Elphinstone’s Retreat

In 1839, Britain did what any self-respecting empire does - invade Afghanistan. This invasion was part of what is euphemistically called “The Great Game” between the British Empire and the Russian Empire. The Great Game was the world’s first (modern) Cold War, and had all the hallmarks of the later 20th century version including copious amounts of spies, proxy wars, diplomatic threats, and using unaligned countries as their playground. One of these unaligned countries, Afghanistan, lay between the Russian Empire and British India, so in order to shore up their defense of India, the British invaded Afghanistan due to the belief that at any moment the Russians would pour across the border and use Afghanistan as an invasion route to India. The British goal was to secure a friendly and cooperative state in neighboring Afghanistan as to create a buffer state between the two feuding empires.

During what is now known as the First Anglo-Afghan War (the first in a trilogy of wars), the British East India Company (EIC) invaded Afghanistan from India with around 20,000 soldiers. These 20,000 were a mix of British soldiers and Indian Sepoys, or Indians in service of the EIC. The EIC is different than a modern company, as it was essentially state controlled, directly governed large land holdings in Southeast Asia, and had its own armed forces (at times actually larger than the British Army). Initially in 1839, the British were somewhat welcomed into Kabul, by the leader of the city, Dost Mohammed. but the British began to distrust him and suspected he was playing both sides. As a result of this distrust, the British used their army to oust Dost Mohammed and replaced him with more friendly, yet ineffective, Shah Shuja, and mostly withdrew from the area, believing their mission accomplished. However, they did leave behind two brigades and two political aids to guide the Shah, Sir William Macnaghten and Sir Alexander Burns. In 1841, with tensions flamed by the Shah’s rule and the British occupation, a full rebellion in Kabul erupted with Macnaghten and Burns being murdered by the local populace. The two British brigades were still intact in a fortified camp outside the main city but were completely surrounded. By December of ’41, the British were able to negotiate a safe retreat from Kabul for their surrounded forces and their families (not just wives but children as well) as well as any camp followers and personnel. This negotiated agreement meant that the British had to leave behind the sick and wounded, all their gunpowder reserves, their newest muskets, and most of their artillery, but would have an Afghan escort provided by the leader of the uprising against the Shah, Akbar Khan. Additionally, the Afghans would provide fuel and food to the British to aid in the cross of the snowy Hindu Kush mountains. In total, around 16,000 people were being evacuated in a retreat lead by General William Elphinstone, departing on the 6th of January, 1842, for the British garrison in Jalalabad, around 90 miles away.

The retreat encountered hostility almost immediately, despite the agreement of safe evacuation, with the rearguard encountering hostile fire after leaving the fortified camp. Once the Afghans hostile to the British entered the fortified camp, they massacred everyone left behind and set fire to the structures. The promised escort by Akbar Khan’s forces never arrived nor did the aid they promised. Elphinstone resisted calls from his subordinate officers to turn back and take control of the fortress in Kabul but Elphinstone refused and the march to Jalalabad continued. On the second day of the march, the long column of soldiers and civilians began encountering sniper fire from the hillsides, with the British soldiers being ineffective in returning fire as they were hindered by the slow movement of the column and the chaos of the civilians trying to seek shelter from the snipers. To further complicate matters, the British engaged in several skirmishes with the Afghans resulting in the capture or destruction of most of the remaining British artillery, leaving the British with just three artillery pieces.

Akbar Khan met with Elphinstone on the afternoon of the second day to say that the British were at fault for his escort failing to appear as they left too soon and that the British should wait while he negotiates their safe passage through the pass out of Kabul. By this point, the column had only traveled 6 miles. Despite evidence of Khan’s treachery, Elphinstone agreed to wait and move slowly. On the third day, it became obvious, even to Elphinstone that Akbar Khan betrayed the British and stalled to allow the Afghans time to set up more effective ambushes along the passes. Progress was slow despite being constantly under musket fire and by the end of 9th of January (the fourth day) and only 40 miles, 3,000 people had been killed. Most of these were killed by sniper fire, skirmishes, frozen to death, or committed suicide, but some were massacred by the Afghans after they fell wounded and unable to continue. Frostbite set in for the survivors and the freezing conditions rendered most military equipment unusable. British cohesion fell apart and desertions began to occur, with some few hundred Indian troops attempting to return to Kabul but they too were massacred and the survivors enslaved. A large group of the soldier’s wives and families were captured and promised protection by Abkar Khan, but instead the wives of the Indian Sepoys were all murdered along with any Indian servants captured, leaving only white prisoners alive. Elphinstone’s psyche collapsed and he stopped giving orders, he just kept silently moving forward atop his horse.  

By the end of the 11th of January (the sixth day), it is estimated that only around 200 soldiers remained and a fierce rearguard action began under the command of Brigadier General John Shelton at the village of Jagadalak. The resistance was so fierce that the Afghans requested Elphinstone and John Shelton to begin negotiations with Akbar Khan. Elphinstone and Shelton dined with Khan but quickly realized they had actually been captured, with the Afghans refusing them the ability to return to their men. On the 12th of January (the seventh day), the column moved forward despite losing Shelton and Elphinstone and suffering 12,000 casualties, in the dead of night to limit their exposure to sniper fire. However, the remains of the column found themselves blocked in a by a barrier erected at the narrow pass, with most people being shot as they scaled the barrier. Small groups survived crossing the barrier but most were either cut down shortly after or killed as they attempted to escape, with very few of these small groups being able to make it. Scattered and isolated, these surviving groups attempted to reach Jalalabad by any means. The largest of these groups made a heroic last stand at the village of Gandamak, despite being either exhausted or wounded and lacking proper ammunition and working equipment to make a survivable defense. Refusing offers to surrender, this group of 20 officers and 45 men, were mostly all killed after an intense series of attacks and waves of men rushing their position. Of the 65 men, only 1 officer, 1 sergeant, and 7 privates were captured.

On the 13th of January (the final and eighth day), a lone officer rode into Jalalabad. This lone survivor, Assistant Surgeon William Brydon described his ordeal to reach Jalalabad, having survived multiple ambushes that wounded himself and his horse. When asked what happened to the army, Brydon famously replied with “I am the army.” Over the coming weeks, Brydon would be the only European officer to arrive from the column although a number of Sepoys arrived after surviving by hiding themselves in the mountains.

Britain was absolutely humiliated and shocked by the loss of Elphinstone’s column, with immediate calls for revenge and retribution against Akbar Khan and Kabul. The news was so shocking to the EIC that the man in charge of it, Lord Auckland, suffered a stroke. A punitive expedition marched into Kabul later in 1842, leveling the Grand Bazaar and any large building in Kabul, rescuing or securing hostages (including the European soldier’s wives), and attacked the forces of Akbar Khan where they were able. In all, only over 2,000 people from the column would be rescued from captivity, escaped, or were released. Elphinstone himself died a captive of Akbar Khan in April of 1842 and his leadership during the evacuation has been thoroughly panned in the 182 years since. Akbar Khan took control of Afghanistan until being ousted by Dost Mohmmed in 1843, and died of cholera in 1847.

The Expedition of the Thousand

The island of Sicily has been conquered, captured, occupied, or subjugated by almost every single power in recorded history. The Ancient Greek colonists, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the Spanish, The French, the British, the French again, the Spanish also again, and finally their fellow Italians, all have occupied or used Sicily’s strategic location in the Mediterranean to their advantage. The Sicilian people as a result have a unique Italic language and culture compared to mainland Italy. Their language (although mistakenly considered a dialect but still similar) is distinct from Italian as it is an amalgamation of different languages from the people who conquered and occupied them. In only very recent history (1860) has Sicily joined the Italian mainland as a unified state, the first time since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Italian expedition to unite Sicily with Italy is a fascinating and dramatic tale of revolution and local uprising being used by a greater power. This article will detail the uniting of Sicily with the boot peninsula and the factors that led to its success.

In the 1850s-1860s, the Italian peninsula was in the throes of a revolution against greater European powers after centuries of oppression and control. The House of Savoy, a royal house originally hailing from Sardinia, started to spread its control from the north of Italy, pushing a message of a united Italy being the only way to prevent meddling European powers from engaging in Italian misadventure. This unification process became known as the Risorgimento, or Italian for resurgence. At the same time, the Sicilians were under the control a despised regime situated in Naples. This kingdom, known as the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, was a Spanish-Bourbon monarchy that acted with impunity in Sicily, causing widespread resentment from the population. In 1848, while the rest of Europe engaged in widespread revolution against monarchy and centuries old powers, Sicily attempted to do the same against the regime in Naples, only to be met with brutal repression and a violent put down of the Sicilian independence movement. This was not forgotten by the people in 1860, when Italy started to be united under the House of Savoy in the north of the peninsula. Guiseppe Garibaldi, a charismatic leading figure in the Risorgimento movement of Italy, set his eyes on the Kingdom of Two Sicilies once most of the north was united. Sicily and the south of the peninsula, while wanting to be rid of the dynasty in Naples, were less interested in the anti-clerical pro-industrial message being pushed by the House of Savoy and instead launched an internal struggle separate from the movement in the north.

Garibaldi was a young upstart that attached himself to the Savoy early on and helped lead the struggle against the Austrians in the north. Once the Austrians were defeated, Garibaldi, more nationalistic than most of his allies, wanted to keep pushing south until Italy was fully united under the Savoy banner. Garibaldi decided to launch an audacious expedition to conquer Sicily, raising a small force of around 1,000 men. These 1,000 volunteers (the Mille) consisted of soldiers, young nationalists, workers, and opportunists, extremely loyal to Garibaldi himself. Garibaldi had his work cut out of him, while the Sicilians chaffed under the yoke of the Bourbon Neapolitans, they were a different people than the northern Italians. Mostly agrarian and uninterested in industrialization, they were also deeply religious and loyal to the catholic church. The House of Savoy was used to uniting people under a pro-industrialization message and a rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church and its clerics. This message had to be modified if Garibaldi was going to succeed. Garibaldi would especially drop the message of anti-church and employed priests (some of whom even fought) in his columns of men to put an image of church support of his cause. In advance of the expedition, representatives and agents were sent to Sicily to stoke the population’s support and an uprising broke out in Palermo on 4 April 1860, which was violently and brutally suppressed by the Neapolitan Bourbon forces there.

Garibaldi set sail from Genoa on 5 May, 1860 with his around one thousand volunteers and landed at Marsala in Western Sicily on 11 May. His landing was aided by good timing as the Bourbon navy, trying to stop Garibaldi before his landing, were afraid to engage Garibaldi’s ships at Marsala due to the coincidental presence of two British Royal Navy vessels. Fearful of sparking a wider war, they let Garibaldi land unopposed, although the British remained neutral in the expedition, denying aid and supplies to both sides. Initially, Garibaldi’s prospects didn’t look great, most of his men were untrained and ill-equipped for the task at hand, but planned on tapping into the Sicilian people’s resentment to bolster their forces. This surging of his manpower with Sicilian volunteers however didn’t appear right away. The Thousand, with their flashy red shirts and grey trousers, were not taken seriously at their landing.

Garibaldi found little interest from the Sicilians to support his cause, as they were hesitant to support his tiny force against 20,000 Neapolitan forces loyal to King Francis II. Garibaldi declared his intention to liberate the island from Naples, while also declaring himself dictator of the island in the name of King Victor Emmanual II of Savoy and began his march towards Palermo. He was met by a force of Neapolitans twice his size at the three-hour long Battle of Calatafimi, resulting in a mostly inconclusive engagement. However, the battle was a massive moral blow to the Neapolitans as they retreated upon running out of ammunition, leaving Garibaldi’s thousand to press towards Palermo. Only at this point did the Sicilian people and partisans see that Garibaldi may have a chance, but he had a large obstacle to overcome, the Sicilian capital city, Palermo. Palermo had around 18,000 forces loyal to King Francis II but were led by an incompetent 75-year-old commander. Once Garibaldi laid siege to the city on 27 May, the population of Palermo (around 180,000) rose up and aided the Thousand, allowing Garibaldi to enter the city and capture portions on the first day. The Bourbons retreated and shelled the lost sections of the city, killing hundreds of civilians in the process that further stoked resistance by the population. By May 28, the Bourbon troops found themselves cornered and began to fight back against the resisting population but they were unable to gain momentum against the Thousand and the popular uprising. Two battalions of well-trained Bavarian mercenaries employed by the Bourbons arrived and began to push back the Mille. Although Garibaldi began to lose ground and men, the Bourbons started facing uprisings in Catania and other parts of Sicily, and quickly realized that with the population uniting against them and the morale of their men beginning to collapse, they would have to surrender the city and retreat eastwards back to the mainland. On 30 May, they surrendered Palermo and retreated fully on 6 June 1860.

While Garibaldi’s Thousand is the most well-known expedition, he did not conquer the island alone. In all, around 20,000 volunteers began to arrive from other parts of Italy to aid the Mille and land around various areas of Sicily. It was these new arrivals that ultimately convinced King Francis II’s forces to abandon the island and return to defend their holdings in mainland Italy, allowing Garibaldi and the Savoy forces to march east, fighting retreating Bourbon forces and gaining more troops from Sicilian partisans in the process. Finally on 1 August, the Bourbons surrendered the whole of the Island after losing engagements in Messina and Syracuse, allowing Garibaldi to establish a dictatorial government under the authority of King Victor Emmanual II and uniting Sicily to Savoy Italy.

The Roman Question

When you think of Italy, you of course think of Rome. Rome, known as the “Eternal City,” was not the eternal capital of Italy, however. For 1,394 years, Italy was a divided peninsula with various city states and petty kingdoms populating the peninsula. Greater European powers also fought over and captured whole swaths of the “boot” more times than we can breakdown in this article. It was not until the 1870 unification of Italy that Rome became the capital of the peninsula again for the first time since 476 CE. In this article we will outline the capture of Rome from the Papal States in 1870 and its effect on the Italian peninsula.

By the Western Roman Empire’s fragmentation in 476, Rome had already ceased to be what it once was and was a depopulated remnant. At its height, the city boasted a population of between 1-2 million people but was reduced to a mere 30,000 after the Imperial collapse. Rome would eventually recover due to the presence of the Catholic Church and the Popes calling it their home (for most of the Papal office’s history), with the city becoming the capital of the Papal States in 756 CE. The Papal States would continue to expand, grabbing territory in the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria, and Emilia-Romagna. However, by the start of the 17th century, the Papal states started to erode with various European powers seizing chunks in their bid to dominate Italy. This eventually culminated in the dissolution of the Papal States in all but name by 1859, with only Rome and some surrounding territory remaining under temporal control of the Pope.

The new Kingdom of Italy, under the Sardinian house of Savoy and King Victor Emmanuel II, wished to crown its achievement of uniting the peninsula for the first time since the Roman Empire by making Rome their capital, but in their way was Pope Pius IX, who considered Rome his sovereign right and territory. The debate over Rome’s ownership became to be known as the Roman Question. This resulted in a standstill between the two factions as Italy did not want to storm Rome and oust the Pope, fearing a sharp religious backlash from its staunchly catholic population and an international public relations disaster. Additionally, a French garrison defended the city, preventing Italy from seizing it however this did not prevent the Kingdom from declaring in 1861 that Rome was its capital.

In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War erupted forcing Napoleon III to remove his troops from Rome, leaving an opportunity for Italy to seize the city. Fearing the backlash mentioned earlier of violently taking Rome from the Pope, King Victor Emmanuel II offered to “protect” the Pope in place of its previous French garrison, with the true aim of peacefully taking the city once Italian troops arrived. The Pope saw through this ruse and declined the offer of protection, causing Italy to formally declare war in September of 1870, besieging the city later that month. Although Pius IX knew that his greatly outnumbered could not successfully defend the city, he ordered his forces to put up some resistance to emphasize to the world that the Pope was not giving up Rome willingly. Pius IX did instruct his forces in their resistance however to not push back too hard in order to limit bloodshed on both sides, resulting in 12 dead amongst his men and 32 amongst the Italian forces. The city fell to Italian forces on September 20th, 1870, and the Pope entered a phase referred to as the “Prisoner in Rome.”

While a “prisoner” in Rome, the Pope confined himself to Vatican hill and the Apostolic Palace, still conducting diplomacy as if he was a sovereign. He further rejected any deal with the Italians to become an Italian subject or to negotiate any church holdings within the city away. This status existed until 1929, with the Pope refusing to leave Rome until then. The Lateran Treaty of 1929 ended this self-imposed house arrest, establishing Vatican hill as Vatican City, a wholly separate 17 sq mile nation from Italy and providing financial restitution to the Church for the seized territory of the Papal States, officially ending the “Roman Question.”

Today, Vatican City is the smallest nation on earth and is the smallest by population, with only around 750 residents. The Pope remains head of state of Vatican City and an easy peace/relationship has been maintained by Italy and Vatican City ever since, with the Pope giving up sovereign claim of Rome outside his territory.

The Sinking of the USS Maine

If you are not American, you may not be familiar with the Spanish-American war and a principal cause, the sinking of a US warship, the USS Maine. If you are American, there is a term that goes together with the sinking of the ship, “yellow journalism” that may immediately spring to mind. We will be exploring both the sinking of the Maine and the impact the press had on the US government’s 1898 decision to declare war on Spain in the aftermath of the sinking.

In the late 19th century, the United States was mirroring behavior of western European empires but with a focus on its own hemisphere, specifically intervening in affairs in Mexico and other parts of Latin America. This behavior was an extension of the American concept of “Manifest Destiny” or the belief that the United States should and would dominate the North American continent from east to west coast. Once the western frontier was “won” those Americans turned their focus beyond the North American coastline and focused on the Pacific, Central, and South America, including countries and territories like the Philippines, Cuba, Puerta Rico, and Hispaniola. In their way however was the Spanish Empire, who controlled large chunks of the Caribbean and swaths of the Pacific. At the same time, the American press industry was undergoing a dramatic shift. Within the American constitution, the first amendment protects and enshrines press editorial freedom, allowing news corporations to be creative in their delivery of the news if the information being delivered to readers is not libelous towards the subjects of the stories, and in the late 19th century, newspapers started to push beyond the limits of what is factual news. William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer, both newspaper magnates, became known for delivering exaggerated, solacious, fabricated, distorted, or sensationalized stories and headlines in their respectively owned papers. This reporting behavior became known as “yellow journalism” in America. Today it is still very much an active practice in use by tabloid journals and magazines in the US, the UK, and around the world.

The Spanish Empire was a dying power in the 19th century, having been heavily weakened by centuries of sustained conflict with other European powers. Further eroding the power of the empire was a century of territorial instability with civil wars and overseas rebellion, crippling the Spanish economy. Lastly, the Spanish now had to contend with a burgeoning power threatening its interests, the United States. With America’s focus on expanding power beyond its borders and Cuba being only 90 miles away from the US mainland, it became a natural target of American expansionists. In 1895 Cuban revolutionaries launched an armed rebellion against the Spanish, kicking off the Cuban War of Independence. This rebellion was not the first, as Cuba had been in a state of on and off rebellion since the 1860s and garnered the sympathy of Americans, who only a century before had shaken off their own colonial overlords. Additionally, American economic interests were tied to Cuba, as they were a leading sugar importer to the US, with increased American government and economic concern growing as the instability in Cuba continued. Further damning against the Spanish was their use of concentration camps in this war and previous Cuban uprisings (the first use of this term and type of internment) and exploited by the American press for attention grabbing headlines. The United States under President William McKinley, attempt to act as a 3rd party negotiator to end the conflict, but the Spanish would promise reforms and routinely fail to deliver on them, trying the patience of the United States. The American public began to believe that war between the United States and Spain was justified to protect American interests and to aid the Cuban cause.

As the Spanish cracked down in Cuba and no end to the conflict in sight, in 1898 the American government dispatched a cruiser, USS Maine, to Cuban waters to “protect American citizens and interests.” This also served as a signal to the Spanish that the United States was willing to use naval and military power to get their way. The Maine arrived in Havana harbor on January 25th, where it stayed until suffering a large explosion on the 15th of February. The explosion ignited a powder store for the ship’s guns, nearly vaporizing one third of the ship. The explosion killed 261 sailors and marines out of the 355 total crew, only leaving 16 uninjured of the surviving 94.

Conflicting information immediately came out regarding the cause of the explosion, with President McKinley first being told it was an accident, along with numerous high ranking naval and civilian officials being told the same. One initial belief was that coal fire ignited the ship, causing the explosion and this was communicated to the Department of the Navy. Although a different narrative quickly overtook this, that a Spanish mine had caused the sinking of the Maine. The “yellow” press seized upon the perceived Spanish offensive action narrative, printing weeks’ worth of sensationalized headlines demanding revenge for the American deaths or reimbursing the US for its loss by granting Cuba independence. The public, after being bombarded by the overly biased headlines and coupled with often exaggerated news of concentration camps and Spanish atrocities (concentration camps and atrocities by the Spanish did occur but the American press often fabricated or exaggerated key details or incidents), advocated for war between America and Spain. War was declared on Spain by the United States two months later, with the rallying cry of “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain” entering the American lexicon, joining “Remember the Alamo” as one of the most memorable phrases in US 19th century history, being taught in American textbooks to this day. The press and those with economic interests in Cuba got exactly what they desired, forcing a confrontation for their own interests by utilizing bias and misinformation. The Spanish were quickly defeated and humiliated in the subsequent war, with the conflict lasting just 16 weeks. In victory, the US took possession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, with Puerto Rico and Guam still being held as US territories to this day.

The United States and Spain each conducted their own investigations to understand what happened in the interim between the sinking and war, with Spain concluding that an internal explosion - likely from a coal bunker caused the sinking, with the US concluding that an external force, like a torpedo or mine was the cause.

But do we know the actual cause of the explosion over 120 years later? Numerous investigations have been launched to uncover the true cause of the explosion, as the naval mine or torpedo narrative is greatly disputed. The initial US inquiry in 1898 used testimony from the surviving crew and wreck divers to conclude that the ship was struck by a naval mine that ignited its forward magazine, as many survivors reported hearing two explosions. But this study had detractors within the navy who argued that a coal fire was the cause. In 1911, the Maine was raised from Havana harbor in a large operation where she was studied before being sunk again. This investigation concluded that an external explosion had indeed caused damage to the Maine and likely detonated its powder magazine. This investigation also was able to recover most of the sailors who went down with the ship and intern them in the US national military cemetery, Arlington. However, in 1974 another investigation led by US Admiral Hyman Rickover using photographs and wreckage pieces, with a book being released of the Rickover team’s findings in 1976. This study concluded that the explosion was not caused by an external explosion, but instead was caused by an internal explosion due to a buildup of methane and other gasses produced by the US Navy’s switch over to a more volatile coal type, igniting the magazine. To further muddle the investigation into the Maine’s sinking, National Geographic conducted an investigation of their own in 1998, using computer graphics for the first time. Their investigation was inconclusive, with differing opinions amongst the members as to the cause. The NatGeo team concluded that a small mine COULD have caused the blast but that an explosion due to coal gas build up could also be the cause. In 2002, an investigation by the US television network, the Discovery Channel, concluded that a coal bunker fire and explosion was the cause, with a design flaw in the metal separating the coal bunker from the magazine showing that a fire could have penetrated the barrier and led to a massive explosion.

The cause of the sinking of the Maine, whilst still disputed to this day, may never be fully known but the ship’s sinking and the American press’ sensationalism of the incident is absolutely a main cause of the Spanish-American war. Although ensuring protection of editorial integratory and news reporting is key in today’s 21st century America and the UK, looking back on the press’ actions around the Maine’s sinking and the subsequent US declaration of war provides us with one of history’s greatest example of government policy being affected by public sentiment and opinion being galvanized by a biased press.