The Crimean War (1853 - 1856)

The Crimean War took place between October of 1853 and lasted until February of 1856. The conflict only lasted a few years. However, this does not exclude the severity of the war and the devastation it caused for many. Most of the war happened on the Crimean Peninsula, and was between the Russians, the Ottoman Empire (Turkish), the French, and the British. “The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the privileges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the holy places in Palestine” (Ray 2022). While both sides were motivated to win the war to neutralize the Baltic Sea, war efforts were managed poorly from all sides. Diseases were one of the biggest causes of death during the three years and resulted in approximately 250,000 casualties per side. Nurses like Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale are well-known for their efforts in helping during this war. The war did many things and affected people across the world in varying ways. However, some businesses like The Illustrated London News benefited from such coverage. Through glorifying British success in the war and from the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the newspaper company was able to double their reader’s coverage and boosted their popularity. They fed the people what they wanted to here and contributed to spreading the concept of toxic patriotism. In a publication made in London on July 12, 1856, we see the newspaper highlighting the returning home of the soldiers from the Crimean War, and affectively honoring the conquest of the war. The name of the publication is Return of Troops From The Crimea. On the front page of the newspaper, we see “The Return Of The Guards. The remnant of as gallant and as glorious an army as ever drew sword or discharged rifle in the cause of England has returned home­ – laden with glory” (London News 25). This is significant to the event of January 6, 2021, the storming of the United States Capital Building, because it shows the glorification of war and the overuse of pride towards one’s own nation. Through the extensive prideful propaganda that was spread by The Illustrated London News throughout the entire Crimean War and to the end with this specific newspaper page that I have linked here, we see how desire for war, conflict, and further conquering of other places was spread and emphasized. This is toxic for others and caused war and death and gives people the mindset and motivation to do events like January 6, 2021. We see this pridefulness in the soldiers during the war from a firsthand accounting in letters from Fanny Duberly, who was in Crimea with her husband Henry Duberly in 1854. In the quote, “In contrast to her stinging criticisms of British leadership, Fanny’s accounts of the courage of British regulars amidst enormous physical suffering were heartfelt and moving” (Kelly 3), we see how soldiers continued onward, no matter what, in any condition to conquer the world and serve in war for Great Britain.

Related Links:

Russian Empire First Acquires Ukraine. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/russian-empire-first-ac...

The Crimean War. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/crimean-war-6

The Charge of the Light Brigade. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/charge-light-brigade-1

2014 Russian Invasion of Crimea and Ukraine. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/2014-russian-invasion-c...

The Crimean War and its Afterlife. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/crimean-war-and-its-aft...

Mary Seacole During the Crimean War. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/historical-event-mary-s...

Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/literary-event-wonderfu...

Primary Source:

The Illustrated London News, 1856 (vol 29). https://books.google.com/books?id=uJc0AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Secondary Sources:

Ray, Michael. The Crimean War. Britannica, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/event/Crimean-War  

Kelly, Christine. Mrs. Duberly's War. H-Albion, 2022. https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=15550

The East Indian Rebellion of 1857

1857- The East Indian Rebellion was an uprising from Indian soldiers against the British rule that was taking place at the time. Long before the Gandhi movement, this revolution was extremely bloody in terms of engagement. Before going into the actual actions that occurred during this bloody period, we must first look at the beginning actions that lead to this moment in Indian history. British laws were becoming more taxing towards Indian citizens both economically and societally. What was more frustrating is that the British parliament weren’t the ones originally in control, but The East India Company instead.

The company slowly gained control over all of India from the originally Indian princes that had a majority of land under their rule. As they gained more power, the company began to employ private armies to help ‘safeguard’ the lands they acquired by force and money. These armies were made up of mostly Hindu and Muslim combatants, along with a few select British forces as well. The native soldiers, called sepoys, were better than British soldiers in every physical aspect, ranging from height to muscular build. Of course this wasn’t enough for the British soldiers, referring to the sepoys as their racial inferiors. 

What was the turning point in these private armies began with a new rifle manufacturer that used beef and pork products to create the paper cartridge for the ammunition. Hindus do not believe in eating beef as it goes against their religion, as Muslims do not believe in eating pork for religious purposes as well. The British company, at first, tried to deny the usage of beef and pork products for the new cartridge. The reason this upset the Hindu and Muslim soldiers due to the fact that the cartridges, in the time period, were supposed to be bitten off to use in the rifles. This would mean an unwilling consumption of meat that is forbidden in both religions. 

The sepoy were outraged at this attempted mockery towards their belief systems, since the racist belief that the British had about Muslims and Hindus were very known. The news spread across all the military forces in India, since this only affected the sepoy forces. As such, many attempted a mutiny against British rule. In turn, many of the punishments against sepoy forces were deemed too cruel and unjustified to continue without a proper response. Thus, the sepoy began to lead the revolution that disbanded the East Indian Company.

The conflict was met with extreme violence from both parties. Many people were killed in the ensuing bloodshed, with women and children also being a part of the casualties. While sepoys and bands of Indian citizens targeted anything British (people, land, buildings, etc.) in their violence, the British retaliated with their own mindless violence against random people. With tension growing rapidly, more violence besieged in most areas of India as the East Indian Company fought for control still. This effort was futile in the autumn of 1858, when the company was forced to disband all control of India to the British parliament. Even with this win, Great Britain still had an iron fist over the citizens of India until Gandhi began his non-violence teachings.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Gavrilo Princip shooting the Archduke and his wife.

On the twenty-eighth of June, 1914, a young man toppled the fragile structure of world order with two bullets—one for Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, the other for the Archduke’s wife, Sophie. 

The royal couple were invited to the Bosnian capital of Saravejo, which was annexed by the Austrian empire in 1908, by General Oskar Potoirek to attend a speech in the city hall and inspect imperial military personnel. The shooting occurred just hours after a botched bombing attempt, about which the Archduke is recorded to have said to the military governor, “What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit, and I get bombs thrown in my face. It is outrageous” (The Times). After the failed bombing, the speech and the inspection of Sarajevo’s military parade, riding in the back of a roofless motor-car—as was common for the time—through the streets of Sarajevo among a crowd of thousands gathered to see the royal couple, they were shot dead (The Times). 

After the two shots were fired, the young gunman swallowed a cyanide pill but somehow survived (Jay 19). He was promptly pointed out by the crowd and arrested by Bosnian officials. That young gunman was nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip, misidentified by The Times in London as Nadjeliko Cabrinovitch just a day after it happened. Gavrilo Princip was one of three men involved in the assassination plot directly, and a member of the Black Hand, a group of Serbian nationalist extremists (Jay 19). He was too young to be executed by Austria-Hungarian law, so he was instead sentenced to life in prison in Theresienstadt, where he wasted away in solitary confinement (Jay 19). The Black Hand’s actions, carried out by Gavrilo Princip’s hand, is often considered to be the straw that broke the camels back with regards to stoking the flame of the first world war (Schmitt 70). 

This event is important to highlight when exploring historical examples of “toxic patriotism”, as Gavrilo Princip’s nationalistic mindset is ultimately what led to his involvement with the Black Hand and eventually to his shooting of the Archduke. Moreover, although Princip ultimately died for his actions, he was hailed as a martyr by many who viewed the annexation of Sarajevo and Bosnia as a bad thing, thus further stoking a ravenous nationalistic mindest which spiraled into WW1 (Jay 20). Similarly, this sentiment was mirrored in the attitudes of many of the nations which then involved themselves in the war—this idea of the romanticisation or the idealization of one’s homeland. To Princip, his homeland was under siege by a foreign power, infected and otherwise beautiful, and that is a state of mind which mirrors many contemporary examples of toxic patriotism—namely the January 6th insurrection at the United States capitol building.

In both this event and the insurrection of the U.S. capital building, the party responsible for the violence believed they were engaging in a fight to rid their homeland from an occupying force which tainted its natural goodness.  

Primary Source:

 "Austrian Heir and his Wife Murdered." The Times, 29 June 1914, p. 8. Gale Primary Sources, https://go-gale-com.

Other Works Cited:

 Jay, Martin. "The Manacles of Gavrilo Princip." Salmagundi, no. 106/107, 1995, pp. 14-21. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40548800. 

Schmitt, Bernadotte E. "The Origins of the War of 1914." The Journal of Modern History, vol. 24, no. 1, March 1952. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1871982. 

Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen

This image depicts gas masks from various periods during WWI. The third from right is an early British PH mask.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria more. (Owen, 1917).

The poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen was written as a response to pro-war poems during World War I. Owen is largely equated to Britain’s greatest war poet. His overall goal with his work was to tell the truth about war and the sadness that entails it (The British Library). Owen was killed in action at the age of 25, one week before the Armistice. Only five poems were published in his lifetime—three in the Nation and two that appeared anonymously in the Hydra, a journal he edited in 1917 when he was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. Shortly after his death, seven more of his poems appeared in the 1919 volume of Edith Sitwell's annual anthology, Wheels: a volume dedicated to his memory, and in 1919 and 1920 seven other poems appeared in periodicals (Poetry Foundation).

Owen makes readers aware of the atrocities that wars are responsible for. The words "Dulce et Decorum Est" are the words "it is sweet and fitting" in Latin. It is followed by "pro patria mori", which means "to die for one's country." Owen makes readers aware that this Latin saying is a lie. His work can be compared to the journal of the Irish soldier, George Blennie, who documents his time during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 as barbaric. Blennie went on to write about the Irish soldiers who had their foreskins forcibly removed. Owen refers to similar horrendous experiences such as incurable sores on tongues, blood gargling from one’s lungs, and men choking and drowning in gas. Gas was a popular weapon used in war from 1914 onwards. The gas injured the soldiers horrendously and left some with permanent disabilities. Some records declare that soldiers could suffer the injuries for up to four months before dying (The British Library).

Throughout the poem, Owen is expressing his concern with toxic patriotism. He is warning readers that those who go to war in order to “fight for their country” are not ready for the horrible disasters they will witness. The idea of risking people's lives for the country in which one resides is a consequence of the toxic patriot mindset. This mindset has been modeled throughout history, leading up to the U.S. Capitol riot conducted by Trump supporters. During Trump's speech before the Capitol riot, Trump encouraged his supporters to incite violence. During the speech he stated, "And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," towards the end of the speech Trump stated, "The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country" (B. Naylor, 2021). Trump's speech is similar to the political propaganda distributed during World War I. Pictured below is an original World War I poster depicting an Uncle Sam figure that states, "I am telling you on June 28th I expect you to enlist in the army of war savers to back up my army of fighters" (J. M. Flagg, 1918). These political figures encouraging citizens to "fight for their country" fuels the toxic patriot mindset that has lead to the death of billions throughout history. 

Works Cited:

Dulce et decorum est - synopsis and commentary. (n.d.). Crossref-It.Info. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://crossref-it.info/textguide/wilfred-owen-selected-poems/

I am telling you on June 28th I expect you to enlist in the army of war savers to back up my army of fighters. (n.d.). [Posters]. https://jstor.org/stable/community.28272648

Naylor, B. (2021, February 10). Read Trump’s Jan. 6 speech, a key part of impeachment trial. NPR. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial

Poetry Foundation. (1921). Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

Wilfred Owen. (n.d.). The British Library. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://www.bl.uk/people/wilfred-owen

The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear detonation took place during the last year of World War Two. The names of the two bombs used are “Little Boy” (used on Hiroshima) and “Fat Man (used on Nagasaki). Many believe this to be a controversial moment in the history of the United States of America and the Allied forces near the end of the world war. The two common thoughts are that the bombings were necessary to quickly stop the fighting and further death on both sides and that the bombings were unnecessary and Japan would have surrendered anyways. The two bombs had a combined death toll of at least 200,000 civilian casualties and resulted in many slow and agonizing deaths for many years to come after the events. Considering that Japan was mostly defeated, and that the death toll was so high for civilian casualties through bombing, the idea that the bombs were used to limit the deaths of the war seems like a stretch and sounds like the United States trying to justify a horrible act and terrible order. It furthers this idea that we would rather kill thousands and thousands of other civilians than lose one more American or Ally. We put our lives over the lives of hundreds of thousands of other innocent civilians who did not participate in the war. While this is the case, many were celebrating this display of power and destruction and glorifying it. Take for example this newspaper story posting from The San Francisco Chronicle, titled “Japan Hit By Atom Bomb---Mightiest Weapon in History! Tokyo Admits Heavy Damage” (San Francisco Chronicle 1945). This title shows how we are proud about the nuclear attacks and idolizing their power. While we can conclude how these bombings murdered hundreds of thousands of people, news outlets were ignoring this and feeding the public with headlines like these that celebrate these killings and attacks. This further fires up people to the point that we start to believe we are better than all those other nations and people, who are simply just people living on earth like Americans. This mindset and narrative that these headlines put out contributes to toxic patriotism and is similar to how propaganda and news outlets were used to spread misinformation that led to the January 6, storming of the United States Capital Building riots. According to Gar Alperovitz and Martin Sherwin in an article that discusses how the nuclear attacks were unnecessary, “However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.” We can see how there was evidence that Japan was going to surrender regardless of the attacks or not. Yet, without looking further into it, the United States and the Allies decided to kill hundreds of thousands of people. We can further see the terrible fallout of the attacks in Hayo Kromback’s The Meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the quote “Many of us today who also survived face a harder task: that of imagining and internalizing an all-incinerating blast. It is difficult to manage such a mental leap” (Kromback 4). In this quote, we see how the terrors of the bombings went past the enormous death toll but have affected people mentally for years after the event. We see how toxic patriotism led to the horrible aftermaths of the nuclear bombings during World War Two. The mindsets that led to this happening are not much different than the minds that those who stormed the capital. Similar to how we see the Allied Forces justifying the horrible action of annihilating two major Japanese cities full of innocent people, we see how then President Trump causes his supporters to storm the Capitol Building, take it by force, and threatened the lives of many innocent people (law makers, police officers, civillians etc.). This 'false' justification that we see the Allied Forces make is similar in mindset to the justifications Trump made to basically order his people to take the Capitol Building, to try to overturn a lost election. 

Related Links:

WW2 Propaganda: Influence of Racism. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/ww2-propaganda-influenc...

Park Street Riot 1944. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/historical-event-1914-1...

Exodus of Working Women After WW2. https://editions.covecollective.org/chronologies/exodus-working-women-af...

Primary Source:

San Francisco Chronicle, Japan Hit By Atom Bomb---Mightiest Weapon in History! Tokyo Admits Heavy Damage. 1945. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/561120434797283790/

Secondary Sources:

Alperovitz, Gar., Sherwin, Martin. Dropping Atomic Bombs On Hiroshima And Nagasaki Was Unnecessary. Common Dreams, 2020.

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2008/S00071/dropping-atomic-bombs-on-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-was-unnecessary.htm

Krombach, Hayo. The Meaning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, 1997.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20378?searchText=bombing+of+hiroshima+and+nagasaki&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbombing%2Bof%2Bhiroshima%2Band%2Bnagasaki%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ade274febafe8399a9d1abfcf1375f4c7&seq=3

Brexit

Man holds anti-refugee English flag.

In 2017, a referendum was held in the United Kingdom which was meant to determine its status within the European Union (EU). To many’s surprise, the resulting vote was to leave the EU and to once again be considered a completely sovereign state. The UK was a member state of the EU since 1973, making this decision the most significant one made by a European country in decades (Langfitt). The UK is the first country to have sought divorce with the EU since the union's founding, following a greater trend throughout Europe of countries seeking more and more national autonomy (Langfitt). While many questions as to how Great Britain will fair in Brexit’s aftermath still stand, nationalism as a motivation for it is quite evident, as it is a pushback against the globalization of world government (Langfitt).

The referendum was formally recognized as being about the pros and cons of EU membership—pertaining to trade, travel, etc.— though polling data suggests that the primary motivation behind the desire to leave the EU is related to immigration policy (McKees and Galsworthy 3). Freedom of movement is a key part of EU membership, which allows any citizen of the EU to travel to any other member country; and also to work and live in member countries while being treated as a citizen of said countries (McKees and Galsworthy 3). This became an issue as events like the war in Syria led to an increase in migrants from the Middle East within EU countries, and this became a primary motivation for the UK’s desire to leave. 

Many people developed a sense that the “openness” of the UK’s borders to migration should not be beholden to the rest of Europe, and so the resistance to globalization became more apparent (McKees and Galsworthy 4). 

Over the course of the last decade, especially within the wake of Brexit, the nationalistic tendancy of Great Britain has been apparent. In fact, the UK has traditionally dragged its feet with regards to its involvement in EU affairs. As the world becomes more globalized and countries become more diverse, the exchanging and changing of cultural norms may come as a shock to some people within majority white countries, especially since that is typically not the experience of a white person—as white people have historically done the changing of other cultures (Scuira 3). This may result in insecurity, and that  may quickly become an aversion to change all together.

The discussion surrounding Brexit has many parallels with president Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again”, and is related to toxic patriotism in that it involves the romanticization of one’s homeland. Brexit sentiments can also scapegoat migrants as an “affliction” of sorts on their otherwise great country, which fuels the toxic mindset further. The desire to excise this affliction resulted in Brexit. In a similar way, the January 6th insurrectionists sought to excise an affliction within their otherwise great country. 

Related Links:

Muslim Discrimination Before 9/11

Ukrainian Independence

Primary Source:

Langfitt, Frank. “Brexit Day: What to Know when the U.K. Leaves The EU.” NPR, 31 Jan. 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/01/31/801289239/brexit-day-what-to-know-when-the-u-k-leaves-the-eu\

Other Works Cited:

McKee, Martin and Micheal J. Galsworthy. “Brexit: A Confused Concept Which Threatens Public Health.” Journal of Public Health, vol. 38, no. 1, March 2016. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48515744

Scuira, Leonardo. “Brexit Beyond Borders: Beginning of the EU Collapse and Return to Nationalism.” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 70, no. 2, Summer 2017. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/90012623