Christmas Every Day

1260

Mongols smacked down

One of the most consequential battles in world history that most people are unaware of took place on this day in present-day Israel, north of Jerusalem at a place known as Ain Jalut or Goliath’s Spring.  It was there that an army of the all-conquering Mongols was met by a force of Mamelukes from Egypt.

For three generations vast Mongol armies had erupted on to the civilized world, smashing those who resisted them, and setting up an empire that stretched from Poland to the South China Sea. In the late 1250s it was the turn of the Muslim kingdoms of the Middle East. In 1258 the Mongols sacked Baghdad so brutally that its loss is still blamed for the centuries-long decline of the Islamic world. It was then the turn of the Mamelukes of Egypt. To their ruler Qutuz, the Mongol Khan Hulagu sent the following chilling message:

From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain us, nor armies stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal the weakness of your God and then will kill your children and your old men together. 

Qutuz replied by killing the Mongol emissaries and displaying their heads on the walls of Cairo; he then led his army into Palestine. There his numerically-superior forces met a Mongol division strengthened by the knights of local Christian territories who had been intimidated into aiding the invaders. Using the old fake-retreat-hidden-ambush trick the Mamelukes pounced on the too-confident Mongols and killed all those who did not retreat. This battle marked the end of this wave of Muslim expansion westward, leading many historians to wonder what would have happened if the outcome had been reversed. One of these has speculated thus:

Had the Mongols succeeded in conquering Egypt, they might have been able to carry on across North Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar. Europe would have been surrounded from Poland to Spain. Under such circumstances, would the European Renaissance have occurred? Its foundations would certainly have been far weaker. The world today might have been a considerably different place. As it was, the Mamluks not only stopped the Mongols’ westward advance, but—just as important— they also smashed the myth of Mongol invincibility. The Mongols’ belief in themselves was never quite the same, and ‘Ain Jalut marked the end of any concerted campaign by the Mongols in the Levant. In saving Cairo from the fate of Baghdad, the battle of ‘Ain Jalut also sealed the doom of the relatively weaker remaining Crusader states. Mamluk Egypt rose to the pinnacle of Islamic political, military and cultural power, a position it maintained until the rise of the Ottomans some 200 years later.

Things did not go well after the battle for either of the two leaders. Qutuz was assassinated on his way home by one of his generals and Hulagu faced rebellions from other Mongol princes.

1966

Death of the Jihadi Intellectual

Sayyid Qutb (1906-66) was an Egyptian-born author and Islamic theorist, enormously influential in establishing the intellectual foundations of Muslim notions of the modern state and justification for violence.

Quite was born to prosperous parents in an Egypt that was theoretically a kingdom but was, in fact, a British protectorate. He received a good Western-designed education, became a teacher, and then a civil servant, with a growing reputation as a poet and literary critic. Though a devout Muslim, he came to despise the backward imams of Egypt; and despite the fact he had studied in the United States, he developed an intense hatred of the West — it was soul-less, sexually-obsessed, secular, and mechanistic.

After his return from his studies in the USA, Qutb became involved with the Islamic Brotherhood, a powerful Muslim organization that sought increased influence for their brand of religion in all aspects of Egyptian life. The Brotherhood and Qutb opposed the corrupt Egyptian monarchy and dabbled with a group of army officers who were plotting to overthrow the government. When the colonels of the Free Officers Movement, who would come to be dominated by Gamel Abdel Nasser, had driven out King Farouk they revealed themselves to be Arab nationalists and secularists, rather than the Islamic liberators that the Brotherhood had hoped for.  There was a falling out and the Brotherhood tried to assassinate Nasser, which lead to a crackdown on Islamists and Qtub being jailed.

In prison Qutb wrote his two masterpieces, a 30-volume In the Shade of the Qu’ran and Milestones, a work of political theory. Qutb wanted all human life subject to the Koran and sharia law but also respected the contributions of modern science; in order to achieve this end, offensive jihad was obligatory on all Muslims. Though Qutb ws executed in 1966 for another anti-Nasser plot, his works lives on, directly inspiring Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

1968

Riots in Chicago

1968 was a horrible year, the “Year of the Pig” as many called it. The fighting in Vietnam accelerated with the Communist Tet Offensive and its massacres of civilians, followed by the discovery of atrocities committed by American troops at My Lai.  Civil riots and violent disturbances roiled American campuses while massive antiwar protests convinced President Lyndon Johnson not to stand for reelection. A white supremacist had murdered Martin Luther King, setting off riots in 100 American cities, and a Palestinian activist had murdered New York Senator Robert Kennedy who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. In Paris, the workers and students were in revolt forcing French President de Gaulle to panic and flee the country. Similar outbursts of street disorders were experienced in Berlin and London. Russian tanks crushed the nascent liberalization movement of the Prague Spring.

Meanwhile in Chicago delegates were gathering for the Democratic National Convention bringing a host of controversial issues with them. There were rival delegations from various states each claiming to be the true representatives of the party; race was a chief issue here. The role of backstage manipulation of the agenda and voting by Chicago mayor Richard Daley and party insiders was a hot topic. Where would the antiwar delegates pledged to the dead Robert Kennedy go — to his antiwar rivals Ted Kennedy, George McGovern or Gene McCarthy or would they back the establishment nominee Hubert Humphrey?

While the media was chewing these issues over, the larger antiwar and counterculture movements were planning on hijacking the convention for their own ends. The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) planned large rallies and marches; the Women’s Strike for Peace announced picketing plans. Various civil rights groups were coming to draw attention to racial demands. More ominous were the threats issued by the Yippies of the Youth International Party, a loosely-knit group of anarchists, libertarians and attention-seekers who had won media time with their  warnings  that nails would be thrown from overpasses to block roads; cars would be used to block intersections, main streets, police stations and National Guard armories; LSD would be dumped in the city’s water supply and the convention would be stormed; a pig named Pigasus would be nominated for President.  Students for a Democratic Society, a Marxist group, that would later spawn a terrorist wing were out in force and prepared for street fighting. All this put the police on edge and ready for violence.

Though most of the protestors gathering in Chicago were intent on peaceful demonstrations, a significant minority was looking for trouble. The SDS, the Yippies, and local black activists provoked the police with disobedience, obscene chants, and throwing bottles and bags of feces. The police replied with excessive force involving baton charges and tear gas. The big mistake by the Chicago Police Force was roughing up several delegates to the convention and a number of media figures. All of this was televised live, giving Chicago and the Democratic party a back eye and leading to the election of Richard Nixon in November.

1940

The Hardest Day

By the summer of 1940 Hitler and his allies controlled all of western and central Europe. Britain stood alone against complete Nazi victory, but its army had retreated from France leaving all its weaponry and transport behind; the only fully-equipped force was a single Canadian division. Should German troops land in Britain, there was little to stop them occupying the whole of the island. Operation Sea-Lion was the German plan to cross the English Channel but first it had to clear the waters of the Royal Navy and the skies of the Royal Air Force.

The Luftwaffe outnumbered the RAF and its veteran fliers had gained experience and confidence in crushing the airforces of Poland France. The German General Staff believed that by attacking English air bases they could force the RAF into battle and destroy its supply of fighter and pilots. Without air cover the British would either be forced to negotiate or stand open to invasion. The attacks began in June, with Hitler demanding a resolution of the situation by mid-August. The Heinkels, Dorniers, Stukas, and Messerschmitts were met by Hurricanes, Spitfires and Defiants over southern England and the Channel.

August 18 is known as the Hardest Day because on this date because the Germans concentrated their attack on a few important bases and the resulting air battles claimed more aircraft and lives than any other single day. Both sides at the time underestimated their losses and exaggerated the damage inflicted on their enemy but it appears that the RAF lost 34 fighter craft and 21 pilots killed or seriously wounded. The Luftwaffe lost 70 planes with 90 crewmen killed and 40 captured. The result was a stategic draw. One historian’s verdict was:

The laurels for the day’s action went to the defenders. The aim of the Luftwaffe was to wear down the Fighter Command without suffering excessive losses in the process, and in this it had failed. It cost the attackers five aircrew killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, for each British pilot casualty. In terms of aircraft, it had cost the Luftwaffe five bombers and fighters for every three Spitfires and Hurricanes destroyed in the air or on the ground. If the battle continued at this rate the Luftwaffe would wreck Fighter Command, but it would come close to wrecking itself in the process

A date of considerable turmoil

1812

The Fall of Fort Detroit

Sir, The force at my disposal authorizes me to require of you the immediate surrender of Fort Detroit. It is far from my inclination to join in a war of extermination, but you must be aware that the numerous body of Indians, who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences.

So said British General Sir Isaac Brock to the American commander, Governor William Hull. Hull, equally politely, refused to surrender:

Sir, I have received your letter of this date. I have no other reply to make, than to inform you that I am prepared to meet any force which may be at your disposal, and any consequences, which may result from any exertion of it you may think proper to make.

In the end, however, Hull yielded without firing a shot.

 

1819

The Peterloo Massacre

An open-air Manchester gathering to demand political and economic reform in England is attacked by cavalry of the local authorities. 15 were killed and hundreds wounded; it became a symbol of the difficulties in the struggle for fuller democracy.

1929

Palestine Massacres

Arab resentment over increasing Jewish immigration sparked tension on the Temple Mount where Muslims and Jews worship. These eventually escalated into rioting and then into full-scale atrocities in which 133 Jews were killed along with 110 Arabs.

1821

London riots over the body of Caroline of Brunswick

Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick-Wolfenbütte (1768-1821) was a German princess who married George, Prince of Wales in 1795 and became Queen of England when her husband ascended the throne of England as George IV. George, ruling his country as Prince Regent during the madness of his father George III, was not a popular figure. He was perpetually in debt, had secretly (and illegally) married a Catholic woman, and was despised by the populace for his incompetence and arrogance. Consequently, when George openly shunned his wife for being fat and vulgar, she became a favourite of the lower classes of London. After the birth in 1796 of their daughter Charlotte, George had little to do with his wife and restricted her access to their child. In 1806 he appointed a commission to investigate rumours that she had taken a lover and produced an illegitimate offspring; she was found to be innocent and her popularity grew. Since she could not obtain a divorce from the Prince, she moved to Italy, where more rumours originated claiming that she was having an affair with one of her servants. George tried to get Parliament to pass a bill divorcing her for adultery but public sentiment forced the bill to be dropped. She returned to England after the death of her child but was still persona non grata at court. When George III died, she was forbidden to attend her husband’s coronation. She died soon after and the removal of her body to her homeland where she wished to be buried prompted the following disturbances, recounted by a contemporary observer.

Tuesday, the 14^th August 1821, presented a singular scene of commotion in London. That day had been fixed by the authorities for the removal of the remains of Queen Caroline from Brandenburgh House, where she had expired a week previously, to Harwich, for the purpose of embarking them there for the continent, in terms of the instructions contained in her own will, which directed that her body should be deposited among those of her ancestors at Brunswick. A military guard had been provided by government for the funeral cortege; but, with the view of avoiding as much as possible, in the circumstances, any popular demonstrations, it was resolved that the procession should not pass through the city, a determination which gave the greatest offence both to the queen’s executors and a large portion of the community at large. According to the prescribed route, the procession was to go from Hammersmith, through Kensington, into the Uxbridge Road, then down the Edgeware Road, into the New Road; along the City Road, Old Street, and Mile-end to Romford; and thence through Chelmsford and Colchester to Harwich.

On the appointed day, an immense crowd congregated about Hammersmith, though the rain was falling in torrents. On the funeral reaching the gravel-pits at Kensington, and proceeding to turn off to the left, the way was blocked up with carts and wagons, to prevent further advance towards the Uxbridge Road, and the procession, after halting for an hour and a half, was compelled to move on towards London. Arriving at Kensington Gate, an attempt was made by the head of the police force, Sir R. Baker, with a detachment of Life Guards, to force open the park-gates, but in vain, the crowd, which had already given way to many hostile demonstrations, shouting loudly all the while: ‘To the City—to the City!’ Hyde Park Corner being reached, the gate there was found barricaded, and the procession moved up Park Lane, but was shortly met by similar obstructions. It then returned to the Corner, where the soldiers had, in the meantime, succeeded in clearing an entrance, and made its way through Hyde Park. On reaching Cumberland Gate, this was found closed, and a furious conflict ensued with the mob, who hurled at the troops the stones of the park-wall, which had been thrown down by the pressure of the crowd.

Many of the soldiers were severely hurt, and their comrades were provoked to use their firearms, by which two persons were killed and several wounded. After some further clearing away of obstructions, the procession moved down the Edgeware and along the New Roads till it reached the Tottenham Court Road, where the mob made so determined a stand against it proceeding further in the prescribed direction, that Sir R. Baker deemed it most advisable to turn the cortege down the Tottenham Court Road, and thence by Drury Lane through the Strand and the City. So resolute was the popular determination to compel the procession to traverse the city, that every street, including Holborn, through which a detour could have been made to reach the New Road or the City Road, was carefully blocked up and rendered impassable.

Having emerged from the City, the funeral train proceeded quietly on its way to Chelmsford, where it arrived at two o’clock on the following morning. From Chelmsford it proceeded to Colchester, and thence to Harwich, where it embarked for the continent on the evening of the 16th. The remains reached Brunswick on the 24th, and were deposited the following day in the cathedral, in the vault of the ducal family. An inscription had been directed by the deceased to be placed on her coffin in the following terms ‘Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England,’ but the British authorities refused to allow this to be done. While the coffin, however, was lying at Chelmsford, on its way to the coast, the queen’s executors affixed to it an engraved plate with the obnoxious title, but it was discovered, and removed by the authorities in charge, notwithstanding a vehement protest from the other party. Thus closed the tomb on this unfortunate queen, whom, even after death, the storms which had visited her so fiercely while in life, did not cease to pursue.

1974

Richard Nixon resigns

It’s never the crime, it’s the cover-up. That’s the lesson imparted by the saga of Richard Nixon and the Watergate Hotel break-in, a tangled tale that led to the only resignation of an American President.

Nixon had a long career of public service. After serving in the Navy during World War II, he was elected as a congressman from California in 1946 and gained a reputation as a fervent anti-Communist. His part in the unmasking of former State department advisor Alger Hiss as a Communist agent won him national fame, vaulting him to a Senate victory, and then prompting Dwight Eisenhower to chose him as his vice-presidential running mate in the 1952 election. In 1960 he failed to beat John Kennedy in the presidential election and failed as well in 1962 an attempt to be California governor, afterwards telling reporters they wouldn’t have “Nixon to kick around anymore”. Nixon was able to take advantage of the disenchantment of voters with the Vietnam war and the Democrats, beating Hubert Humphrey in a 1968 presidential campaign. He was re-elected in 1972 but that’s when the wheels began to fall off the wagon.

The 1972 election was marked by a number of disgraceful political tricks and malpractice. Among these was an attempted break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington’s Watergate Hotel. The perpetrators were easily detected and reporters were able to link them to certain figures in the White House and Nixon’s re-election campaign. The question then was: did the President know about this shabby scheme? Nixon denied it, but to everyone’s astonishment it was revealed that conversations in the presidential mansion were routinely tape-recorded. As the nation watched, Nixon’s legal team fought against disclosing the tapes; Nixon sacked the Watergate Special Counsel. At last the Supreme Court ruled that the tapes had to be disclosed and a smoking gun was revealed — Nixon had known about the cover-up and deceived the nation. Rather than face impeachment, he resigned and returned to private life.

Historians are still uncertain about how to weigh Nixon’s legacy. He was certainly a productive president: he brought forth environmental protections, opened up to Red China, negotiated missile reduction with the USSR, pulled troops out of Vietnam and ended military conscription, but his secretive, driven personality and his perceived deviousness won him no friends.

1560

Birth of the Blood Countess

Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (1560-1614) has the infamous reputation of being the world’s most prolific female serial killer. Legend has placed the number of her victims in the hundreds.

Elizabeth was a noblewoman of the Holy Roman Empire, owning lands in what is now Hungary and Romania, dangerous border territory at a time when the Empire was at war with the Ottoman Turks. It was said that while in her early teens she took a low-class lover and had a child by him; the poor fellow was castrated and fed to the dogs. She married another aristocrat a few years later and produced four children. She was known to be well-educated, beautiful, multilingual and a competent administrator of estates while her husband was absent in the wars; she was also known to have been less than scrupulous as a monogamist and entertained lovers while her husband was away.

Around the year 1600 rumours began to spread about the horrible fate of young girls who had been lured to her castle on the pretext of employment and who were never seen alive again. She was denounced by a Lutheran minister and the imperial government reluctantly agreed in 1610 to investigate the scandal. At her trial, 300 witnesses were heard; they accused her and her servant accomplices of torture, murder, and drinking the blood of virgins. The servants were executed and the countess was locked in a windowless room until her death.

Modern pop culture has made much of her. Her castle is a tourist attraction; locals make wine with her picture on the label; movies and books have played up the lurid sado-sexual aspects of her life (see below). Some historians believe she was the victim of a conspiracy and doubt her guilt. Where’s the fun in that?

1892

The Borden Murders

“Lizzie Borden took an axe/ And gave her mother 40 whacks./ When she saw what she had done,/ She gave her father forty-one.” On the morning of August 4, 1892 business man Andrew Borden of Falls River, Massachusetts and his second wife Abby were murdered by multiple blows of a hatchet. Popular opinion always held that the murder weapon was wielded by Lizzie, Borden’s 22-year old spinster daughter, who discovered the body of her father.

Lizzie’s explanation of where she had been and what she was doing that morning were confused and contradictory, and her attitude aroused the suspicions of the police. She was seen destroying a dress that she claimed had been stained by paint; her answers and demeanour at the inquest led to her being charged with murder in December of that year. The trial during the following summer attracted national interest, especially after Lizzie was acquitted by the jury after a mere 90 minutes of deliberation. No one else was ever tried for the crime.

For the rest of their lives Lizzie and her sister Emma were the subjects of lurid fascination. Shunned by the good citizens of Fall River, they nonetheless remained in the town, living together for years and never marrying. In 1905 the sisters quarrelled and never reconciled. They both died in 1927 and were buried side by side.

Numerous movies, plays, and stories have been written about the murders, many suggesting possible solutions to the mystery. The best of them is a 1976 tv movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth McGovern, and a wonderful short story by Avram Davidson entitled “The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon”.

1794

The revolution eats its own children

It is an immutable law that revolutions are never carried out by a single group, but by a collection of various factions, each with a different goal other than simply overthrowing the existing order. It is also inevitable that revolutions become increasingly more radical, and, as they do so, they consume not just defenders of the old regime but also many of those who took a rebellious part in earlier stages of the struggle. Moderates find themselves targeted as enemies of the revolution and are repressed or killed. This radicalization will continue until eventually it becomes too oppressive and is brought to an end, exterminating the extremists, and taking a step backward.

So it was with the French Revolution. It began in the spring of 1789 with an alliance of middle-class reformers, working-class mobs, intellectuals, lawyers, and progressive clergy and nobles. Before the end of the year it had ended feudalism and aristocratic privilege, achieved a constitutional monarchy, and tamed the Catholic Church. This was not enough for many revolutionaries, however. By 1792 it had abolished the monarchy and created a republic; it had executed the royal family; it had turned anti-religious and explicitly anti-Christian; thousands of refugees had fled to Britain and neighbouring countries on the Continent. By 1793, France was at war with European monarchies as its leaders turned to Terror as an instrument of state policy.

In the words of Maximilien Robespierre, a leading Jacobin radical:

If virtue be the spring of a popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country … The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.

Victims of the Terror included prisoners in jails torn to pieces by mobs, boatloads of captives fired on by cannons, but mostly those who went in a stream to the execution machine set up the squares of most French cities. Nuns, priests, bourgeois, and former revolutionaries were beheaded by the guillotine after the flimsiest of trials. In 1794 a new law brought in by Robespierre and Antoine St-Just required the arrest of anyone on whom the slightest suspicion fell: “For a citizen to become suspect it is sufficient that rumour accuses him”. The new regulations denied the accused the right to counsel or any witnesses on their behalf; the only verdicts were acquittal or death. This new law also removed the immunity of Convention members from summary arrest, thus causing many politicians to feel threatened by the new system and by Robespierre and St-Just in particular. On July 27 (9 Thermidor on the new calendar) the Convention ordered the arrest of Robespierre and his clique. He attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head with a pistol, but only succeeded in blowing off his jaw, causing him extreme pain. The next day, Robespierre, St-Just and 15 other radicals were guillotined without trial. With this so-called “Thermidorean Reaction” the Revolution became more conservative and less frightening.