A Few WWI Books From the History in the Margins Archives
Just in case you missed them the first time around:
In The Lost History of 1914, NPR's Jack Beatty takes on what he describes as the "cult of inevitability" surrounding the beginning of the war.
Who Made The Map Of The Modern Middle East? tells the story of how today's Middle East was created from the remains of the Ottoman Empire during the peace negotiations are the end of the war.
Despite its title, The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History by historian Ian F.W. Beckett is not another account of the events leading up to WWI. Instead Beckett is concerned with what he describes as "pivot points": decisive moments that affected not only the course of the war but that of later history.
Shin-Kickers From History: William Wallace, aka Braveheart
Statue of Braveheart at Edinburgh Castle. (What? You were expecting Mel Gibson?)
In 1296, Edward I of England forced the Scottish king to abdicate and seized the throne of Scotland. Scottish unrest was immediate and widespread. It flared into full-scale rebellion in May 1297 when William Wallace led a raid against the town of Lanark, killing the English sheriff.* Under Wallace's leadership, the Scots weakened the English hold on Scotland and raided across the border into England.** In late 1297, Wallace and his forces defeated a much larger English force at the Battle of Stirling. Wallace was subsequently knighted and made "guardian of the kingdom", ruling Scotland in the name of its deposed king.
The victory at Stirling was a classic example of "win the battle, lose the war". Edward marched north with his army to exact retribution. Wallace retreated deeper and deeper into Scotland. Edward followed. When the two armies met at Falkirk in July, 1298, the Scots were defeated and Wallace was forced to flee the battlefield.
Wallace resigned the title of guardian but did not give up his quest for independence. Turning to diplomacy, he sought support for the Scottish cause in France--the first step in what would be a centuries-long if occasionally shaky Franco-Scottish alliance against England.*** In his absence, Robert Bruce, Wallace's successor as the guardian of the kingdom, negotiated a truce with Edward. Wallace refused to sign.
When Wallace returned to Scotland in 1303, Edward declared him an outlaw and offered a reward for his capture or death. For two years, Wallace continued to fight against English rule. He was captured near Glasgow on August 5, 1305--thanks to a tip from a fellow Scot--and taken to London where he was charged as an outlaw and a traitor. The result of his trial was a foregone conclusion. There was no jury and he was not allowed to speak in his own defense. Nonetheless, when accused of treason he denied the charge, saying he could not be a traitor because he had never sworn allegiance to the English king.
Wallace was drawn and quartered on August 23. His head was displayed on London Bridge. The quarters of his body were sent Newcastle, which he had savaged, and to Berwick, Stirling and Perth as a warning to would-be rebels.
Scotland regained its independence in 1328 with the Treaty of Edinburgh, only to lose it again with the Acts of Union in 1706-07. In the centuries after his death, William Wallace became an emblem of Scottish independence. (Contrary to popular belief, the winners don't always write the history.)
Scottish independence is an issue once again, with a referendum scheduled for September 15. Polls suggest that a majority of Scots intend to vote yes for independence. Don't touch that dial.
* The sheriff in medieval England was more than the local peace officer. As My Own True love puts it, he was a Big Wheel. The sheriff was the king's officer at the level of the shire, responsible for collecting taxes, protecting the king's hunting preserves, administering justice and, yes, keeping the peace.
**It's only fair to point out that Wallace was a pretty brutal hero. He's reported to have made a sword belt from the tanned skin of a fallen Englishman.
***Think Mary Queen of Scots. Think who supported the Stuart pretenders.
Photograph by Kjetil Bjørnsrud. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
Shin-Kickers From History: The Trung Sisters of Vietnam
In 39 CE, two young women led Vietnam in its first rebellion against the Chinese empire, which had then ruled the country for 150 years.
Trung Trac and Trung Nhi were born in a small town in north Vietnam around 14 CE, the daughters of a Vietnamese lord who served as a prefect under the Chinese. According to legend, the sisters were trained in the arts of war by their mother.*
In 36 CE, a new, more oppressive, governor, To Dinh (aka Su Ting) took over the province. He demanded bribes and raised taxes on salt** . He taxed peasants for fishing in the rivers. In short, he was just the type of greedy and inept official who triggers rebellions in classic Chinese historiography.
Trung Trac, together with her husband Thi Sách, plotted to mobilize the local aristocracy to revolt. Learning of their plots and assuming that Thi Sách was the driving force of the conspiracy, To Dihn had him arrested and hung his body from the city gates as a warning to other would-be rebels.
To Dinh's efforts to put down the rebellion by cutting off its head back-fired. Instead of giving up, the sisters raised an army of 80,000 troops, most of them in their twenties and a large number of them women.*** Their elderly mother served as one of their generals.(Evidently shin-kicking is hereditary.)
The Trungs and their untrained army drove the Chinese from Vietnam, liberating sixty-five strongholds along the way, and created a new state that stretched from Hue in the south into southern China. To Dinh was so terrified that he disguised himself by shaving off his hair and fled the country in secret.
For two years the Trung sisters ruled their newly independent kingdom unchallenged. In 41 CE, the Chinese emperor sent an army commanded by one of his best generals to reconquer Vietnam. For two years, the sisters defended their borders against the Chinese, but eventually they were worn down by the empire's military and financial superiority. The Trungs fought their last battle near modern Hanoi in 43 CE. Thousands of Vietnamese soldiers were captured and beheaded and more than 10,000 surrendered.
The Trung sisters were not among those who surrendered. Instead, they committed suicide, which the Vietnamese believed was the more honorable option. Some sources say they drowned themselves in the Hát River; others claim they floated up into the clouds.
In the centuries that followed, the Trung sisters were held up as idealized examples of national courage in the struggle against first Chinese and later French domination. Over time,a Buddhist religious cult grew up around their memory and temples were built in their honor. Today they are remembered as national heroines in Vietnam, where the anniversary of their suicide is a national holiday.
* It may well be true, but this kind of thing has to be taken with a whole shaker of salt. As Antonia Fraser points out in The Warrior Queens, the Tomboy Syndrome is a standard trope in stories of women warriors.
**Always a bad idea. Salt is more than just a condiment.
***Vietnamese stories emphasize the heroism of the young women in the Trung's army: one, General Phung Thi Chinh is said to have given birth on the battlefield, strapped the infant to her back, and continued fighting.