Treasure Island

Treasure Island

Robert Louis Stevenson

      One of the greatest fictional adventure tales for young people is "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. This classic story of a boy's coming-of-age in the midst of a life and death struggle over a buried treasure has inspired young people for many years. But it also the basis for much of the mythology that surrounds pirates in the public mind continuing to this day. Just as Hollywood's Western movies have their archetypes, so does the classic (and modern) Pirate movie. Stevenson's Long John Silver, Ben Gunn and Captain Flint provide those archetypes.

Reading Treasure Island again I was struck by this introduction by the author:

TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

If sailor tales to sailor tunes,

Storm and adventure, heat and cold,

If schooners, islands, and maroons,

And buccaneers, and buried gold,

And all the old romance, retold

Exactly in the ancient way,

Can please, as me they pleased of old,

The wiser youngsters of today:

--So be it, and fall on! If not,

If studious youth no longer crave,

His ancient appetites forgot,

Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,

Or Cooper of the wood and wave:

So be it, also! and may I

And all my pirates share the grave

Where these and their creations lie!

Paramount Theater Re-opens

Paramount Theater
549-69 Washington St.
Boston, Mass.

A small piece of Boston's 20th century history reopened this month with the completion of the renovations of the Paramount Theater in downtown Boston. First built in 1932 and owned by Paramount Studios the original theatre was designed in a classic art deco style and seated as much as 1500 patrons. The theater is now owned and run by Emerson College and will stage live theater productions. The modern interior design has been done in the exact style of the original theatre, which closed in 1976.

When I was growing up back in the sixties and seventies it was still quite common to go into downtown Boston and watch movies at one of several converted (or original) movie theaters with just one large screen. I can actually remember the last time I went to the old Paramount Theatre. It was to see the movie "Kidnapped", which was based upon the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson's novel and starred Michael Caine. This had to be in 1971 when the movie first came out.

Not long after the showing of "Kidnapped" the Paramount fell on hard times and began showing R-rated and then X-rated adult movies. Although the downtown shopping area is still lacking a lot of the life and vibrancy that it once had, this is a good step in the right direction for Boston.

The War of the Roses

The War of the Roses (1445-1485) was a bitter civil war fought between the House's (noble families) of Lancaster and of York, who were each contending to place their own heirs on the throne of England. Supporters of the House of Lancaster wore red roses on their livery, while the House of York wore white roses.

On 22 August 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field King Richard III of the House of York was killed, effectively ending the War of the Roses. (This event was the inspiration of Shakespeare's famous lines from Richard III, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"). The victor of the battle Henry Tudor was crowned Henry VII, King of England. The Tudor dynasty took as its symbol a red rose with a white center. The Tudors, which included King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, ruled England for 118 years and set the nation on the path to become a great naval and world power.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

Battle of Agincourt

On 25 October 1415, St. Crispen's Day, Henry V of England won an overwhelming victory against the French at the battle of Agincourt. Henry V was attempting to pursue his claim - by force of arms - to the title of the Duchy of Normandy and the throne of France by virtue of his descent from William of Normandy, the conqueror of England in 1066.

Henry's army of 6,000, consisting mostly of archers armed with longbows, faced an French army of between 20,000 - 30,000 men. Among the ranks of the French army were many aristocrats and knights - the so-called "flower of France".

Due to the constraints of a small battlefield and the muddy soil, the French were unable to make proper use of their heavy cavalry to overcome the enemy ranks. The deadly fire from the highly trained English archers led to a further break down in the ranks of the French army.

Sustaining heavy casualties and unable to mount a proper attack the French surrendered. Henry's desperate "band of brothers" had won the day. Fearing the possibility of another attack and having captured more of the enemy than he had men of his own, Henry V ordered the slaughter of French prisoners. How many were actually killed is unknown, but it is estimated that more died in the aftermath of the battle than in the actual battle. As was the custom of the day, those prisoners who survived and belonged to the aristocracy were held until a ransom was paid for their release.

Almost two hundred years later William Shakespeare wrote his play Henry V. In these memorable words from the Bard, here is Henry V speaking to his men on the eve of St. Crispens Day:

"This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day"

The Saturday Club

Omni Parker House Hotel
60 School St.
Boston, Mass. 02108

The Saturday Club was a social club that during the mid-1800's met on the last Saturday of every month in the Parker House Hotel on School St. in Boston. But this wasn't just any social club - the Saturday Club was made up of some of the greatest writers and brightest minds to be found in America at that time. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Professor Louis Agassiz, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Francis Adams, Francis Parkman, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier and Nathaniel Hawthorne were just some of the members of the club.

During the early 1800's Boston gained the title of Athens of America and the Saturday Club meetings gave credence to the name. Charles Dickens, while a guest staying at the Parker House, joined a Club meeting and read from his work A Christmas Carol. At yet another gathering Longfellow worked on an early draft of his famous poem Paul Revere's Ride.

Prior to their meetings the club members would often visit the Old Corner Bookstore, which can still be found on the corner of School St. and Washington St. They would then have dinner before settling down on a Saturday afternoon to discuss poetry, literature and engage one another in conversation. In our modern non-literary age it is hard to imagine that a comparable group of people could be found in the same city, never mind meeting together under the same roof.

The Dogs of War

Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare

Mark Antony's famous line, "Cry Havoc and let loose the Dogs of War," in Shakespeare's play Julius Casar, was his promise to take revenge upon the conspirators who assassinated Caesar. He knew very well that this would lead to a bloody civil war of Roman against Roman. His term Dogs of War, which formerly simply meant soldier, has changed somewhat over the years. Today it is a term often used for mercenaries.

The hiring of mercenaries has been a part of statecraft for thousands of years. While it was usually preferable to use native soldiers, rulers in the past were often forced to hire foreign born troops to augment their armies. The ancient Greeks hired themselves out to the Persians, the men of Genoa were known for their ability with crossbows and the Swiss fought in many of Europe's wars under other flags.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities in his American colonies King George III was faced with the immediate prospect of needing more troops. Rebuffed in his efforts to hire Russian soldiers from Catherine the Great, King George turned to the divided German states for his needs. The German Princes were more than willing to rent out their native sons for currency. Most of the soldiers came from Hesse-Kassal, which led to the German troops being referred to as Hessian's, but soldiers from Brunswick and other states were also hired.

Also during the American Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben, along with many others, took up the cause of freedom and fought the British. Ireland's Wild Geese, Irish soldiers fighting under foreign flags, made a name for themselves throughout the world. During the Spanish Civil War many idealists fought against Franco's regime, while Nazi Germany sent troops, including the Condor Legion, to support Franco. Frances Foreign Legion, whose enlisted ranks are made up solely of foreign born soldiers, has been making history since 1831. Finally Jews from all over the world have fought for Israel since its creation in 1948.

Under the Geneva Convention and according to the laws of many nations, a mercenary is someone who hires themselves out as a soldier and is paid more than the common soldiers whose army he has joined. This is to differentiate a mercenary from someone who has joined a foreign army to fight for a cause he believes in, or quite often, because soldiering is the only trade he knows.

In the past being a mercenary, or as he is sometimes referred to, a soldier of fortune, was considered an honorable profession. Myles Standish in his hiring by the Pilgrims, the Ronin of feudal Japan, the hired soldiers fighting for Biafra's independence, were all mercenaries. They all fulfilled a need to provide military expertise, or perhaps just a sword, in a dangerous world. Today's world is not really all that different. It is perhaps a much more dangerous world in that today many choose to believe that the world no longer needs mercenaries, or for that matter, soldiers.

Battle of Omdurman - Sudan

The River War
by Winston S. Churchill

On September 2, 1898, 11o years ago today, the Battle of Omdurman took place in the Sudan. A joint Anglo-Egyptian expeditionary force, with a complement of Sudanese troops, met and defeated a 50,000 man army of Dervishes on the outskirts of the city of Omdurman.

This was the culmination of months of intense effort by British General Sir Horatio Kitchener to mass an army deep in the Sudan to bring to an end the Dervish empire. The defeat of the Mahdi army would bring peace to the Egyptian - Sudan border, but this was also retribution for the death of British General Charles "Chinese" Gordon who died on January 26, 1885 during the siege of Khartoum. A British relief force had arrived too late to rescue Gordon - Khartoum fell to the Mahdi's revolutionary forces and Gordon was killed. The Sudan was now completely independent and no longer under Anglo/Egyptian control.

After the death of Gordon the British government concentrated its efforts in Egypt and put the Sudan on a back burner. Muhammad Ahmed, the self-proclaimed Mahdi, died not long afterwards. His successor, the Khalifa, continued a state of war with his neighbors.

With a change of government in London it was finally decided to bring this unsatisfactory state of affairs to an end. Gathering troops from all over the Empire, an army was collected on the banks of the Nile. Specially designed gunboats, armed with Maxim guns, were built for the expedition - they had to be capable of being broken down and transported overland to avoid the cataracts of the Nile. Infantry regiments from as far away as India were brought in to build up the army and garrison forts.

The army was to advance up the Nile with both a desert column and river force. The 21st Lancers, a regular cavalry unit, was attached to the expedition and used as a scouting force. Lt. Winston Churchill of the 4th Hussars was attached to the Lancers and later wrote a short history of the war in his book The River War. (A very readable account, but somewhat detached considering it was written by someone who was there).

The army advanced deep into the Sudan finally encountering the main Dervish army on the approach to Omdurman. The Anglo-Egyptian army was greatly outnumbered, but the combination of modern arms, discipline and fortitude, along with some luck, led to a decisive victory. The Mahdi army was efectively destroyed and except for some mopping-up operations, the subjugation of the Sudan was complete.

An interesting side note of the battle was the action of the 21st Lancers. Engaging what they believed to be a small force of Dervishes they rode over a small rise and found themselves instead charging a sizable contingent of the fierce fighters. The Lancers were forced to ride and fight their way through to freedom. Five officers, 65 enlisted and 120 horses were killed in the bitter fighting. Three Victoria Crosses were awarded to members of the unit. Lt. Churchill was not injured in the action. This may well have been the last time in its long history British cavalry ever conducted a charge in battle.