Showing posts by: E Curb Nottus
Feasting Out on Peplum, Swords, Sandals and Sorcery: A Short-lived Historical/Mythological Film Sub-Genre
As a kid I was wholly immersed in what film critics call ”epic films“…those mega-large scale productions with sweeping scope and spectacle, unfettered extravagance, lavishly costumed, a cast of thousands (actual persons, not a computer-generated substitution of a multiplicity of images for people en masse), exotic locations, loosely set in a far ago historical context which could be Biblical, could be Viking sagas, Sinbad the Sailor/Arabian Nights adventures, 16th century pirates, Spanish Conquistadors in the New World, 12th century Crusaders venturing forth for the Holy Land or from countless other pages in the chronicles of history. Even movies which mix myth with history like the Robin Hood sagas or the Arthurian legend drew me to their flame. But it was the world of antiquity, in particular the BC era as interpreted on celluoid screens large or small that most fired my imagination. My all-time favourite viewing entertainments back then were “sword-and-sandal” movies. Yes okay I admit that when we got a TV set in the late Fifties, watching Westerns started to consume the lion’s share of my leisure time, but by circa 1960 there was just so many damn TV westerns, “horse operas”, “oaters” call them what you like monopolising air time on the box, that you had to be discerning to avoid them (which I wasn’t!).
King of Kings (1961): dubbed “I was a teenage Jesus” by critics upon its release
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The Peplum: This quintessential term in the epic film lexicon comes from the garment worn by Greek women in the Archaic era, the peplos. What the Hellenic women of antiquity called a peplos—a long outer robe or shawl which hung from the body in loose folds and sometimes was drawn over the head—is a far cry from how moviemakers in the mid-20th century conceived the garment. Peplaⓐ in the Greco-Roman cinematic universe were a much sexier affair, mini-length tunics to show off shapely legs (and worn by both sexes).
Peplum fashionistas
In that less prescriptive age when no one fretted much about the adverse physiological (or psychological) effects on juveniles of their maxing out in front of the idiot box 12 hours a day, my penchant was to get as much Hollywood epic blockbusters into me as I could manage—this included such classic Hollywood biblical and historical fodder as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments and Spartacus —seeing them in the picture theatre and again on television when they turned up there. If I had to nominate one ancient world epic flick as my all-time favourite though, I’d probably plump for the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts movie– admittedly a smaller scale ‘indy’ production without the big name star drawing power (maybe more “epic-lite?”). It’s stellar appeal lay in part, like its more famous fellow Greek myth story, “The Odyssey”, in the adventure-packed extravaganza of its Classical heroic tale, its virtuous protagonist’s quest and ultimate triumph against the longest of odds stacked against him. But what elevated Jason and the Argonauts above the pack for my 11-year-old self was undoubtedly the film’s fantasy special effects. I was captivated by the myriad of fearsome legendary creatures created by Ray Harryhausen’s ground-breaking SFX wizardry—though to more discerning adult eyes they must have looked decidedly “hokey” and “stilted”—the glorious highlight of which was the iconic scene where Jason single-handedly battles the frenetic army of animated sabre-wielding skeletons – and emerges triumphant of course!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963): Harryhausen’s Special FX
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At some point in my juvenile years I developed a special fondness for Italian-made sword-and-sandal ⓑ flicks, something which I find hard today to rationalise. These are films, made primarily between the late Fifties and the mid Sixties, with trite, ludicrous and meaningless translated titles like Goliath and the Vampires, Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun, Samson Against the Sheik and Ursus in the Valley of the Lions. Most are set in ancient Greece, sometimes in Rome or elsewhere within the Empire (occasionally somewhere more exotic), and characteristically with storylines and events riddled with anachronisms.
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The sword-and-sandal formula Robert Rushing defines the peplum as “depicting muscle-bound heroes…in mythological antiquity, fighting fantastic monsters and saving scantily clad beauties”. Sloppily dubbed into halting English, atrociously woodenly acted, scenes lacking continuity, the plots are ludicrously formulaic, typically involving a superhuman strong man hero who stereotypically runs through his repertoire of superhuman feats of strength, triumphing over all foes while rescuing a beautiful but defenceless heroine (typically wearing the briefest peplum imaginable) and sometimes liberating the oppressed masses to boot at the same time. Unlike Hollywood’s lavish epic spectacles (Quo Vadis?, Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, etc.) , these Italian homegrown peplums were decidedly low-budget flicks which zeroed in on the hero’s beefcake attributesⓒ. (‘Sword-and-Sandal’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org). The Italian cinematic peplum was indeed a curious passion of my pre-teen to early adolescent years.
Hercules (1958) with Steve Reeves: prototype for the Italian sword-and-sandal film
Hercules by another name The ur-peplum was Hercules (Italian title: Le Fatiche di Ercole), released in 1958, starring American bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves, an instant hit which pocketed >$5,000,000 profit for the producers and backers and unleashed a steady stream of sequels starting with Hercules Unchained. As a variation to Hercules, other strongman protagonists were added to subsequent peplum movies, including Samson, Goliath, Ursus and Italy’s own folk hero Macisteⓓ. By 1965 the peplum was pretty much passé in Italy, with the void quickly filled by Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films.
My fascination with this Continental movie sub-genre was even more remarkable and unfathomable because, even then, I knew that the films were egregiously badly put together! Watching them was like being drawn against your better instincts to look at something as horrific as a car crash…you know it’s wrong but you just can’t resist the temptation. The unequivocal fact that the sword-and-sandal pictures were such thoroughly execrable, absolute turkeys of films perversely had precisely zero impact on my satisfaction quotient during my early impressionable years!
This 1964 ”Sword-and-sandaller” Maciste Contre Les Hommes De Pierre was released in English as Hercules Against the Moon Men, (“Hercules meets Sci-Fi”)
Footnote: Now at an age where I am hurtling towards senectitude I find the grainy and tired-looking footage and the equally tired storylines so unappetising that I couldn’t even stuck it out for 10 minutes, let alone stay the course of a peplum…but even with my profoundly diminished enthusiasm I still hold a soft spot for the deeply flawed sub-genre…I guess that’s simply nostalgia kicking in – the remembrances of things past which seemed better then (ie, in my youth) than they do now guided presumably by a more mature, more measured outlook.⿻⿻⿻
The sub-genre’s popularity in the early ’60s prompted the Three Stooges to get in on the act with a slapstick, farcical take on the Italian peplum The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962)
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ⓐ plural of peplum
ⓑ “sword-and-sandal” and “peplum” are used interchangeably to describe this sub-genre, both terms have a disparaging connotation. The sorcery component of the sub-genre was something I could take or leave
ⓒ so to have the lead convincingly looking the part, professional bodybuilders, athletes and wrestlers were transformed into actors and cast as the Herculean-like protagonist
ⓓ Maciste as strongman in the peplum films was resurrected from a previous incarnation in the silent era of Italian cinema
Britain’s Compulsive Afghan Complex: Venturing Thrice into the “Graveyard of Empires”
“To plunder, to slaughter, to steal … these things they misname empire.”
~ Tacitus, (Roman historian) c.AD 98.
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For much of the 19th century and beyond Britain had a preoccupation with the country of Afghanistan. Basically, it was all about Russia and India. Britain was engaging in a power struggle with Tsarist Russia for influence and expansion in Asia and Africa, part of what later became known as “the Great Game”. Russia had slowly grown its empire through “expansion creep” over several centuries, eastward to the Pacific but also pushing south deep into Central Asia. Britain’s concern was the security of its greater Indian sub-continent which provided the vast treasure trove of riches and resources which bankrolled Britain’s industrialisation juggernaut as well as paying for the upkeep of its other imperial territories. Russia’s systematic conquest of the Muslim states of Central Asia signified to Britain the likelihood that British India was also on the Russians’ radar.
Afghanistan found itself in the middle of this emerging 19th century conflict, stuck between the imperial ambitions of Britain and Russia. From the British perspective, Afghanistan, commanding the strategic northwestern passes into British India, its value to Britain was as a buffer state blocking Russian expansion any further south. British policy, hell-bent on preventing Russia getting a foothold in Afghanistan, led directly to war between Britain and Afghanistan in the 1830s with a British invasion (First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-42)…a war not universally popular in Britain as a number of politicians believed the Russian threat to India was highly exaggerated.
Britain invaded Afghanistan with its “Army of the Indus” comprising East India Company troops including a large number of Indian sepoys. The army had early successes, capturing the seemingly impregnable Ghazni Fortress in 1839 and was able to march on the Afghan capital Kabul unencumbered. The British turfed out the ruling amir Dōst Mohammad and replaced him with the previous ruler Shah Shujā. This turned out to be a grievous misreading of the political situation by Britain which held a false notion of Afghan national unity (at best the country was at that time a loose grouping of semi-autonomous tribes) [Jones, Seth G. Review of Imperial Britain’s Afghan Agony, by Diana Preston. The National Interest, no. 118 (2012): 52–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42896440.] Shujā, of the deposed Durrani dynasty, far from being a strong, unifying ruler, was an oppressive tyrant extremely unpopular with the masses. Consequently insurgency broke out in Kabul and in different regions of the country, forcing the British force to abandon Kabul and retreat from Afghanistan. The retreat was calamitous, one of the worst calamities in British military history. Beset by harsh winter conditions (subzero temperatures) and rugged terrain, the straggling army “was eviscerated as it battled through biting cold, knee-deep snow and apoplectic tribesmen” (Jones). Of an original 4,500 soldiers and 16,000 support personnel, only a handful of men made it back to safety.
Stinging from the catastrophic defeat and the loss of an entire army, a disgrace for nation and empire, the British Raj command launched a retaliatory raiding party from India several months later which sacked Kabul, but this was only ever, after the main event, a pyrrhic victory for the British. In 1843 the hated Shujā was assassinated and Dōst Mohammad and the Bārakzai dynasty duly resumed the Afghan throne.
1878 Afghan war
The British made a victor’s choice for the new amir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan (Sher Ali’s nephew), who agreed to Britain taking control of Afghanistan’s foreign policy (making it a protectorate of Britain) while London promised to not interfere with Afghan internal affairs (the status quo within the country was thus resumed). Within several years Britain and Russia reached a deal which demarcated the northern frontier of Afghanistan[̊𝓪], clearly defining the southern limit of Russian expansion in Central Asia [Azmi, M. R. (1984). RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE AFGHAN QUESTION (1865-85). Pakistan Horizon, 37(3), 106–135. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41393703].
Panjdeh incident
Before the Russo-British accord was reached, a diplomatic incident at Panjdeh, just inside the Afghan border with Turkmenistan in 1885 brought the rival empires to the brink of war. Owing in part to the poorly-defined boundary, a clash ensued between a Russian army and a force of the amir’s Afghans, with considerable casualties on the Afghan side. In the end diplomatic negotiations and a timely intercession from the amir averted war. Afterwards Russia and Britain nutted out an agreement on the issue which allowed the Russians, despite having been the aggressors, to keep the Panjdeh territories.
1919 Afghan war
A palace coup in 1919, bringing a new amir, Amānullāh, and the “war hawks” party to the helm of Afghan politics, was the spark for an Afghan military incursion into eastern India in the aim of encouraging rebellion in India’s northwestern frontier and regaining lost Pathan lands. Amānullāh had timed the invasion to take advantage of British and Indian war-weariness from four long years of world war. The fighting was pretty indecisive but with the British blocking Afghan invasion routes into India both parties soon agreed to a ceasefire[̊𝓫]. The subsequent Treaty of Rawalpindi handed Afghanistan one definite positive from the war, Britain finally extended full recognition of Afghan sovereignty[̊𝓬], and for the British, the peace of mind of having the Durand Line reaffirmed as the undisputed frontier between Afghanistan and British India.
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[̊𝓪] establishing what British Prime Minister Disraeli called a “scientific frontier”
[̊𝓫] beyond the peace maverick Afghan tribesmen continued to raid British forces in Waziristan and along the northwest frontier
[̊𝓬] accordingly Afghans also refer to this conflict as the War for Independence
Peculiarly Portuguese?: Salazar, Luso-Exceptionalism, Enduring Mythologies
Portuguese Empire (image: Vivid Maps)
The fifteen or twenty years following WWII witnessed a very uneven pattern of decolonisation in Asia and Africa, with a number of the old European powers slow to cast off their coloniser mantle…the Belgians in the Congo; the French in Algeria and Vietnam and the Netherlanders in Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in the end were extracted only after engaging in costly and unpopular wars. As the global wave of decolonisation gathered traction and other colonisers from the Old World divested themselves of their imperial territories, the Estado Novo regime of Portugal steadfastly clung on to its possessions – Angola, Mozambique, Portuguese Africa (Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe), Goa (plus four minuscule enclaves on the western Indian coastline), Macau and East Timor.
Salazar: saviour of nation and empire
Portugal had been the first of the European powers to establish overseas colonies (enthusiastically followed closely by Spain), its earliest colonies date back to the 15th century. The Portuguese colonisers’ attitude towards the peoples they colonised in Africa, Brazil and elsewhere was really no different to any other rival European imperialist power of the time…undertake a Christian civilising mission to enlighten(sic) the “savages”, while economically exploiting them and their territories. In the 1950s with decolonisation starting to gain momentum, Portugal, a unitary, one-party state headed by dictator Antonio Salazar, looked for strategies to preserve its empire, aware that it faced a backlash from newly independent states in Africa and Asia who were a growing voice in the UN demanding it and other imperial powers decolonise ASAP. In 1952 Portugal effected a constitutional change, overnight the empire ceased to exist, Lisbon officially rebranded all of its overseas territories as províncias ultramarinas (overseas provinces). On paper it seemed Portugal had no colonies to decolonise, but the bulk of international observers saw the transparency of this, a technicality by Salazar to try to ward off criticism of the country’s failure to decolonise (a ploy that did buy Portugal some time but was always only a delaying tactic)[Bruno Cardoso Reis. (2013). Portugal and the UN: A Rogue State Resisting the Norm of Decolonization (1956–1974). Portuguese Studies, 29(2), 251–276. https://doi.org/10.5699/portstudies.29.2.0251].
‘The Masters and the Servants’ (source: errancias.com/)
Enter Freyre and Lusotropicalism
The Estado Novo in the Fifties turned to a Brazilian writer Gilberto Freyre for guidance. The noted sociologist had developed a theory⦑ą⦒ in the 1930s concerning the effect of Portuguese culture on its former colony of Brazil, a phenomena that became known as Lusotropicalism⦑ც⦒. Basically, Freyre’s thesis was that Portugal and Portuguese culture diverged from other late-stage imperialist countries because of two factors, the first Portugal’s unique history as a “pluricontinental nation”, in the pre-modern era being inhabited by Celts, Romans, Visigoths and Moors et al resulting in extensive integration between the different groups⦑ƈ⦒. Freyre contended that (extensive) miscegenation in Portuguese metropolitan and colonial societies was a “positive” in that it led to the creation of “racial democracy” across the empire (ie, Portuguese and Lusophone society was “non-racist”)…as supposed evidence of this Freyre and conservative apologists could tender the de jure eligibility for Portuguese citizenship availed to non-white people, the attainment of assimilado status. The stark reality however is that the Portuguese authorities put so many obstacles in the way that made it virtually impossible for blacks from the colonies to ever secure the same legal rights and status as white citizens [Almeida, J. C. P., & Corkill, D. (2015). On Being Portuguese: Luso-tropicalism, Migrations and the Politics of Citizenship. In E. G. RODRÍGUEZ & S. A. TATE (Eds.), Creolizing Europe: Legacies and Transformations(pp. 157–174). Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gn6d5h.14]⦑ɖ⦒.
Lisbon street scene, late 16th century
Just your warm and friendly colonisers?
The other component of the Freyre thesis concerns the Iberian climate. Portugal’s warmer climate, Freyre argued, made it more humane and friendly, and more adaptable to other climates and cultures⦑ꫀ⦒. The combination of these two factors led Freyre to conclude that the Portuguese were “better colonisers”. A question arises, given that Spain shares the same climate and its “biological stock” and culture has undergone the same process of multinational hybridisation over epochs of history as its contiguous neighbour, why wouldn’t Spain be equally good as assimilators and have a similar experience of inter-racial harmony?
Salazar (source: WSJ)
Salazar, though initially wary of a controversial philosophy which had at its centre a “glamourised” miscegenation and pseudoscientific mythologising about race, eventually reshaped Freyre’s theory into his regime’s official doctrine, a framework staking Portugal’s claim to ideological legitimacy to continue its anachronistic practice of colonisation. Lisbon’s politicians and diplomats were unleashed in the UN to burst forth with volleys of rhetoric about the soi-disant “special” relationship between the homeland and the overseas provinces⦑ᠻ⦒: the two were indivisible; the provinces were an integral part of Portugal’s unique, singular, multiracial nation; Portugal’s very identity depended on their retention, etc. [Cristiana Bastos, ‘Race, Racism and Racialism in Three Portuguese-Speaking Societies’, in Luso-Tropicalism and its Discontents, edited by Warwick Anderson, Ricardo Roque and Ricardo Ventura Santos (2019)].
Portuguese military in the colonial war with Angola
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Pariah state or defender of the West?
A spate of new decolonisations, speedily attained after 1960, leveraged even more pressure on Lisbon to decolonise – or at least to seriously begin a dialogue about a path to decolonisation, Salazar dugs his heels and refused to do either. Portugal was condemned in the UN as a practitioner of “colonisation in denial and in disguise” and was even more trechantly criticised after the coloniser engaged colonial rebels in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea in wars of liberation. Lisbon responded by making a Cold War pitch to try to shore up Western solidarity on the issue…Salazar claimed to be defending Western civilisation in Africa against the menace of communism. This earned them few brownie points in Washington where the Kennedy Administration was among those pressing Lisbon to decolonise, while at the same time not going too hard, remembering its own vested interests (US was using the Azores Islands as an military base courtesy of Portugal). To its UN detractors and to the international community, Portugal throwing itself in full-scale colonial wars to prevent decolonisation was not a good look, resulting in further condemnation (Reis). Portugal’s international position was further undermined when, first, India overran the Portuguese colony of Goa by force in 1961 and annexed it, and later in the decade, another blow to Portuguese prestige, it lost control of its tiny enclave Macau to Communist China. Portugal, against the tide of history, continued to cling doggedly to its small portfolio of overseas possessions long after it could be said to amount to anything worthy of the name empire.
The Carnation Revolution overthrows Portugal’s “New State” (Image. lisbonlisboaportugal.com)
Postscript: Old habits
Significantly, the Lusotropicalism mindset didn’t end with the overthrow of the Estado Novo dictatorship in 1974, despite the new democratic government moving quickly to grant independence to the Portuguese colonies…conservative apologists in Portugal’s democratic era continue to celebrate and romanticise “mixedness” as “something inherently progressive” [‘Luso-tropicalism’, Global Social Theory, www.globalsocialtheory.org]. It seems the Portuguese politics has still not freed itself from the national myth-making that its long-dead leader Salazar had institutionalised in the 1950s…in 2017 the Portuguese head of state at an international meeting in Senegal was happily extolling “the virtues of Luso-exceptionality” (Bastos).
Endnote: Social integration myth The Lusotropical notion which claimed that Portuguese colonists integrated with the colonised subjects in a superior way was contradicted by the Portuguese town planning model for Africa, the colonatos. This scheme envisaged whites-only settlements which were intended to be “miniature Portugals”. When put into practice in Angola and Mozambique the colonatos were organisational disasters, poorly planned, little infrastructure and technical assistance, poor transport lines, etc. [Cláudia Castello, ‘Creating Portugal in Colonial Africa’, Africa is a Country, 25-May-2020, www.africasacountry.com].
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⦑ą⦒ labelled a “quasi-theory” by some scholars (Cláudia Castello, ‘“Luso-Tropicalism” and Portuguese Late Colonialism’, Buala, 28-May-2015, www.buala.org)
⦑ც⦒ Luso = pertaining to Portugal + tropicalism
⦑ƈ⦒ with transference to Brazilian society through its coalescence and integration of Europeans, enslaved Africans and native Amerindians
⦑ɖ⦒ with regards to colonial Brazil Freyre in his best known work The Masters and the Slaves misrepresents slavery as “a mild form of servitude” and he has been further criticised for exonerating the absolving the colonisers of any racist practices in modern Brazil and glossing over the iniquities of the slave trade [Wohl, Emma (2013). ‘“Casa Grande e Senzala” and the Formation of a New Brazilian Identity’,
At the onset of the 20th century nationalist feelings were on the rise in east and central Asia. For the Chinese they were fuelled by the humiliations of the First Sino-Japanese War and the intervention of foreign powers and foreigner-imposed concessions in China following the Boxer Rebellion, allied with a powerful sense of anti-Manchurism towards the ruling Qing Dynasty. To the north in Outer Mongolia, also within the realm of Qing control, nationalism was also spiking. Hastening the sense of Mongolian nationalism was the recently introduced Qing government’s policy of Sinicisation, an attempt at Han colonisation and cultural assimilation of the Mongol people (subordination of the Mongolian language to that of Chinese, exploiting Mongolian natural resources including the converting of pasture lands into agricultural production fields). 1911 Xinhai Revolution (Chinese commemorative anniversary stamp) The spread of Chinese nationalism and aspirations to modernise China culminated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and the collapse of the Qing monarchy in February 1912, ushering in a new political landscape in China. While republicanism gripped China Mongol nobles and lamas took advantage of the upheaval to declare the independence of “Great Mongolia”, establishing a de facto absolute theocratic monarchy under the Bogd Khan (“holy ruler” or “emperor”). The newly established Beiyang government refused its recognition, affirming that Outer Mongolia was an integral and legitimate part of China’s territorial inheritance from the former Qing rulers. Under a 1915 agreement between Tsarist Russia and China Bogd Khan was forced to accept a status of “autonomy under Chinese suzerainty”…the deal also opened the way for Russia to colonise contiguous Tannu Tuva (an enclave within northwest Outer Mongolia which Tsarist Russia had established a protectorate over). Bodg Khan’s Green Palace, Ulaanbaatar Russian Civil War comes to Mongolia In 1919 Chinese troops under Xu Shuzheng occupied the Outer Mongolian capital Urga (or Niislel Khüree)⧼a̼⧽, deposing the Bogd Khan and ending Mongolia’s autonomy. Mongolian revolutionaries responded by organising themselves into a resistance group and a new political force, the Mongolian Peoples Party (MPP), emerged. The Mongol activists solicited support from the new Bolshevik government which had overthrown the Russian Romanov monarchy. Meanwhile, a White Russian (anti-communist) force under Baron von Ungern-Sternberg entered Outer Mongolia, sweeping away the occupying Chinese troops. Ungern restored the Mongol Buddhist leader to the throne while setting himself up as a warlord in Outer Mongolia. Soviet Red Army units eventually routed Ungern’s White Guards in southern Siberia and he was executed. Roman von Ungern AKA “The Mad Baron” (image source: 2.bp.blogspot.com) Mongolian Revolution The Mongolian Revolution that took place in 1921 was, according to Fujiko Isono, “a logical outcome of the declaration of Mongolian independence in 1911” (Isono, Fujiko. “The Mongolian Revolution of 1921.” Modern Asian Studies 10, no. 3 (1976): 375–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/311912.). Mongolian rebels, both of a nationalist and a socialist bent, in unison with external assistance from Ungern’s cossacks and the Bolsheviks, defeated and drove out the remaining Chinese troops occupying Outer Mongolia. Nationalist Dogsomyn Bodoo was elected prime minister in the new provisional government and the monarch’s powers were limited (upon Bogd Khan’s death in 1924 the monarchy was allowed to lapse). The MPP (renamed the MPRP – Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party) proclaimed independent Outer Mongolia a People’s Republic. A power struggle between nationalists and communists ensued, from which the Soviet-backed communists emerged triumphant and Bodoo was removed from the PM post, tried as a counter-revolutionary and summarily executed in 1922. 1921 Mongolian Revolution Mongolian sub-branch of the Soviet Great Terror The power struggle within the ruling MPRP for leadership and control continued, becoming increasingly violent and bloody. Purges of the party hierarchy and attacks on Mongolian Buddhism were stepped up…the upshot saw military strongman Khorloogiin Choibalsan gradually consolidate and then cement his hold on power in the 1930s. Having removed all of his political rivals one by one in classic Stalinist style Choibalsan waltzed into the leader’s job in 1939 uncontested. Choibalsan with his role model, Stalin Soviet satellite and internal terror The Choibalsan-led Mongolian communist regime freely aligned itself with Moscow to the point of becoming a puppet of the Soviet Union, with Choibalsan even taking direct orders from Stalin on internal Mongolian matters. Choibalsan identified with the Soviet supreme leader to the extent of almost cloning himself on the personality of Stalin…slavishly imitating the ruthless political style of Stalin right down to the cult of personality and the mass purging of “enemies of the Revolution” (including some former prime ministers and heads of state), show trials, gulags and executions⧼b̼⧽. Choibalsan’s unquestioning, all-the-way with the Kremlin stance entrapped Mongolia in a perpetual state of economic and political dependency on the USSR—a policy perpetuated after 1952 by Choibalsan’s Sovietphile protégé and successor Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal⧼c̼⧽—condemning the country to a client status relationship with Moscow. This dependency paradigm was only broken after the collapse of the Soviet Union, compelling Mongolia to move tentatively towards democracy, social reforms and economic liberalisation. Channeling Genghis (Chinggis) Khan : Gigantic Ulaanbaatar statue (photo: Viator.com) Footnote: The Pan-Mongolia pipe dream Pan-Mongolism was an irredentist idea that has been kicking round in Russian/central Asian circles since the late 19th century. It postulates the creation of a “Greater Mongolia”, a vast area comprising both Inner and Outer Mongolia, Buryatia, Dzungaria (northern half of Xinjiang), and sometimes including Transbaikal, Tuva and even Tibet, a theoretical geographical amalgam which has been described as a kind of “twentieth century Mongol Empire redux” (‘The Spectre of Pan-Mongolism’, Mongolink, 21-Feb-2017, https://mongoliainstitute.anu.edu.au/). One interested onlooker in the region who could appreciate the benefits of fostering a sense of Pan-Mongolism was imperial Japan. From the early 20th century it was eyeing off eastern Asia as an potential territorial acquisition to funnel surplus Japanese population into. The Japanese blueprint envisaged a client state stretching from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok which would include Outer Mongolia. Carving out one large united Mongolia, they reasoned, “would help exert pressure on China and create favorable grounds for the Japanese occupation of the Russian Far East” (‘Pan-Mongolia’, 29-Feb-2019, www.mongoliastore.com; (S.C.M. Paine, Imperial Rivals, (1996)). During WWI the Japanese gave to backing to Grigory Semyonov, a Russian Cossack ataman of Buryat descent with a Pan-Mongolian agenda…Semyonov’s plan was to unify Buryat-Mongolia, Khalkha-Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, but it floundered due to a Bolshevik counter-attack and seemingly also due to Khalkha Mongols’ suspicions of the Buryats (‘Buryatia: Residents Concerned about Moscow’s Intentions’, 23-Oct-2010, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, www.unpo.org). In the 1930s a composite, Mongol borderland state named Mengjiang was created comprising the central hub of Inner Mongolia. Supposedly an “autonomous or independent state” nominally ruled by a Mongolian nobleman Prince Demchugdongrub, it was in reality a puppet state of the Empire of Japan𓇽. Signing of the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship & Alliance (source: Peter Chen / endofempire.asia) Postscript: China and its interests were not represented at the 1945 Yalta Agreement (between USSR, USA and UK), leaving Stalin with the tricky task of settling Mongolia’s future directly with Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese republic. After tortuous negotiations with China’s premier Soong Tzu-wen Stalin brokered a deal – China would give up on its territorial claim to Outer Mongolia and (reluctantly) recognise Mongolia’s independence. In return Stalin gave the Chinese an assurance he would not (or no longer) support either the Chinese Communists or the separatists in Chinese Xinjiang⧼d̼⧽. Stalin’s accord with Chiang effectively snuffed out the last flicker of Choibalsan’s dream of achieving a Pan-Mongol state (‘Khorloogiin Choibalsan — Stalin of the steppe’, Sergei Radchenko, Engelsberg Ideas, 21-Jun-2021, www.engelbergideas.com). Moscow’s interests were well served by the outcome, geopolitically, an independent Mongolia would be a buffer for the USSR against China while also being open to influence from the Kremlin. Modern Mongolia (admitted to the UN, 1961) 𓇽 for the Mengjiang story refer to the July 2019 post on this blog, “Mengjiang: The Empire of Japan’s Other East Asian Puppet State in Inner Mongolia” at https://www.7dayadventurer.com/2019/07/02/mengjiang-the-empire-of-japans-other-east-asian-puppet-state-in-inner-mongolia/ ⧼a̼⧽ later renamed Ulaanbaatar (literal meaning = “red hero”) ⧼b̼⧽ called in Mongolia, Ikh Khelmegdüülelt (“Great Repression”) ⧼c̼⧽ Tsedenbal went one subservient step further than his mentor petitioning Moscow (unsuccessfully) in the 1950s for Mongolia to be incorporated into the USSR ⧼d̼⧽ when the Chinese Communists took control of the nation in 1949 Stalin had to debate the question of who owns Mongolia all over again with Mao who doggedly argued for Outer Mongolia to be unified with Inner Mongolia but as part of the PRC. Stalin refused to budge from the position that Mongolian independence was not negotiable and in the end Mao, with the PRC then a brand new Communist state needing to establish a good relationship with the world’s leading socialist state, had to acquiesce (Radchenko)
Outer Mongolia and the Dream of Pan-Mongolism: Caught in a Realpolitik Power Game Betwixt Russia and China
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The Nexus between the Southwest, the Confederacy, Slavery and Camels: Redux
The Southwest, 1850
WEST BY SOUTHWEST History books tell us how the United States in the first half of the 19th century strove to fulfil its self-defined mission of “Manifest Destiny” by spreading its territorial reach on the continent ever more westwards. Having acquired the Southwest—comprising vast stretches of mainly dry, desert land—through highly profitable adventures south of the Río Grande, Washington found itself staring at a dauntingly formidable obstacle to exploration and settlement.
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Jefferson Davis⌖ ⌖ ⌖ SHIPS OF THE DESERT” FOR THE SOUTHWESTERN DESERT The idea of using camels to meet the massive challenge of traversing this harsh terrain was first floated by Quartermaster captain George H Crosman in the 1830s but it was later taken up with full enthusiasm by Jefferson Davis (later to be the breakaway Confederacy’s president during the Civil War) who advocated tirelessly for the superior efficacy of camels over mules and horses as “beasts of burden” ideally suited to the Southwest. As well as the being the optimal pack animal for the arid New Mexico territory plains, the camel, it’s proponents claimed, would help soldiers hunt down troublesome native peoples impeding westward progress (‘The sinister reason why camels were brought to the American West’, Kevin Waite, National Geographic, 27-Oct-2021, www.nationalgeographic.com). Davis, after being appointed secretary of war in the Pierce Administration, eventually got approval to purchase a caravan of 40 camels through Congress in 1855 and the US Army Camel Corps came into existence.
Pack-carrying dromedaries in the desert (Photo: Getty Images/Stockphoto)⌖ ⌖ ⌖ The plan to import camels itself was not Davis’ idea but the brainchild of Major Henry C Wayne , also an early convert to the camel cause. Wayne was selected to collect the army’s first batch of camels from West Africa, however his public role in the camel saga soon became secondary to the private capacity he fashioned for himself as the number one publicist in promoting the virtues and utility of camels for America…proclaiming a multiplicity of uses in addition to transportation, including plantation chores (eg, hauling cotton, corn, etc.) which were more cost-effective than comparable equine alternatives. Wayne’s efforts ignited a craze for camels and dromedaries especially among Southern planters (‘The Dark Underbelly of Jefferson Davis’ Camels’, Michael E. Woods, Muster, 21-Nov-2017, www.thejournalofthecivilwarerw.org).
‘Southwest Passage’, a 1950s Hollywood B-movie purportedly about the Camel Corps⌖ ⌖ ⌖ CONSPIRACY AND OPPORTUNISM With camels, if not quite thick on the ground very much conspicuously present, the Camel Corps HQ was established at Camp Verde, Texas, and army camel experiments were undertaken in the Southwest. What eventually emerged though were other, non-military uses for the importation of camels. Behind the enthusiasm of slaveholders to acquire camels lay a deeper scheme. Jefferson Davis and the slaveholders were determined to expand slavery westward into the new territories of the Southwest even to “free” states like California, and they certainly saw the camel, capable of going without water for long periods while still hauling great loads, as instrumental to the conquest of the southwestern deserts and the securing of a safe route to the far west. Though Davis himself denied this was his intention historian Kevin Waite asserts that “camels were part of his broader fantasies for the western expansion” of the slave industry. Michael Woods offers a different viewpoint, arguing that Davis did not envision this outcome when he initiated the camel project nor did he collude with the “Slave Power” which steered the scheme, but his crucial championing of the project did trigger the chain of events that led to it.
⌖ ⌖ ⌖ MASKING THE BANNED SLAVE TRADE The importation of these humped, cloven-footed creatures by Southerners likely served another, even more nefarious purpose of the slaveholding class. Suspicions were high in anti-slavery circles that the influx of camels in the 1850s was being used as a smokescreen to shield the smuggling in of African slaves—an activity made illegal in the US since the 1808 ban—probably funnelled into the country via the Texas coastline where a raft of slave traders were based (Woods).
⌖ ⌖ ⌖ With the outbreak of war between North and South in 1861 plans for their extensive use were pretty much shelved notwithstanding that the Confederacy now had sole control of the camels. Post-bellum, interest was not revived for a number of reasons – the camels didn’t catch on partially due to the creatures’ undesirable personal traits and their being not easy for Americans to handle. Besides, the completion of the Transcontinental Railway in 1869 made their utility for long distance transport more or less obsolete. Consequently, owners were quick to dispose of their stocks of camels, some were sold off to travelling circuses or zoos, others were simply released to roam into the wild leading to random sightings of the creatures decades afterwards.
The Chequered History of the Beleaguered League of Nations
ARISING from the ashes of the catastrophic Great War the League of Nations was founded in 1919 on high Liberal ideals but with the most challenging of tasks – “to promote international cooperation and achieve peace and security “. Ultimately, the League failed to live up to its mission statement, in the end floundering badly in its efforts to stop aggressive acts by rogue states and prevent the outbreak of a second world war.
Fear of failure? The interwar years were marked by numerous incidences of disputes between states over territories and borders. One of the most apparent shortcomings of the League (LoN) was its choosiness in deciding which conflicts to intervene in and which not to…under the League’s foundation secretary-general Eric Drummond, the approach was a cautious and selective one, prompted by the fear that failure might undermine the body’s authority in the international arena (‘League of Nations’, History, Upd. 23-Mar-2023, www.history.com).
Opening session of the League’s assembly, 1920 (Source: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)The LoN’s reluctance to involve itself in every international dispute also came down to the inherent weakness of its position. Where one of the discordant parties was not a member of the LoN and especially a larger power, the capacity of the organisation to effect a viable resolution was severely curtailed. The LoN declined to intervene when Soviet Russia attacked a port in Persia in 1920 in the belief that non-member Russia would disregard its authority. The LoN’s dispute resolution capacity was similarly neutralised in the 1923 Corfu incident…Mussolini’s Italy had bombed and invaded the Greek island leading to Greece asking the LoN to intervene but Mussolini, though a member, simply ignored the LoN’s attempts to mediate in the conflict.
Structural and functional weakness, the power of single veto The League’s organisational structure proved a further impediment to the realisation of LoN’s primary purpose of maintaining inter-governmental peace. Unlike its successor world body the UN, all LoN members, whether powerful or minor players on the world stage, had equal voting rights in the assembly with the making of decisions requiring unanimity from the members, the necessity of universal consent a recipe for perpetual indecision and impasse (‘Why Did the League of Nations Fail?’, Luke Tomes, History Hit, 27-Oct-2020, www.historyhit.com).
Map of LoN member countries“League of Victors”, minus the US Critically, several of the more internationally significant nations were excluded from the new world body. The United States by choice excluded itself from membership, a massive setback to a world body’s claim to inclusiveness. In the aftermath of WWI and the Russian Revolution the vanquished Germans and the USSR🅐, were prevented from joining. At LoN’s point of peak membership (1935) there were 58 League nations, at its dissolution (1946) this had dwindled to only 23 members.
League idealism trumped by real politik Viewed through rose-coloured glasses the LoN’s proponents assumed the organisation’s creation would herald in an era of internationalism. Their naïveté between the wars was exposed by the rise of ultra-nationalism especially when it coalesced in a totalitarian regime (acerbated by the Great Depression): for individual nations, League of Nations or no League of Nations, fundamental self-interest remained paramount (Tomes).
2nd Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-36Expansionism by far-right regimes unchecked In the 1930s, in a deteriorating international climate, the eruption of serious crises demonstrated the LoN’s impotence vis-a-vís aggressively inclined renegade states. When the imperial Japanese army invaded Manchuria (Northeast China)—a clear breach of Article 10 of the League’s Covenant (disrespecting another member’s sovereignty)—the LoN took no action against the offending nation. When the Commission eventually ruled that Manchuria should be returned to China, Tokyo responded by simply relinquishing its League membership and staying put🅑. When Fascist Italy’s provoked a colonial expansionist war against a much weaker state Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, the LoN’s condemnation and subsequent economic sanctions on the Italian aggressors were undermined by the great powers Britain and France who in a secret deal green-lighted Italy’s action in East Africa. The British and French concession to Italy was meant to help lure Mussolini away from allying with Germany and Hitler. Once again particular countries put self-interest ahead of the collective security goals of the LoN. Rome’s response to the League’s threats, like Japan and Germany before it, was to to pull Italy out of the LoN. The Ethiopian crisis damaged the League’s reputation further and reinforced the paucity of its peacekeeping role.
The LoN failed miserably in its stated objective of bringing about international disarmament, on the contrary under its watch rearmament and military buildup in Germany, Italy, Japan and the USSR greatly expanded in the 1930s. Without armed forces of its own the LoN was reliant on the great powers to enforce its authority which they were generally unwilling to do. The League in time of state conflicts thus fell back on negotiation and arbitration and the threat of sanctions (never fully implemented), in which it had a sorry track record (‘The League is Dead. Long Live the United Nations’, The National WWII Museum, 19-Apr-2022, www.nationalww2museum.org).
Palace of Nations (Geneva) League HQs (Photo: League of Nations Archive)Footnote: The League’s legacy While the League of Nations was unable to realise its raison d’être, a workable system of international cooperation and security, there was a positive side to its existence. Where smaller nations were involved the LoN did have some success in settling disputes of neighbouring countries peacefully, eg, between Finland and Sweden in 1921 over the Aland Islands. The organisation’s activities embraced many issues of concern and urgency in its day, including efforts to curb the opium traffic; tackling the scourge of tropical diseases like malaria and leprosy; post-WWI refugee crisis and POW repatriation; recognising the rights of ethnic minorities; regulation of workers’ wages and conditions; curtailing the arms trade. While not always successful in these projects the pioneering LoN can be credited for providing a framework for its successor the UN to carry out its humanitarian work.
_______________________________ 🅐 Germany was eventually allowed to join in 1926 and Soviet Russia in 1934 🅑 Nazi Germany likewise relinquished League membership in 1933 when challenged by the League, freeing it to embark on a massive military buildup and pursue its territorial expansion goals in Europe. The Soviet Union was another significant withdrawal from the LoN family, expelled in 1939 for invading Finland