Christmas Every Day

1627 Birth of the “Eagle of Meaux”

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) has been called the greatest pulpit orator ever; his name is a byword for elegance of speech. As a preacher and Catholic bishop he engaged in the great religious controversies of his time, taking on Protestants, Quietists, ultramontanists and secularists; as a tutor to the heir to the throne he failed miserably.

Bossuet was born to a prosperous provincial family of lawyers with powerful connections. He was destined by his family for the Church and in the amiable corruption of the age became tonsured at age 10 and a canon of the cathedral of Metz at 13. Though he continued to take advantage of sins against canon law such as absenteeism, Bossuet took his religious commitment seriously; he studied for the priesthood under St Frances de Sales and received his Doctor of Divinity.

Even in his teens Bossuet had a reputation as a brilliant public speaker and he eventually attracted the attention of the court of Louis XIV. He preached before royalty and was rewarded with a bishopric and the post of tutor to Louis’ oldest son, the Grand Dauphin. His efforts in this regard were misplaced and wasted. To school the lumpish lad he wrote three grand tomes, a treatise on knowing God and oneself, a history of the world, and a creaky master-piece entitled  Politique Tirée des Propres Paroles de L’Ecriture Sainte. [This is the book I translated as Political Theory Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture for part of my Master’s thesis.] The latter was the last bold attempt at defending absolute monarchy, no surprise from a courtier of the Sun King, but it fell on deaf ears — not only those of the Dauphin but the larger world about to experience the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions. It may be said that Bossuet was born a generation too late but that his golden expressions are still valued by lovers of the French language.

In the 19th century, Sudanese territory was claimed by Egypt, which ran a corrupt and oppressive rule over the territory. In 1881 a devout Muslim religious scholar named Muhammad Ahmad declared himself the Mahdi, the legendary prophesied figure that would appear at the end of time and who would herald the arrival of Isa (Jesus) and the Final Judgment. He was able to rally the disaffected tribes of the Sudan against the Egyptians, conquering much of the upper Nile valley. Like ISIS and their caliphate, the Mahdi attempted to reintroduce the pure, harsh Islam of the 7th century.

After several military attempts to defeat the Mahdi, the British (who now controlled Egypt) decided to pull out of the Sudan and sent the charismatic, popular hero General Charles Gordon to arrange the evacuation. Gordon, instead, chose to stay and fight. He and his troops were massacred in the capital Khartoum in 1884, causing an enormous scandal back in Britain. Though the Mahdi soon died, his successor, known as the Khalifa, built a powerful Mahdist state that attempted to spread its variety of Islam by the sword.

In 1898 the British decided to put an end to this threat to European imperialism in Africa, sending an army up the Nile, under General Herbert Kitchener. The Mahdist forces greatly outnumbered Kitchener’s troops but the British had machine guns and artillery. Near the confluence of the Blue and White Niles at Omdurman, the wild charges of the Mahdists (called “dervishes” or “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” by the British) were mowed down by disciplined fire of the more modern army.

Four Victorian Crosses were awarded for that day’s action including one to a Canadian, Captain Raymond de Montmorency of the 21st Lancers (whose charge is depicted here.)

The citation for the medal reads: “At the Battle of Khartum on the 2nd September 1898, Lieutenant de Montmorency, after the charge of the 21st Lancers, returned to assist Second Lieutenant R. G. Grenfell, who was lying surrounded by a large body of Dervishes. Lieutenant de Montmorency drove the Dervishes off, and, finding Lieutenant Grenfell dead, put the body on his horse which then broke away. Captain Kenna and Corporal Swarbrick then came to his assistance, and enabled him to rejoin the Regiment, which had begun to open a heavy fire on the enemy.”

De Montmorency was born in Quebec in 1867, the son of a British general, and he joined the British Army at the age of 20. After Sudan, de Montmorency was assigned to South Africa where he fought in the Boer War, dying at the Battle of Stormberg in 1900.

The classic 1939 movie “The Four Feathers” recreates the Battle of Omdurman with a cast of tens of thousands. It’s quite impressive. Do not, on any account, watch the putrid remake of 2003.

1217 Death of Kaupo the Accursed

One of the joys of being a medieval historian is understanding the nicknames of famous leaders of the day. A single battle in 1066, for example, transformed William “the Bastard” into William “the Conqueror” while a lifetime of feckless behaviour earned Ethelred the label of “the Unready”. Wonderful stories lie behind the origins of sobriquets like “Bushy-Brow”, “the Impotent”, “the Boneless”, “Hare-Foot”, “the Twister”, and “Blood-Axe”. But what about Kaupo of Livonia who ended up being known as “the Accursed”?

The last parts of Europe to be Christianized lay at the eastern end of the Baltic, between the Orthodox lands of Russia and Catholic Germany and Poland, inhabited by tribes of Finns, Livonians, Latvians, etc. Attempts to peacefully evangelize them were met with resistance, prompting a series of Northern Crusades by military orders such as the Teutonic Knights or Knights of the Sword who combined missionary work with brutal conquest.

As these German-speaking orders pressed eastward, one of the first Livonians to accept baptism was Kaupo of Turaida, a local chieftain who so impressed the Bishop of Riga that he took him to Rome where he was presented to the pope. On his return to his native land, however, Kaupo was rejected for his new religion and alliances with foreigners. He had to reconquer his own castle and died fighting along side crusaders against pagan Estonians; for his divided loyalties he was labelled a traitor and “the Accursed”. It was not until the early 1300s that the territory was nominally Christianized.

I pause here to draw your attention to two Canadians of whom you have never heard. They were not particularly great, and they are not men of the 20^thcentury, so they will not pop up on my list – but their appearances in history are remarkable.

If one were to ask what were the most interesting battles of the 19^thcentury, the answer would certainly include Waterloo in 1815, where Wellington defeated Napoleon, or Sedan in 1870 where the Prussians smashed the French under Napoleon III. Both battles ended French empires. But for sheer excitement, you can’t beat the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava during the Crimean War in 1854 or the Battle of Omdurman, where the jihadists of Sudan faced the British in 1898. Today, I’ll tell you about Balaclava.

For the first time in over 600 years, the British and French armies were allies, not enemies. Their governments decided to prop up the shaky Ottoman Empire of the Turks and protect it from Russian ambitions to drive Turkey out of Europe, retake Constantinople and have an outlet to the Mediterranean. (The world would have been a better place if they had been allowed to do so, but that’s a topic for a rant on another day.) This explains what badly-equipped and atrociously-led French and British armies were doing on the Crimean peninsula, besieging Sevastopol in 1854.

On October 25, a misunderstood communication between the commander, Lord Raglan, and his light cavalry forces resulted in disaster and glory. Raglan meant to send his troops to recapture some British artillery that had been hauled away by the Russians but his messenger, Captain Nolan screwed up, and pointed the cavalry, led by the Earl of Cardigan, toward a heavily defended valley lined with Russian artillery. The exchange went like this:

“Attack, sir!”

“Attack what? What guns, sir?”

“There, my Lord, is your enemy!” said Nolan indignantly, vaguely waving his arm eastwards. “There are your guns!

And so, Cardigan, knowing full well that this was madness, ordered his 670 horsemen up the valley to attack 20 battalions of dug-in infantry and 50 artillery pieces. This charge was suicidal but it was carried out successfully. The men and horses were shredded by Russian guns for over a mile before they reached the end of the valley where they destroyed some Russian positions and rode back out, under heavy fire again from three sides.

The cost was 118 men killed, 127 wounded, and about 60 taken prisoner, with 335 horses destroyed. The various generals all blamed each other and Captain Nolan, but Alfred Tennyson immortalized the engagement in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

So why am I telling you all this? Because, to my astonishment, I learned that a Canadian had taken part in the charge and, better yet, had been awarded a Victoria Cross. More about him, Alexander Roberts Dunn and his mysterious grave, tomorrow.