as were bagpipes and the teaching of Gaelic. The Act was a direct attack on the highland culture and way of life, and attempted to eradicate it from a modern and Hanoverian-loyal Scotland. Acts such as this, intended to wipe out an ancient culture, have given modern Scotland an unusual ally and kindred spirit in the Catalans. Cataluña is in the North East of Spain, the capital of which is Barcelona. They have their own culture and language (Catalan) that is completely distinct from Castilian Spain. In 1707 Scotland lost the right to self-rule, and the Catalans lost the same to the Spanish a mere 7 years later in 1714. Although these two countries are thousands of miles and cultures apart, they have an unusually similar shared history of oppression. Once Franco had won the Spanish Civil War in 1939, he treated the Catalans in much the same way the Highlanders were treated after Culloden. Franco outlawed the Catalan language and made the Catalans subject to Spanish rule. Today the Catalans watch the issue of Scottish independence with great interest.

Money

It was not only highland culture that disappeared over this period but also the highlanders themselves, for the most prosaic of reasons: money. It was deduced by those landowners on whose lands the clans lived and worked, that sheep were exponentially more financially productive than people. The wool trade had begun to boom and there was literally more value in sheep than people. So, what followed was an organized and intentional removal of the population from the area. In 1747, another Act was passed, the ‘Heritable Jurisdictions Act’, which stated that anyone

who did not submit to English rule automatically forfeited their land: bend the knee or surrender your birth right.

Emigrants Statue, Helmsdale, Scotland

Some highlander clans and families had lived in the same cottages for 500 years and then, just like that, they were gone. People were literally turned out of their cottages into the surrounding countryside. Many were relocated to the coast where they would subsist farm almost cultivatable land, supplementing themselves by smelting kelp and fishing. However the kelp industry also began to decline. Some were put on to different land to farm crops, but they had no legal rights to the land. It was a very feudal arrangement. Many highlanders chose to emigrate but some were actually sold as indentured slaves.

Things began to deteriorate even further in the 1840s. The potato blight and the subsequent potato famine rendered the already difficult lives of these resettled crofters almost untenable. It has been said that at the height of the clearances as many as 2,000 crofter cottages were burned each day, although exact figures are hard to come by. Cottages were burned to make them uninhabitable, to ensure the people never tried to return once the sheep had been moved in.

Between 1811 and 1821, around 15,000 people were removed from land owned by the Duchess of Sutherland and her husband the Marquis of Stafford to make room for 200,000 sheep. Some of those turned out had literally nowhere else to go; many were old and inform and so starved or froze to death, left to the mercy of the elements. In 1814 two elderly people who did not get out of their cottage in time were burned alive in Strathnaver. In 1826, the Isle of Rum was cleared of its tenants who were paid to go to Canada, travelling on the ship ‘James’ to dock at Halifax. Unfortunately, every one of the passengers had contracted typhus by the time they arrived in Canada. This ‘transportation’ was not that uncommon, as it was often cheaper for landowners to pay for passage to the New World than to try and find their tenants other land or keep them from starvation. However, it was not always voluntary. In 1851, 1500 tenants in Barra were tricked to a meeting about land rents; they were then overpowered, tied up and forced onto a ship to America.

This clearing of the population is a main contributor to the massive world-wide Scottish diaspora and why so many Americans and Canadians can trace their ancestry to the proud, ancient clans of Scotland.It is not known exactly how many highlanders emigrated, voluntarily or otherwise, at this time but estimates put it at about 70,000. Whatever the exact figure, it was enough to change the character and culture of the Scottish

Highlands forever.

A 17th century Scottish prophet known as The Brahan Seer once wrote,

“The day will come when the big sheep will put the plough up in the rafters . . .The big sheep will overrun the country till they meet the northern sea . . . in the end, old men shall return from new lands”.

It turns out, he was right.

Hanseatic League

Hanseatic league port

The Hanseatic League, or Hanse, was an association of German merchants, and later of towns, that dominated trade in northern Europe from the 13th through the 15th century. During this time the Hanse comprised around 75 member towns plus around 100 associate towns. The word hanse means an association, but the entity called the Hanse was far more. Its members were middlemen, both geographically and economically. 

They controlled trade between the Baltic and North Seas, in part because their ships, called cogs (depicted on the seals of many Hanseatic towns), were much superior to earlier ships. Using this technological advantage German merchants were able to exact economic privileges from rulers along the Baltic and North Seas who came to depend on their trade. But as their economic power grew, they also took a more active military and diplomatic role in shaping the politics of northern Europe. 

Eventually the structural weakness of this loosely organized transnational community became apparent, as witnessed by the growing divergence in the interests of the member towns. The Dutch, English, Spanish, and Portuguese merchants, who traded not only throughout Europe, but also throughout the world, had already long eclipsed the Hanse when it finally dissolved in the mid-17th century.

Frisians, Flemings, Scandinavians (Vikings were traders as well as raiders), and the Slavic and Baltic peoples living along the south and east Baltic littoral dominated long-distance trade on the Baltic and North Seas before the arrival of German merchants. The main centers of trade were Haddeby in Schleswig-Holstein, Birka in Sweden, Truso on the Vistula River, and Stettin and Jumne on the Oder River. These trading centers provided the groundwork for the later Hanse.

By the 12th century Visby, on the island of Gotland, had emerged as the main emporium in the Baltic Sea. Its merchants established a trading outpost in the important Rus town of Novgorod, and they were granted extensive privileges by Emperor Lothair II (1125–37) to trade throughout his realm. This emperor’s grandson, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony (1142–80), was also interested both in developing trade and in pushing the bounds of his lordship farther east. 

Along with Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg (1134–70), Henry played an important role in what has come to be known as the Drang nach Osten, or “push to the east.” This involved not only the military conquest and conversion of the Slavic pagans to the east of the Elbe River, but also the colonization of the conquered lands with peasants and burghers from overpopulated western lands. 

They were aided in this project by other nobles, including Count Adolf II of Holstein, who in 1143 founded a town, Lübeck, at the confluence of the Trave and Wakenitz Rivers, at almost the narrowest point of the isthmus dividing the Baltic and North Seas.

The native Slavs had long recognized the strategic and economic importance of this site, whose town a few miles downstream (from which Adolf took the name for his own town) had been destroyed in 1138. Henry the Lion complained that the town’s success was causing his own economic projects to fail, as the chronicler Helmold relates. 

In 1157 Henry forced Adolf to give him the town, and Henry endowed it with expansive privileges and encouraged foreign merchants to trade there. In 1180 Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (1152–90) stripped Henry of his possessions for failing to submit to his judgment. 

Frederick I confirmed the town’s privileges in 1188, and in 1226 Emperor Frederick II made Lübeck an imperial city, free from the jurisdiction of local lords. This status as the only imperial city east of the Elbe, along with Lübeck’s geographical position, heralded the future greatness of the city that would become the capital of the Hanse, displacing Visby as the center of Baltic trade.

Hanseatic league route map

Because of the privileges granted to the Gotlanders, German merchants, especially those from Lübeck, were permitted to trade in Visby. These merchants formed an association and were recognized by authorities as “the merchants of the Roman Empire frequenting Gotland.” They elected leaders to speak on their behalf and in time established trading posts, or Kontore, in Novgorod, Bergen, Bruges, and London, four of the most important markets in northern Europe. 

During the 13th century dozens of towns were founded beyond the Elbe River according to “German law.” Many of these towns were new settlements, but there were also a large number of preexisting towns, like Gdansk and Kraków in Poland, that were reorganized according to the new social (“Stadtluft macht frei,” or “town air makes you free”) and spatial (a checkerboard pattern of streets around a market square) ideals of their mother cities.

As more merchants from these new towns became involved in trade, they became wary of the other merchants’ leadership of the Kontore, and they wanted towns to take over the leadership of the Hanse. During the late 13th century a transformation took place—this association of merchants became an urban league. 

The Hanse was not the first urban league. Others emerged in the empire during the 13th century, as imperial power declined and towns looked to each other for protection from predatory lords, pirates, and other threats. But these other leagues proved ephemeral, dissolving after the immediate threat had passed. 

With Lübeck at its head, the Hanse continued to display its economic and military might throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. It forced the surrounding rulers, including the kings of Norway, Denmark, England, and France, to grant the Hanse ever more extensive privileges, allowing them to monopolize trade between the Baltic and North Seas.

In 1356 the first Hansetag, or general assembly of all the Hanseatic towns, was held in Lübeck. The Danish king Valdemar IV had been jeopardizing their trade routes by conquering lands throughout the Baltic, including Visby. The Hanse resolved to put an end to this. In 1362 they financed a fleet to oppose the king through the imposition of a toll on merchandise, called the Pfundzoll. 

This venture, however, ended in defeat for the Hanse, and its leader was executed in the Lübeck town square for his failure. In 1367 a new Hansetag convened, this time in Cologne, because the Hanse needed the help of the Dutch in defeating the Danes. This “Cologne Confederation” of the Hanse, the Dutch, and Sweden sacked Copenhagen and forced Denmark to accept the Peace of Stralsund in 1370. 

The confederation won the right to occupy all Danish fortresses guarding access between the Baltic and North Seas for 15 years as well as the right to choose the next king. In 1388 the Hanse authorized an embargo of England, Flanders, and Rus and won privileges in all three lands, taking control of the Kontore in these lands. These however would prove to be pyrrhic victories.

The late 14th century marked the apogee of the Hanse’s power. It monopolized trade between the Baltic and North Seas and had imposed its will on lands in which it traded through a combination of military and economic measures. Yet even at the height of its power, it was the beginning of the decline of the Hanse. 

Many inland towns and some coastal towns did not take part in the “Cologne Confederation.” It was

expensive to send representatives there, and the goals of individual towns were not always in line with those of the general assembly. The interests of the eastern towns and the western towns as well as those of the coastal towns and the inland towns continued to diverge.

Next because the Hansetag met so infrequently, the Lübeck town council functioned as the de facto head of the Hanse. When a revolt broke out in 1408 against its rule by the Lübeck burghers, it demonstrated not only the institutional weaknesses of the Hanse, but also the fact that frictions existed between the town councils and the burghers they were representing. In an organization as amorphous as the Hanse, there existed the problem of “freeriding,” that is, merchants from towns who did not belong to the Hanse trying to claim its privileges.

In addition to this internal fragmentation, the Hanse also faced external challenges. The rulers of Hanse lands sought to develop their sovereignty by limiting the Hanse’s privileges or forcing towns to withdraw from the league. In 1442 the margrave of Brandenburg forced Berlin-Cölln’s withdrawal. Also English, Dutch, and south German merchants began to take a larger share of the northern European trade. 

The Hanse continued to decline throughout the 16th century, and in the first half of the 17th century the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) decimated central Europe to an extent not seen since the Black Death. Two decades after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), argued by many political theorists to be the origin of the modern state system, the association convened its last Hansetag.

The extent of the Hanse’s economic and political power has led some historians and political theorists to draw comparisons to the European Community, forerunner of the European Union. These scholars suggest that because a transnational polity like the Hanse presented serious challenges to the emerging territorially sovereign states of the late Middle Ages, useful examples might be found for the future of the sovereign state in a world in which transnational organizations are once again challenging its supremacy. 

Hanseatic league building

For nearly four centuries the Hanse was a major economic, political, and social factor in the formation of Europe—it facilitated the exchange not just of commodities, but also of people and ideas. Dozens of preserved medieval marketplaces in towns around the Baltic littoral, from Tallinn, Estonia, to Gdansk, Poland, to Lübeck, Germany, bear witness to the greatness of the Hanse during its heyday.

Zenobia, the Rebel Queen Who Took On RomeThis ancient queen of Palmyra conquered Egypt, captured Roman provinces, and nearly transformed her realm into an empire equal to Rome.

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B Y   D A V I D H E R N Á N D E Z D E L A F U E N T E

W E A L T H , C U L T U R E , A N D  power dwelled in the city of Palmyra in the third century A.D. This cosmopolitan capital of the Roman province of the same name lay close to the empire’s eastern borders, providing the setting for Queen Zenobia’s ambitious power play.

The showdown had been decades in the making. By the middle of the third century A.D. the Roman Empire was mired in political and economic crisis, its frontiers under constant attack, and its center struggling to hold. The catastrophic defeat and capture in 260 of Emperor Valerian by the Persians thrust Roman rule into even greater disarray. In Europe the rebel Gallic empire started to break

away from Rome. Weakened and distracted, the empire was facing threats on all fronts. Observing from the east, Zenobia saw her opportunity and knew that she had an empire to gain.

Palmyra had a history of cooperation with Roman rule, and this had resulted in many benefits for the desert kingdom. Located in the middle of modern-day Syria, around 130 miles northeast of Damascus, Palmyra had prospered since coming under Roman control in the first century A.D. Sitting at the crossroads between the Mediterranean world ruled by Rome and the great empires of Asia, it became a center of huge strategic and economic importance.

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Depicted in this third-century relief as the goddess Ishtar, Zenobia ruled over the impressive city of Palmyra, a city whose remains have been tragically targeted by ISIS for destruction.D A G L I O R T I / D E A / A L B U M

The magnificent second-century theater at Palmyra was probably used more for rhetorical displays than for staging plays. The image predates the first seizure of the site in May 2015 by ISIS.M I C H E L E F A L Z O N E / A G E F O T O S T O C K

The second-century Tetrapylon consisted of four groups of four columns and served as a monumental gateway, flanked on each side by Palmyra’s Great Colonnade. The image predates its partial destruction by ISIS in January 2017.P A U L D O Y L E / C O R B I S / G E T T Y I M A G E S

An aerial view of Palmyra taken before ISIS first occupied the site in 2015. Bisected by the sweep of the Great Colonnade, the city was dominated by its fine theater (center). To the far right is the Tetrapylon and in the background—in the upper right corner—are the city’s distinctive tower tombs.E D K A S H I / N G S

An obligatory stopover for the caravans that traversed the deserts, the wealth flooding into Palmyra gave its rulers the means to beautify their city, as well as the confidence to assert themselves regionally. Known as the “pearl of the

desert,” the oasis city was famed for its magnificent buildings, such as its Arch of Triumph and an impressive theater. By the middle of the third century the Palmyrene empire was already enjoying a certain independence—albeit as a client state within the Roman Empire. Zenobia sought to change that.

Queen Takes Egypt

Over the centuries, Zenobia’s life story has been subjected to a great deal of scholarly speculation. The colorful but unreliable Augustan History, a late Roman collection of biographies, states that Zenobia associated herself with the Ptolemies of Egypt, including Cleopatra. Eastern historians, such as the ninth-century Persian al-Tabari, believed that Zenobia was not Greek but of Arab descent. Modern historians agree that the queen of Palmyra did not descend from the Ptolemies and most likely came from an influential Palmyrene family in which she had been well educated.

Consolidating the gains made by her husband against the Persians, from A.D. 268 Zenobia exploited Roman imperial weakness, annexing swaths of modern-day Syria, Turkey, and Egypt.N G M A P S

Little is known of her exact upbringing and education. Drawing on sources from the Roman Empire, the 18th-century British historian Edward Gibbon penned detailed descriptions of her in his six-volume classic, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters . . . Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex . . . Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex . . . Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages.

Zenobia married Odaenathus, a Romanized Arab and ruler of Palmyra. Reigning from 263, Odaenathus successfully defended Palmyra from the Persians, who were riding high after their humiliating defeat of Emperor Valerian. Remaining loyal to Rome—outwardly at least—Odaenathus managed to break through the Persian lines and force them to retreat to Persian territory.

A tetradrachm bears the face of Zenobia, minted in Alexandria around A.D. 274, the likely year of her death.B R I D G E M A N / A C I

From the outset, Odaenathus claimed to be acting on Rome’s behalf, but it soon became clear that he wanted to establish himself as “monarch of the East.” Given Rome’s tenuous position, the new emperor—Valerian’s son, Gallienus—had little choice but to acknowledge the powerful status of Odaenathus. Already boasting several titles awarded by Rome, including corrector totius Orientis (governor of the entire East), Odaenathus was also crowned “king of kings” by his own people. Palmyra might have become the capital of a new empire, but it was not to be. Odaenathus’s ambitions were thwarted by a palace intrigue in 267. On returning from a campaign against the Goths in Cappadocia (central Turkey), a relative murdered him in his palace.

Zenobia’s moment had arrived. Her son by Odaenathus, Wahballat (Vaballathus in Latin) was the heir, but still a child. Zenobia declared herself regent, a move that allowed her to seize control of territories in the east, recently taken from the Persians. She executed the parties responsible for her husband’s death, and then set to end the fiction that Palmyra and its domains were submissive to the Roman Empire and its emperor. Zenobia knew how to take advantage of the Roman Empire’s moment of weakness. She scorned Emperor Gallienus and his generals, who were powerless to stop her. When the next, short-lived Roman emperor, Claudius Gothicus, acceded, he had no choice but to recognize her sovereignty. Zenobia had achieved her aim: to make Palmyra an equal to Rome.

Little by little, with astuteness and the wise advice of her counselors, Zenobia widened the break with Rome. Keeping the Persians at bay to the east, she annexed various

neighboring states, including all of Syria and most of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). In 269 she sent her forces into Egypt and seized Alexandria. By 270 she had taken control of all of Egypt, its wealth, and the grain it supplied to Rome. Her empire looked unstoppable.

A third-century bust depicts Emperor Aurelian, Zenobia’s primary antagonist.D A G L I O R T I / D E A / A L B U M

Meeting Her Match

Rome’s next emperor of consequence, Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, was a very different kind of adversary. Taking power in 270, Aurelian possessed a rigid military discipline forged in battle on the imperial frontiers. His ferocity on the front line was legendary, giving rise to a verse of a song in Latin: “Mille, mille, mille occidit!—A thousand, a thousand, a thousand he’s killed!” During the four brief years of his reign, this hardened soldier won his predecessors’ war with the Goths, repelled a barbarian invasion of northern Italy, and restored Roman rule in the unruly provinces of Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania.

Zenobia’s growing power and open defiance of Roman authority, especially following the declaration of her own son as Caesar in 271, could not help but attract Aurelian’s attention. The challenge she presented far exceeded that of a male ruler gone rogue: “Now all shame is exhausted,” the Augustan Historylamented, “for in the weakened state of the [Roman] commonwealth things came to such a pass that . . . a foreigner, Zenobia by name . . . proceeded to cast about her shoulders the imperial mantle [and ruled] longer than could be endured from one of the female sex.”

Aurelian retaliated, taking back territory from Zenobia as his legions advanced through Asia Minor. Near Antioch, her army of 70,000 men made a stand, but after Aurelian’s forces defeated them, the remaining soldiers retreated to Palmyra. Aurelian’s legions pursued them and arrived at the city walls in 272.

Sources recount that Zenobia attempted to flee the siege of Palmyra on a dromedary. Caught by Roman troops, she was brought before Emperor Aurelian, a scene depicted in this 1717 painting by… Read MoreO R O N O Z / A L B U M

They laid siege to Palmyra, but Zenobia was confident that her archers and cavalry could repel them. If that did not work, perhaps the Romans would succumb to hunger and the merciless desert climate. According to the Augustan History, the queen fired off a message full of characteristic defiance: “From Zenobia, Queen of the East, to Aurelian Augustus . . . You demand my surrender as though you were not aware that Cleopatra preferred to die a queen rather than remain alive, however high her rank.”

Stung by this rebuff from a woman, Aurelian redoubled his efforts to take the city. In desperation, the queen tried to flee eastward to Persia but was captured—the Augustan History relates—when she reached the Euphrates River. The city soon surrendered.

Palmyra’s Valley of the Tombs is made up of distinctive burial chambers, often in the form of towers. Reflecting the city’s rich cultural heritage, many were decorated with paintings, reliefs, and statues. The second-century Tomb of the Three Brothers (above) could hold more than 300 bodies and is decorated with scenes from Homer’s epic poem The Iliad.T A R G A / A G E F O T O S T O C K

Zenobia’s Legacy

Much like her birth, the exact circumstances of Zenobia’s death are uncertain. Some Arab sources say that she committed suicide to avoid capture. Roman sources claim that Aurelian, unwilling to put a woman to death, brought her as a captive to Rome. The queen, it was said, had always longed to visit Rome, “and this hope was not unfulfilled,” the Augustan History recorded with irony: “for she did, indeed, enter the city . . . but vanquished and led in triumph.” Some sources claim she was decapitated there. Others recount that she married a Roman senator and lived out her life as a Roman matron. Whatever befell her, Zenobia has captured the imagination of generations of writers, enthralled by the exploits of this powerful queen who defied Rome.