Frenchmen, you will no doubt recognize in my conduct the zeal of a soldier of liberty and of a devoted citizen of the Republic. Liberal, beneficent, and traditional ideas have returned to their rightful place through the dispersal of the odious and despicable factions which sought to overawe the Councils.

Napoleon Bonaparte, "Proclamation to the French Nation" (November 10, 1799)

There is no denying the fact that the French Revolution created NAPOLEON BONAPARTE (1769-1821). It was this man who, in 1799, combined a passion for power with his genius for leadership. Although much of what Napoleon accomplished over fifteen years seemed to undermine the principles of 1789, the end result was that many of the achievements of the Revolution were made French realities. Indeed, these realities were also made manifest across Europe.

Napoleon was born August 15, 1769, on the island of Corsica, the son of a petty or low noble. He trained at a military school and so the wars of the French Revolution gave him the opportunity to test his skills. In 1793, when he was only 24 years old, Napoleon's artillery pushed the British out of Toulon. In 1795, he saved the Convention from a Royalist insurrection. In 1796, he was given command of the French Army of Italy. It was during his ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS against the Austrians that Napoleon's talent for military strategy was first demonstrated. He tasted glory -- he could never do without it. He knew he was headed for greatness. He was aware, that he was a "world-historical figure," a "great man," "a hero in history." He later confided that

In Italy I realized I was a superior being and conceived the ambition of performing great things, which hitherto had filled my thoughts only as a fantastic dream.

In November 1797, Napoleon was ordered to plan an invasion of England. Aware that France had a weak navy compared to that of England, Napoleon decided to strike the British by attacking British commerce in Egypt and India (which supplied cotton for British mills). He left France with 35,000 men and took Cairo. Napoleon's meagre fleet, however, was destroyed at the Battle of the Nile by Nelson's navy. Meanwhile, Napoleon sent glowing reports back to France.

While all this was going on, things were not that peaceful back in France. Political unrest, financial disaster, and war with Europe compelled Napoleon to return. France needed a saviour and Napoleon recognized himself as that saviour. In October 1799, and without informing his troops in Egypt, Napoleon landed in France. A conspiracy was already underway against the lame five-man Directory. Some politicians realized the need to seize power and establish a strong executive. Perhaps a tyrant was needed.

On November 10, 1799 -- the 18th BRUMAIRE of the Year VIII -- the Directory was overthrown by a coup d'etat and Napoleon became a military dictator. The French Revolution had entered yet another stage of its history. The French people welcomed Napoleon -- the bourgeoisie, in particular, expected Napoleon to protect the wealth and influence they had gained as a result of 1789.

A new constitution was drawn up which specified that three Consuls would share power as a sort of triumvirate. Napoleon, of course, was one of these Consuls. His ambition, however, forced him to aspire to much more. In 1802, Napoleon was made first Consul for life with the right to choose his successor. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. So, by 1804, the fate of both France and Europe depended upon this one man. Well, what sort of a man was he?

Like most men of stature and power, Napoleon's was a complex personality. We naturally think of Alexander, Augustus, Charlemagne, Peter the Great, Hitler and Stalin. His intellectual ability was clearly impressive. He had grandiose ideas. He had a philosophic mind. He could work 18 to 20 hours at a stretch without so much as a break in concentration. He was, as one French historian put it, "a typical man of the 18th century, a rationalist, a philosophe who placed his trust in reason, in knowledge and in methodical effort." But Napoleon was no disembodied brain -- his personality was not pure intellect. He also had a love of action and a boundless ambition. "I live only for posterity," he said, "death is nothing . . . but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day." He was an artist, a poet of action, for whom France, Europe and a mankind were but instruments. He had charisma, he could move men to obedience, to loyalty and to heroic acts. He was also quite arrogant -- he manipulated people at will. "A man like me," he once said, "troubles himself little about the lives of a million men."

Living in a revolutionary age, Napoleon observed firsthand the precariousness of power. He knew what happened to Louis XVI. He knew that the Girondins had been executed and that Robespierre had fallen victim to the Reign of Terror. Napoleon assumed that he would not make the same mistakes. He knew that he must become both a statesman and a tyrant. He had to consolidate the Revolution and bind together the different social classes of the French nation.

His domestic policy then, is crucial to our overall understanding of Napoleonic France. Here, he was clearly influenced by the Revolution. He was also affected by the ideas of the philosophes. He considered himself "enlightened." There are five areas of domestic policy worth our attention: government, religion, law, education and the economy.

Government

Napoleon provided France with a strong centralized government -- a government he would himself dominate, as an emperor, a Caesar. Previous French monarchs could not overcome political barriers (the remnants of feudalism, an obstinate nobility, local traditions and legal problems). But, when the Revolution basically swept away these remnants, administrative unity could become a reality. This left an opening for a man like Napoleon. So Napoleon created an army of officials -- civil servants and bureaucrats -- an army which reached into every village, town and city. The entire nation was linked together under rational administration. The result was that Napoleon concentrated power and this provided him with taxes and soldiers.

Napoleon also had to shape public opinion -- this was accomplished by crude forms of propaganda, but more importantly by the use of secret agents, arbitrary arrests, and executions. Like all dictators -- we think of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin -- Napoleon relied on public opinion to prevent hostile criticism. In other words, dissent was nearly impossible. Printers and booksellers swore oaths of allegiance and all newspapers fell under state control. So, by repressing liberty, subverting republicanism and restoring absolutism, Napoleon reversed some of the liberal gains of the Revolution. He favoured equality before the law and careers open to talent BUT he believed that political liberty threatened the efficiency of the state with anarchy. He would govern in the interests of the people as an enlightened but absolute ruler. He was Plato's philosopher-king made reality.

Religion

In terms of religion, Napoleon bordered between deism and atheism. I suppose you could say that Catholicism as a religion of salvation had little meaning to him. But, like Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Marx, Napoleon believed that religion was little more than the cement which held society together. Again, we are reminded of Marx when he remarked that "religion is the opiate of the people." According to Napoleon, religion promoted national unity and prevented class war -- it kept the people meek and mild instead of strong and independent. He made every effort to close the divide between the State and the Church, a divide created by the Revolution. The Temples of Reason (i.e., the churches) and the Cult of the Supreme Being, erected in the early 1790s, were too abstract for Napoleon. How could he expect the French common people to have understood them? So, his desire was to reconcile Church and State. Such a reconciliation would gain for Napoleon even greater approval of his people.

Shrewd, calculating and intelligent, Napoleon knew exactly what he was doing. It was for these reasons that he negotiated an agreement with the Pope. The Concordat of 1801 recognized Catholicism as the favoured religion of France -- not the state religion. The clergy would be selected and paid by the State, but consecrated by the Church. So, in terms of religion, Napoleon basically guaranteed one of the rights mentioned in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen -- religious freedom. However, the Church did not regain land confiscated during the Revolution, nor did they have the right to collect the tithe and the French clergy, though consecrated at Rome, remained under state control. Napoleon had achieved another of his aims -- Jews, Protestants and Catholics could freely practice their religion. But the Church was under state control. Although the people seemed to get what they wanted, so too did Napoleon.

Law

We mentioned that one of the causes of the Revolution was that 18th century France was plagued with numerous and sometimes conflicting codes of law. These codes obstructed national unity and administrative efficiency. Although the National Assembly had made the attempt to rectify the situation, they always had other things on their mind. Napoleon pressed for the completion of the project. So, he instituted the CODE NAPOLEON which incorporated the great principles of 1789: equality before the law, careers open to talent, freedom of religion, protection of private property, abolition of serfdom, and the secularization of the state. The Code, however, also had its less-liberal side. Workers were denied collective bargaining, trade unions were outlawed, and a system of labour passports was instituted. Women were declared to be inferior to men by law, and children had no rights at all. Of women, Napoleon once remarked,

the husband must possess the absolute power and right to say to his wife: Madame, you shall not go out, you shall not go to the theatre, you shall not visit such and such a person: for the children you bear, they shall be mine.

Education

Like some of the philosophes and the majority of active revolutionaries, Napoleon favoured a state system of public education. The curriculum would be secular and schools would be managed under the direction of the state and not the Church. For Napoleon, education would serve a dual role. State funded education would provide him with capable officials necessary to administer his laws and trained officers to man his army. The young would also be indoctrinated to obedience and authority. Napoleon established the University of France -- a giant board of education that placed education under state control. To this day, little has changed -- education is strictly centralized with curriculum and academic standards set for the entire nation. Women, of course, were excluded. "Marriage is their whole destination," Napoleon once wrote. Women did not need education, all they needed was religion.

Economics

Napoleon's economic policies were designed to strengthen France and increase his popularity. To stimulate the economy and serve the interests of the bourgeoisie, Napoleon aided industry through tariffs and loans. He built or repaired roads, bridges and canals. He established the Bank of France. He kept careers open to men of talent and provided bread at low prices. He stimulated the employment of artisans and did not restore ancient feudal rights.

Napoleon was not a democrat -- nor was he a republican. He was, he liked to think, an enlightened despot, the sort of man Voltaire might have found appealing. He preserved numerous social gains of the Revolution while suppressing political liberty. He admired efficiency and strength and hated feudalism, religious intolerance, and civil inequality. Enlightened despotism meant political stability. He knew his Roman history well -- after 500 years of republicanism, Rome became an empire under Augustus Caesar.

Napoleon's domestic policies gained the popular support he demanded. But it was his military victories that mesmerized the French people. Napoleon realized the grand dream of Louis XIV -- the mastery of Europe. Between 1805 and 1807, Napoleon defeated Austria, Prussia and Russia becoming the virtual ruler of the Continent. He embraced his own "art of war" that stressed rapid offensive attack over defensive positions (similar to the German Blitzkrieg). Surprise and speed were essential ingredients. So too were efforts to confuse his opponents: he supplied newspapers with incorrect information, he launched secondary offenses and he sent dense screens of cavalry ahead of his marching columns. He wanted to both surprise and demoralize the enemy. His troops were amazing. They marched fifty miles in 36 hours during one campaign in Italy in 1796. They accomplished 275 miles in 23 days during the Austrian campaign in 1805.

While he made every effort to humiliate and demoralize his enemy, Napoleon also understood the necessity of maintaining the morale of his own troops. So, he shared the dangers of war with his own men. He did not wait on a hill -- rather, he led the charge. An army based on honour, vanity and personal loyalty is difficult to overcome. Alexander, Augustus Caesar and Charlemagne were all aware of this. By 1810, Napoleon dominated nearly all of Europe. Belgium, vast territories of Germany, Holland, Italy, Westphalia and Spain had all been annexed. Napoleon's "Grand Empire" also included Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden and Denmark.

While Napoleon and his armies were busy securing their military domination of Europe, Napoleon also set about to extend his reforms within France to other lands. His officials instituted the Code Napoleon, organized a corps of civil servants, opened careers to talent, and equalized taxes. Serfdom was abolished as were manorial dues and the courts of nobility. Freedom of religion was permitted, guilds were abolished, uniform systems of weights and measures were established, roads and canals were built, and secular education was promoted.

Why did Napoleon bother? Well, his desire was efficient administration and the support of the conquered peoples (like the ancient Romans, Napoleon gave the people offers they could not refuse). In fact, most people of the conquered nations considered Napoleon to be their "great liberator." But there is another side to the story. Those lands which Napoleon conquered became satellite states which were exploited for the benefit, not of the Grand Empire, but for France. So, Napoleon had a difficult task on his hands -- how to control such a vast territory of land? However, the real threat came not from the Continent, but from England, France's perpetual enemy. Between 1803 and 1805, Napoleon tried to invade the English but it was not to be. Instead, he instituted the CONTINENTAL SYSTEM which barred all countries under French control to trade with England. However, thanks to smuggling, piracy, and trade with the New World, England was able to thwart Napoleon's plan. Meanwhile, Napoleon had problems with Spain; Germany fought her own wars of liberation; and Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 came to be the beginning of the end.

The Napoleonic wars came to an end in March 1814. Napoleon was removed as Emperor to the island of Elba and a Bourbon monarch returned to the French throne. Napoleon made one last ditch effort in 1815 -- his last 100 days, and then he was exiled to St. Helena, a small island hundreds of miles off the west coast of Africa. Napoleon died in 1821.

Napoleon was a real man as well as a legend. It was Napoleon himself who helped to create this legend. He wrote his memoirs while exiled on St. Helena between 1815 and 1821. He tells us his aim was to defend the Revolution and consolidate its gains. He emerges as a champion of equality, a supporter of popular sovereignty, a destroyer of privilege and a lover of peace. According to Napoleon, his vision was to create a United States of Europe. He wanted to free Europe from tyranny, oppression and despotism. As we know full well, this never happened. However, he did help to consolidate many gains of the Revolution. But, such a view ignores the downside of Napoleon -- his repression of liberty, the general subversion of republicanism, and the oppression of conquered peoples.

Historians would agree on two things about Napoleon. First, he was an extraordinary man, a self-made man. His drive, will, military genius and charisma made him a great man, a world historical figure, a man who made history. Machiavelli would have found Napoleon to be his perfect prince. Second, by spreading revolutionary ideals and institutions, Napoleon made it impossible for the restoration of the ancien regime. After Napoleon there was no turning back: feudalism was dead, society was secularized, the modern nation state replaced the dynastic state, and the bourgeoisie became the new class of privilege and status.

Lecture 15: Europe and the Superior Being: Napoleon

By Matthew D. Zarzeczny, student at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio

 

"I wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe," declared Napoleon nearly 200 years before Europe finally unifies under the new currency of the European Union.  The dream of a strong Europe in which the French, Spanish, Italians, and Germans coexist peacefully as a single united body is being realized today, but it is a dream that was held by Napoleon, based on his vast knowledge of history, and hoped for by many great men after him. Finally at the end of this century this dream is beginning to become a reality.

The Grand Empire of Napoleon replaced the ailing Holy Roman Empire which was basically a continuation of the ancient Roman Empire.  Napoleon had crowned himself emperor of the French in 1804 and in 1806, he ended the Holy Roman Empire once and for all by replacing it with the Confederation of the Rhine, a French protectorate.  An admirer of Alexander the Great, Napoleon created a new system in Europe that in some ways mimicked the ancient Macedonian Empire.  Just as Alexander was king of Macedon, hegemon of the Corinthian League, great king of Persia, and pharaoh of Egypt, Napoleon was emperor of France, king of Italy, mediator of the Swiss Confederation, and protector of the Confederation of the Rhine.  It is also possible, had he succeeded in Russia, that he would have been protector of a Northern Confederation composed of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (a possible precursor to a new Polish kingdom), Sweden, and Denmark.

Alexander was not the only historical figure Napoleon emulated.  Just like the Bourbons and Habsburgs before him, Napoleon placed his family and marshals on the thrones of other conquered European nations and he himself married an Austrian princess named Marie-Louise in 1810.  His brother Joseph was king of Naples and then king of Spain; his sister Caroline and his marshal Murat were king of Naples; another brother, Louis, was king of Holland; and still another, Jerome, was king of Westphalia.  One of Napoleon's marshals, Bernadotte, became king of Sweden, but he was an opponent of Napoleon facing him on the battlefield at Leipzig in 1813.  All this territory was bound to Napoleon by personal and familial rule cemented by the strength of his Grand Army.  With crushing victories like Mantua (1796-7), Austerlitz (1805), and Wagram (1809), Napoleon became a god of war, the Caesar of his time, and also like Caesar he dreamed of great projects that would carry on his memory for many years to come.  He tried to make Paris the capital of the world and created beautiful monuments and buildings like the Arc de Triomphe and La Madeleine church.  He planned others like the Bastille Elephant Fountain, a palace in Paris for his son, and another palace in what was to become the second city of the French Empire, Rome.

Like the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian the Great, Napoleon wished to give to his empire a unified code of law which is known as the Napoleonic Code, something which has influenced European law and even the law in Quebec and Louisiana to this day.  To reward his subjects he created the Legion of Honour and like Charlemagne before him Napoleon was mindful to the importance of education and so he created the University of France and the baccalaureate exam.  All of this was to create the memory of greatness that Napoleon wanted for his vast European empire.

Napoleon had wanted to conquer Europe (if not the world) and said, "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility." This idea of "the United States of Europe" was one later picked up by Victor Hugo, Aristide Briand, and Winston Churchill.  After suffering two World Wars which devastated Europe in the early half of this century, the people of Europe and their leaders finally realized the horrors of modern warfare and the absolute necessity to end disputes with the pen and not the sword.  Further while the United States and the Soviet Union gained in importance during the Cold War, the once great European empires crumbled as their colonies gained independence.  It became evident that the only way for the nations of Europe to play a prominent role in world affairs was to unify.  By itself, Germany is an industrial powerhouse and by themselves the United Kingdom and France are militarily capable nations as nuclear powers and politically powerful as members of the United Nations' Security Council. But by themselves they cannot compete with the economic, military, and political dominance of the United States.  With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the only possible counterbalance to the United States is a unified Europe. As many European nations are allies to the United States and are members of N.A.T.O., having the two most powerful forces in the world as friends could lead to more peaceful resolutions of the world's problems.  For Europe, its role in world affairs will once again be prominent and many of the old hatreds and rivalries amongst the great European states may finally begin to die.  While Napoleon sought to create such a union through military victories like the Romans before him, perhaps by creating this union through peaceful diplomacy, it will not be swept away by the guns of war.  Although each state of Europe may keep its language and culture, through a common coinage and common interests, there may at last truly be "but one people in Europe."

Bibliography

Durant, Will & Ariel, The Story of Civilization: The Age of Napoleon New York : Simon & Schuster; 1975.

Gallo, Max, Napoléon Le Chant du départ Paris : Pocket; 1997.

Haythornthwaite, Philip J., The Napoleonic Sourcebook London : Arms and Armour Press; 1990,

Lentz, Thierry, Napoléon "Mon Ambition Était Grande" Découvertes Gallimard, Italie; 1998.

Markham, Felix, Napoleon New York : Penguin Books; 1963.

Napoleon and the Unification of Europe

In 1799, after the French Revolution had quieted into the Thermidorean Reaction, a brilliant general named Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the Directory and came into power as leader of the Consulate, beginning in 1799. Under Napoleon, France became a nationalist power, expanding its territory into Italy and exerting its influence over other powers. Napoleon consolidated his rule by suppressing rebellions in France, normalizing relations with the Church in the Concordat of 1801, and streamlining the French law system in the Napoleonic Code. By 1804, Napoleon was so powerful that he declared himself Emperor.

Defeating the various military coalitions the other powers of Europe threw against him, Napoleon won battle after battle: Marengo (1800), Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstadt, and Friedland (1807). He built a vast empire of dependant states, forced Czar Alexander I to ally with him in the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit, and controlled the majority of Europe. Everywhere he went he spread the reforms and influence of the French Revolution to a remarkable extent. Just about the only blemish on his record during the first decade of the 19th century was a stunning naval loss to Britain at the Battle of Trafalgar

Seeking to undermine Britain's sea power, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree in 1806, imposing the Continental System on Europe, which was meant to stop European countries from trading with Britain. Instead of hurting Britain, the Continental System hurt Napoleon. Upset by Napoleonic rule, Germanic nationalism got its start, and the Germans began to move towards Romanticism as an intellectual rebellion against French Enlightenment ideas. In Spain, the attempt to impose the Continental System led to the Peninsular War, a protracted guerrilla war that diverted French forces from the rest of Europe.

In 1810, Napoleon replaced his wife, Josephine, who had borne him no heir, with a younger wife, Marie Louise of Austria. They produced an heir, referred to as The King of Rome. Napoleon's happiness did not last, however, because at the end of 1810, Alexander I withdrew Russia from the Continental System. In 1812, Napoleon moved his Grand Army into Russia. Though Napoleons army pushed the Russians into constant retreat, the terrible Russian winter decimated Napoleon's Grand Army. Napoleon rushed home to raise a new army, but was defeated in October 1813 by an international coalition of armies at the Battle of Leipzig.

In 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba and Louis XVIII took the throne of France, returning a Bourbon to the throne that had been lost by Louis XVI just twenty years earlier. As the powers were just starting to negotiate a settlement, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France, raising an army during the period known as the Hundred Days. Napoleon's army was defeated by Wellington (Britain) and Blucher (Prussia) at Waterloo in June 1815. He was then exiled to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he eventually died.

The chaotic Europe left behind by roughly two decades of war was reorganized by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The major powers sent their top negotiators: Metternich (Austria), Castlereagh (Britain), Alexander I (Russia), Hardenberg (Prussia), and Talleyrand (France). The complex and delicate negotiations in Vienna created a stable Europe wherein no one power could dominate the others, as Napoleon's France had, for quite some time. Not until a century later, when World War I started in 1914, would another Europe-wide military conflict break out.

Napoleonic Europe (1799-1815): Summary

The History of The Patriarchs of Alexandria

And in those days Heraclius saw a dream in which it was said to him: "Verily there shall come against you a circumcised nation, and they shall vanquish you and take possession of the land." So Heraclius thought that they would be the Jews, and accordingly gave orders that all the Jews and Samaritans should be baptized in all the provinces which were under his dominion. But after a few days there appeared a man of the Arabs, from the southern districts, that is to say, from Mecca or its neighbourhood, whose name was Muhammad; and he brought back the worshippers of idols to the knowledge of the One God, and bade them declare that Muhammad was his apostle; and his nation were circumcised in the Hesh, not by the law, and prayed towards the South, turning towards a place which they called the Kaabah. And he took possession of Damascus and Syria, and crossed the Jordan, and dammed it up. And the Lord abandoned the army of the Romans before him, as a punishment for their corrupt faith, and because of the anathemas uttered against them, on account of the council of Chalcedon, by the ancient fathers.

When Heraclius saw this, he assembled all his troops from Egypt as far as the frontiers of Aswan. And he continued for three years to pay to the Muslims the taxes which he had demanded for the purpose of applying them to himself and all his troops; and they used to call the tax the bakt, that is to say that it was a sum levied at so much a head. And this went on until Heraclius had paid to the Muslims the greater part of his money; and many people died through the troubles which they had endured.

So when ten years were over of the rule of Heraclius together with the Colchian, who sought for the patriarch Benjamin, while he was fleeing from him from place to place, hiding himself in the fortified churches, the prince of the Muslims sent an army to Egypt, under one of his trusty companions, named Amr ibn Al-Asi, in the year 357 of Diocletian, the slayer of the martyrs. And this army of Islam came down into Egypt in great force, on the twelfth day of Baunah, which is the sixth of June, according to the months of the Romans.

Now the commander Amr had destroyed the fort, and burnt the boats with fire, and defeated the Romans, and taken possession of part of the country. For he had first arrived by the desert; and the horsemen took the road through the mountains, until they arrived at a fortress built of stone, between Upper Egypt and the Delta, called Babylon. So they pitched their tents there, until they were prepared to fight the Romans, and make war against them; and afterwards they named that place, I mean the fortress, in their language, Bablun Al-Fustat; and that is its name to the present day.

After fighting three battles with the Romans, the Muslims conquered them. So when the chief men of the city saw these things, they went to Amr, and received a certificate of security for the city, that it might not be plundered. This kind of treaty which Muhammad, the chief of the Arabs, taught them, they called the Law; and he says with regard to it: "As for the province of Egypt and any city that agrees with its inhabitants to pay the land-tax to you and to submit to your authority, make a treaty with them, and do them no injury. But plunder and take as prisoners those that will not consent to this and resist you." For this reason the Muslims kept their hands off the province and its inhabitants, but destroyed the nation of the Romans, and their general who was named Marianus. And those of the Romans who escaped fled to Alexandria, and shut its gates upon the Arabs, and fortified themselves within the city.

And in the year 360 of Diocletian, in the month of December, three years after Amr had taken possession of Memphis, the Muslims captured the city of Alexandria, and destroyed its walls, and burnt many churches with fire. And they burnt the church of Saint Mark, which was built by the sea, where his body was laid; and this was the place to which the father and patriarch, Peter the Martyr, went before his martyrdom, and blessed Saint Mark, and committed to him his reasonable flock, as he had received it. So they burnt this place and the monasteries around it....

When Amr took full possession of the city of Alexandria, and settled its affairs, that infidel, the governor of Alexandria, feared, he being both prefect and patriarch of the city under the Romans, that Amr would kill him; therefore he sucked a poisoned ring, and died on the spot. But Sanutius, the believing dux, made known to Amr the circumstances of that militant father, the patriarch Benjamin, and how he was a fugitive from the Romans, through fear of them. Then Amr, son of Al-Asi, wrote to the provinces of Egypt a letter, in which he said: "There is protection and security for the place where Benjamin, the patriarch of the Coptic Christians is, and peace from God; therefore let him come forth secure and tranquil, and administer the affairs of his Church, and the government of his nation." Therefore when the holy Benjamin heard this, he returned to Alexandria with great joy, clothed with the crown of patience and sore conflict which had befallen the orthodox people through their persecution by the heretics, after having been absent during thirteen years, ten of which were years of Heraclius, the misbelieving Roman, with the three years before the Muslims conquered Alexandria. When Benjamin appeared, the people and the whole city rejoiced, and made his arrival known to Sanutius, the dux who believed in Christ, who had settled with the commander Amr that the patriarch should return, and had received a safe-conduct from Amr for him. Thereupon Sanutius went to the commander and announced that the patriarch had arrived, and Amr gave orders that Benjamin should be brought before him with honour and veneration and love. And Amr, when he saw the patriarch, received him with respect, and said to his companions and private friends: "Verily in all the lands of which we have taken possession hitherto I have never seen a man of God like this man." For the Father Benjamin was beautiful of countenance, excellent in speech, discoursing with calmness and dignity.

Then Amr turned to him, and said to him: "Resume the government of all your churches and of your people, and administer their affairs. And if you will pray for me, that I may go to the West and to Pentapolis, and take possession of them, as I have of Egypt, and return to you in safety and speedily, I will do for you all that you shall ask of me." Then the holy Benjamin prayed for Amr, and pronounced an eloquent discourse, which made Amr and those present with him marvel, and which contained words of exhortation and much profit for those that heard him; and he revealed certain matters to Amr, and departed from his presence honoured and revered. And all that the blessed father said to the commander Amr, son of Al-Asi, he found true, and not a letter of it was unfulfilled.

Al-Baladhuri: The Conquest of Alexandria

'Amr kept his way until he arrived in Alexandria whose inhabitants he found ready to resist him, but the Copts in it preferred peace. Al-Mukaukis communicated with 'Amr and asked him for peace and a truce for a time; but 'Amr refused. Al-Mukaukis then ordered that the women stand on the wall with their faces turned towards the city, and that the men stand armed, with their faces towards the Moslems, thus hoping to scare them. 'Amr sent word, saying, "We see what you have done. It was not by mere numbers that we conquered those we have conquered. We have met your king Heraclius, and there befell him what has befallen him." Hearing this, al-Mukaukis said to his followers, "These people are telling the truth. They have chased our king from his kingdom as far as Constantinople. It is much more preferable, therefore, that we submit." His followers, however, spoke harshly to him and insisted on fighting. The Moslems fought fiercely against them and invested them for three months. At last, 'Amr reduced the city by the sword and plundered all that was in it, sparing its inhabitants of whom none was killed or taken captive. He reduced them to the position of dhimmis like the people of Alyunah. He communicated the news of the victory to 'Umar through Mu'awiyah ibn-Hudaij al-Kindi (later as-Sakuni) and sent with him the fifth.

The Greeks wrote to Constantine, son of Heraclius, who was their king at that time, telling him how few the Moslems in Alexandria were, and how humiliating the Greeks' condition was, and how they had to pay poll-tax. Constantine sent one of his men, called Manuwil, with three hundred ships full of fighters. Manuwil entered Alexandria and killed all the guard that was in it, with the exception of a few who by the use of subtle means took to flight and escaped. This took place in the year 25. Hearing the news, 'Amr set out at the head of 15,000 men and found the Greek fighters doing mischief in the Egyptian villages next to Alexandria. The Moslems met them and for one hour were subjected to a shower of arrows, during which they were covered by their shields. They then advanced boldly and the battle raged with great ferocity until the polytheists were routed; and nothing could divert or stop them before they reached Alexandria. Here they fortified themselves and set mangonels. 'Amr made a heavy assault, set the ballistae, and destroyed the walls of the city. He pressed the fight so hard until he entered the city by assault, killed the fathers and carried away the children as captives. Some of its Greek inhabitants left to join the Greeks somewhere else; and Allah's enemy, Manuwil, was killed. 'Amr and the Moslems destroyed the wall of Alexandria in pursuance of a vow that 'Amr had made to that effect, in case he reduced the city....'Amr ibn-al-Asi conquered Alexandria, and some Moslems took up their abode in it as a cavalry guard.

---

Source.

From: Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa, History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, trans. Basil Evetts, (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904), pt. I, ch. 1, from Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. I, pp. 489-497, reprinted in Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 336-338;

Philip Hitti, trans., The Origins of the Islamic State, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), Vol. I, pp. 346-349, reprinted in Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 338-339.

Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Jeff Benton September 27, 2014

 

This is the Celtic cross at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Christchurch XP Anglican and First United Methodist Church. (Photo: contributed )

 

Today, the cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. It was not always so. In the early centuries after the time of Jesus Christ, there were other symbols: a dove, a ship, an anchor and a lyre. The best known of these early symbols is the fish. Koine Greek was the common language of the eastern Mediterranean, the language of education in the Roman Empire, and the language of the Christian New Testament. The Greek for fish, ichthus, served as an acronym for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.”

The cross itself, either as a vertical stake without a crossbar or as a vertical member with a crossbar was not used. It had the negative connotation of the horrific public execution of criminals.

The first two cross-like visual representations of the crucifixion were oblique references to the crucifixion and were based on Greek letters. The vertical tau was surmounted by the curled rho; the tau represented the cross, and the rho Christ’s head. The tau-rho dates to the late second century.

The second of these early representations of the crucifixion is the chi-rho, which is associated the Emperor Constantine the Great at the beginning of the fourth century. The chi-rho, sometimes depicted in the Latin alphabet as XP, is still used today.

Although making the sign of the cross — forehead, breast, shoulders — is known to have dated from at least as early as the beginning of the second century, it was not part of Christian iconography, or symbols, until the fourth century. Then, explicit depictions of the crucifixion first occurred as an empty cross. However, the crucifix itself, with the dead Jesus on the cross, did not appear until the sixth century.

In any case, from at least the early second century, Christianity and the cross were so closely connected that Christians were accused of worshiping the cross.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches use the crucifix as a focus of religious devotion, as do some Lutheran and Anglican parishes. In general, however, most Protestant denominations have — until recently perhaps — rejected sacred images and religious art. Crosses, especially the Latin cross, no longer raise questions in most Protestant churches, although crucifixes still do.

Perhaps as popular as statues of St. Francis of Assisi — the most popular image of a saint for Protestants — is the Celtic cross. This cross is a Latin cross superimposed on a circle at the intersection of the upright and crossbar. Considering its probable origin, its popularity could be surprising.

Legend has it that in the early fifth century, St. Patrick combined the Christian cross and the pagan circle, symbolic of the Celtic sun god. Alternatively, it could be symbolic of the supremacy of Christ over the Celtic sun god. It is probably an example of syncretism, the combination of two or more religions, considering that Celtic Christianity retained many beliefs and practices of Celtic paganism. No surviving Celtic crosses date from this early period of Christianity in Ireland.

By the eighth century, high crosses were set up across Ireland. These free-standing crosses, often covered with sculpted images, took the basic Celtic cross form. The Celtic cross died out about 1200; by that time Roman Catholic Christianity had been dominant in the British Isles for several centuries.

The Celtic cross form can also be found in Scotland and the north of England. Variants can be found in the west of France and the northwest of Spain, once both Celtic areas.

In the mid-19th century, with the Celtic Revival that was associated with Irish nationalism, free-standing Celtic crosses were again erected in Ireland, especially in cemeteries. These were much more simple and more likely to be standardized in their form than the ancient high crosses. The practice spread from Dublin throughout Ireland and to the rest of the world.

The popularity of the Celtic cross should not be surprising: it has lost its original association with the Celtic sun god. The obelisk has also lost its original symbolism as a sunray of the Egyptian sun god, Ra.

Cross was not always symbol of Christianity

Press Association

theguardian.com, Wednesday 17 September 2014

Detailed scans of bones show that he sustained 11 wounds at or near the time of his death, nine of them to the skull

The full skull of the skeleton of Richard III found at the Greyfriars church excavation site in Leicester. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Richard III died in the thick of battle after losing his helmet and coming under a hail of blows from vicious medieval weapons, new research has shown. Detailed scans of the king's bones show that he sustained 11 wounds at or near the time of his death, nine of them to the skull.

The blows to the head were clearly inflicted in battle and suggest that he was not wearing his helmet.

There was another potentially fatal injury to the pelvis that may have been inflicted after death.

Professor Guy Rutty, from the University of Leicester, said: "The most likely injuries to have caused the king's death are the two to the inferior aspect of the skull – a large sharp force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon.

"Richard's head injuries are consistent with some near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse after it became stuck in a mire and was killed while fighting his enemies."

Richard III, the last English monarch to die fighting, perished at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. It was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the Houses of Lancaster and York, and paved the way for the Tudor dynasty.

Scientists and historians have been studying the king's remains since his skeleton was found under a car park in Leicester.

Evidence suggests he was not the hunchbacked, deformed monstrosity depicted by William Shakespeare.

Experts now know he had a bent spine with a "well balanced curve" that could easily have been concealed by clothing and would not have affected his prowess in battle. He probably did not walk with a limp.

The latest research, published in The Lancet medical journal's online edition, involved whole body CT (computed tomography) X-ray scans and micro-CT imaging.

Marks left on the bones by weapons were also analysed.

The serious injury to the pelvis should have been prevented by Richard's armour, according to the researchers. They speculate that it might have been inflicted after death, with the armour removed.

Co-author Professor Sarah Hainsworth, also from the University of Leicester, said: "Richard's injuries represent a sustained attack or an attack by several assailants with weapons from the later medieval period.

"The wounds to the skull suggest that he was not wearing a helmet, and the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands indicate that he was otherwise still armoured at the time of his death."

Commenting on the study, Dr Heather Bonney from the Natural History Museum in London said the research provided a "compelling account" of the way Richard III met his death.

She added: "Wherever his remains are again laid to rest, I am sure that Richard III will continue to divide opinion fiercely for centuries to come."

Richard III died in battle after losing helmet, new research shows | UK news | theguardian.com

By Mark Corcoran

The conventional interpretation of what happened on a Sarajevo street on June 28, 1914, is relatively straightforward.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir presumptive to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife, Sophie, were both shot by a 19-year-old assassin, an ethnic Serb named Gavrilo Princip.

Princip was a member of a militant nationalist group that vowed to liberate the southern Slav peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the foreign rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He was trained and armed by Serbia's intelligence service, although Serbia's government denied any prior knowledge of the plot.

Photo: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie (in back of car) in Sarajevo before they were both assassinated (Imperial War Museum)

The Austro-Hungarians were convinced they had a political smoking gun, and the 'July Crisis' was born.

Strident, unrealistic diplomatic demands were made of Serbia and predictably rebuffed. On July 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war.

This precipitated a disastrous chain reaction across Europe. Within one month:

• Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary
• Germany declared war on the Russians and Serbs
• France declared war on both Germany and the Austro-Hungarians
• Britain declared war on the Germans

And with Britain at war, so too was her Empire. Australia swiftly pledged support, with opposition leader and future prime minister Andrew Fisher declaring: "Australians will stand beside our own to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling."

Generations of history students have since been taught that the two bullets fired by Princip led to the deaths of tens of millions, as Europe descended into a four-year conflict, unprecedented in its industrial scale and ferocity.

The assassination is widely viewed as the immediate trigger for the war, but to what extent was this a conflict already waiting to happen?

One hundred years on from that fateful day in Sarajevo, historians are still analysing and debating the deeper causes of the conflict.

"The presumption that it was caused by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand is one of the great furphies of history" says historian Paul Ham, author of 1914: The Year The World Ended.

He told ABC Radio's Conversations program: "Austria used the war to its own ends. It was a case for making war on Serbia. The death of the archduke could have been handled in all manner of ways."

Historians argue that the underlying causes of the war were varied and complex.

Balkan nationalism, an arms race, muscular colonial empire-building, political paranoia, simmering historical vendettas and even a deadly-efficient rail network, all played a part in propelling Europe down the rails and into the abyss of war.

Scramble for Africa as united Germany looked to secure export markets

Photo: Four 'Askaris', or local soldiers, in German East Africa. (Bundesarchive, Wikimedia Commons)

In the late 19th century a newly unified Germany emerged as an industrial power in Europe, a new economic force that wanted a colonial empire.

"[Otto von] Bismarck [the first chancellor of a united Germany] didn't initially seek an empire, but he saw belatedly in the 1880s that this was electorally popular, and certainly Germany needed the export markets for its products," says Ham.

"So it then tried to aggressively wedge its way into the African scramble in the 1890s – and this was treated with dismay by France, Britain and Russia, who were the de-facto owners of the world."

After Kaiser Wilhelm II acceded to the throne as Emperor of Germany in 1888, he sacked Bismarck in 1890 and embarked on a more aggressive foreign policy.

"A deeply vulnerable, paranoid, rather sad individual", says Ham. Kaiser Wilhelm strengthened relations with Austria, but decided not to renew a treaty with Russia.

Fearing Germany's long-term intentions, in 1894 France and Russia formed an alliance.

Paranoia and hatred fuelled European arms race

Photo: Britain's HMS Dreadnought pictured in 1906. (Wikimedia)

In 1898, Germany began building a navy to challenge Britain's supremacy of the seas.

This alarmed the British, who started construction of a new, bigger class of battleships called dreadnoughts.

Germany launched its own dreadnought program, and the naval arms race was on.

Concerned by German intentions, the British formed strategic alliances with France and Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm stepped up the rhetoric.

"In 1908, he had a famous interview with the Daily Telegraph in London, where he proceeded to declare that the British were mad, mad, mad as march hares....and to declare that the German navy would crush the British navy in the naval race which was then at its peak," says Ham, who argues that Kaiser Wilhelm’s paranoia had an undercurrent of truth.

France fielded the largest army in Europe, while Russia was rapidly developing an even bigger military. Germany felt squeezed between two growing military powers, equipped with new weapons.

"He was right, Germany was being encircled. The Triple Entente, that is Russia, France and Britain, had the largest armies, had the most powerful navy, shared the largest empires the world had ever seen – which were being denied any access to Germany," Ham says.

Had France and Britain been prepared to accommodate or conciliate with Germany, Paul Ham believes there may have ultimately been a different outcome, a view not shared by some historians.

Other military technologies were being urgently developed that would enable the industrial-scale slaughter to come. New machine guns were being manufactured that would soon be used with devastating effect on the front lines, the Germans had developed a powerful type of heavy artillery capable of obliterating trenches and fortifications, and the British were mass producing a new type of highly accurate rifle.

"They all saw it coming. Military commanders knew what these guns and weapons could do," says Ham.

"This idea that they were somehow stupid, that they stumbled into war, accidently groped their way into war - that does a great disservice to their intelligence".

Fear, paranoia and historical hatreds all contributed to the momentum. While the Germans felt encircled, Ham argues that the French were driven by a “visceral sense of revenge...to punish Germany” for the loss of the territory of Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

War By Timetable: did Europe's rail system make war easier?

Photo: German soldiers in a train carriage on their way to the front early in World War I (1914). Messages scrawled on the side of the car include 'Trip to Paris' and 'See you on the boulevard'. (Wikipedia)

"War by Timetable" was the provocative title of a 1969 book by one of the most acclaimed historians of the 20th century, AJP Taylor, who theorised that the cause of World War I could be traced back to an unexpectedly efficient transport system.

Taylor said none of the major powers actively sought a conflict prior to 1914, but depended on deterrence, through an ability to mobilise their armies faster than their rivals.

He argued that in the decade leading up to war, the generals of all the great powers had developed elaborate plans to move vast numbers of men by rail to confront any threat; a strategy intended to intimidate any potential aggressor while also serving as a useful extension of foreign policy.

The problem, according to Taylor, came following the 'July Crisis' of 1914, when the strategy, which was intended to prevent a war, had precisely the opposite effect.

All across Europe hundreds of trains and millions of soldiers were set in motion, swiftly and inexorably towards conflict.

Mass troop mobilisation had effectively become a declaration of war as politicians and diplomats were shunted aside by generals and station-masters.

"The First World War had begun - imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age," wrote Taylor.

Germany accused of deliberate push for war

In 1961 German historian Professor Fritz Fischer created a sensation when he claimed Germany had secretly used the July 1914 crisis as a pretext to deliberately launch a pre-emptive war against both France and Russia, even if that risked conflict with Britain.

Fischer’s research was based on access to official documents held by both the West and East German governments, that had remained unopened since the end of World War I.

He challenged the long-held orthodoxy that the conflict had been triggered by a series of political and military blunders on all sides.

When the English language version of Fischer's work was first published in 1968, the New York Review of Books noted: "It is still possible to find people who will tell you that both World Wars were a tragic, avoidable mistake ... For these people, the appearance of Fritz Fischer’s book is a blow of almost lethal destructiveness."

Balkan powderkeg ready to blow as Ottoman power faded

Photo: Ottoman troops with a flag during the pre-World War I Balkan Wars (National Library of France/Wikipedia)

While European empires were rapidly extending their influence around the globe, the Ottoman Empire, dubbed "the sick man of Europe", was in terminal decline.

Four centuries of Ottoman rule over the empire's Balkan territories was increasingly challenged by the nationalist movements of Serbs, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Albanians and others.

These ethnic groups ultimately drove the Ottomans out of their European territories, and gained their independence after fighting each other and the Ottomans in the two Balkan Wars of 1912-13.

Meanwhile, in 1908, the Austro-Hungarians had formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which they had been occupying since 1878. The move outraged Russia and Serbia, two nations linked by their Slavic and Orthodox identity, who dreamed of Bosnia's inclusion in a new Balkan Slav state.

In the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, the stage was set for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Australia played no part in the events leading up to the War, but having been committed to defend Britain to the last man and last shilling, Australians would be forced to live -  and die - with the consequences.

Some 330,000 Australians served overseas. Of those, 61,500 were killed and around 155,000 wounded.

Origins of World War I: How trains, technology and a teenage assassin helped pitch Europe into conflict - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Paul Crompton | Al Arabiya News
Saturday, 25 January 2014

Since King Farouk was overthrown on July 26, 1952, his side of the story has seldom been told. (Photo courtesy of Nabila Nevine Halim / egyptianroyalty.net)

On July 25, 1952, King Farouk was trapped in his palace by revolutionaries, who then forced him into abdication and exile. The dramatic tale unfolds through a copy of the king's long-forgotten memoirs obtained by Al Arabiya News.

“The emperor allowed himself to be overthrown like a child being sent to bed,” wrote 18th century Prussian King Frederick the Great about Peter III, the 34-year-old Russian Tsar who was forced to abdicate after a coup by his wife Catherine.

Egypt’s 32-year-old King Farouk may have a similar story to his ouster. As the great-great-grandson of Muḥammad Ali, an Ottoman army commander of Albanian origins who seized control of Egypt in 1805, Farouk carried a long monarchical tradition that had evolved from Muhammad Ali’s ambitious military despotism to a modern, albeit weak constitutional monarchy.

And now, on July 25, 1952, he was racing through the streets of Alexandria in his Mercedes Benz at 80 mph with his wife, infant son, three daughters, an English nanny and aide-de-camp in tow, chased by the very military who had served him.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, who plotted the overthrow of King Farouk (File photo: AFP)

What had happened?

Several army officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, an Egyptian deputy commander who would later become president of Egypt, sought to overthrow what they saw as a scandalous, corrupt, out-of-touch king. Known as the Free Officers Movement, their coup had been some time in the making.

Figurehead

To gain the respect of other non-involved officers, Nasser sought out Mohammad Naguib - a widely respected general - to spearhead the coup.

However, like everyone with power, Farouk had his sources of information. Shortly before his overthrow, the king got wind of the upcoming coup d’état and sent out orders of them to be arrested.

The plotters realized that there was no going back.

Mohammad Naguib (C) and Nasser (L) pictured here shortly after the Free Officers took power in 1952 (File photo: Reuters)

The eventful first day of the coup, July 23, has surprisingly mundane beginnings. As Farouk himself wrote in his memoirs, which were first published in serial form from Oct. 12, 1952 in a British Sunday weekly, Empire News: “A group of not more than 30-40 malcontent officers … were to walk casually into army headquarters one by one, and overpower the duty officers.”

With the officers in control of most of Cairo's military, including army aircraft, Farouk had lost control of the capital in just one day. Now, on the 24th, the consolidated Free Officer-led army, was preparing for a military advance on Alexandria, a coastal city where the king was in residence. Upon their arrival in the city on the evening of the 25th, the officers announced a curfew that all people and vehicles on the streets of Alexandria would be fired upon.

Fateful drive

Farouk, who, on the 25th, had been staying at Montaza Palace while the coup had been brewing, decided that it had “become the perfect air target” for Free Officer-controlled bombers.

Instead, he quickly chose to take refuge in Ras el–Tin Palace in the heart of Alexandria, where “my people would see the Royal Flag of Egypt at my palace mast.”

After all, as Farouk said, he did not want rumours to abound that he had committed suicide.

A view of Ras el-Tin palace in Alexandria, where Farouk fled when the Free Officers seized the city (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Kamel / egyptianroyalty.net)

Packing his family into two cars, with a submachine gun resting on the knee of his aide-de-camp, Farouk sped through the empty streets - narrowly avoiding an encounter with two armoured cars - hoping to get to Ras el-Tin as fast as possible.

Shortly upon arrival, Farouk, his family, servants and around 800 army loyalists who had braved the drastic Officer-enforced curfew barricaded the entrance of the palace.

Farouk and his wife, Narriman, decided to rest. Then, when he later awoke and went to the balcony, he was fired on by two besieging Free Officers, whose bullets narrowly missed him.

Farouk was confused. “It was difficult to grasp the idea that a handful of revolutionaries had managed to seize the entire Egyptian army,” he wrote. He also faced a dilemma of whether to order his men to open fire on other officers in army uniform.

Farouk the marksman

Soon, however, the king’s loyal Sudanese guard returned fire, with Farouk, a self-professed skilled marksman, also choosing to grab a rifle.

In the ensuing gunfight, which would prove relatively non-lethal, the king “got three of them in the legs, and one machine gunner in the right shoulder. But it was sickening work, and I took no pleasure in it.”

Farouk, seen here in the 1930's bird hunting, described himself as an excellent marksman. (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Kamel / egyptianroyalty.net)

If Farouk’s story of shooting back is true, it would make him possibly the most recent monarch to personally return fire against his attackers. (20 years before, Albania’s self-proclaimed monarch, King Zog, had shot at his would-be assassins while on a visit to Vienna. Coincidentally, Zog was Farouk’s card-playing partner when the former, by now exiled, lived in Egypt. And it was to Zog that Farouk - in his most famous quote - originally said: “Soon there will be only five Kings left-the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.”)

Besiegers

While the besiegers had cut the palace phone line, the king was able to get through to his “loyal” prime minister, Ali Maher, on an emergency phone line he had kept “for just such emergencies.”

Farouk also called Jefferson Caffery, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, and asked him to use all his influence to help the beleaguered royal family.

The U.S. stance towards Cairo at that time was not particularly positive, due to the American government’s dislike of Farouk. However, they did not want a massacre, and told the Free Officers to avoid bloodshed.

Ali Maher, Farouk's last prime minister (Photo courtesy of portalestoria.net)

Caffery, who was aware of his duties to try and get the royals out of the country, told him that he “would raise heaven and earth to get them out of the country,” according to the king.

Some time later, a speeding car flying the U.S. flag with Caffery’s secretary inside was allowed into the palace by the “Naguibists,” with orders to stay with the royal family until the U.S. envoy had some assurance from the officers that their lives would not be in danger.

Cautious diplomacy

According to Anwar Sadat’s memoirs, sending only the secretary to the Ras el-Tin palace was “cautious” Caffery’s way of not antagonizing the rebels, and because he knew the king seemed to have lost.

Sadat then wrote up an official ultimatum in Maher’s office – that Farouk should abdicate in favour of his infant son, Crown Prince Ahmed Fuad, and leave Egypt later by six o’clock in the evening - the very same day - on July 26.

Ahmed Fuad, now Fuad II, is seen here with Farouk and Narriman, shortly into exile on the island of Capri, Italy. (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Kamel / egyptianroyalty.net)

The revolutionaries were in a hurry, because as Nasser had told Sadat, “we want to get him out of the way quickly in order to have stability.”

Farouk, realizing he had no leg to stand on, and with an apparent sudden urge to protect his family, accepted the Officer’s ultimatum that a “trembling” Maher presented to him. He would abdicate, on condition that the abdication papers be formal and constitutional, and that he would be allowed to depart with full military honours.

The two conditions, Farouk said, were given for his son’s sake. By leaving Egypt with some degree of dignity, his story would not make “bitter reading” for when baby Fuad grew up.

It was arranged that the royal family would leave on the royal yacht, the Mahroussa, just six hours after Farouk signed his abdication.

Family ties

With this formal agreement signed, Farouk - now dethroned- now faced the difficult task of explaining the new, humiliating status quo to his wife, Narriman, and three young daughters, Farial, Fawzia and Fadia.

Narriman agreed instantly to accompany him on his uncertain departure, although, as Farouk had told her, doing so might mean she would never see her mother again. Fuad, who was now (technically) king, would travel with them.

Farouk’s daughters (from his ex-wife of nearly 11 years, Queen Farida) also agreed to join him.

This still, taken from a 1950's Egyptian film, depicts Farouk leaving Ras el-Tin palace upon his abdication (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Kamel / egyptianroyalty.net)

With the family in agreement to stay together, they turned to the urgent task at hand – packing their belongings. As they had left most of their clothes at Montaza Palace, they were only able to bring around a suitcase each of personal belongings.

After receiving Narriman’s beloved mother, Caffery and his personal assistant, and Maher, the premier, Farouk and his family, along with Fuad’s nurse, made their way to the quayside to depart on the Mahroussa.

‘Fanatical ones‘

The Free Officers kept their word that Farouk’s abdication would have some level of dignity befitting a monarch. Sadat arranged an aerial flyover salute for the king – who had donned his admiral’s uniform to show his respect for his loyal navy - while a consignment of soldiers, Naguib and several other Officers would see him off.

It is in this encounter that Farouk and Naguib meet. In the space of a day, one had become powerless, while one had become (at least theoretically) all-powerful.

Now dethroned, Farouk and his family left Egypt on the Mahroussa, the massive Egyptian royal yacht (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Kamel / egyptianroyalty.net)

“Little” Naguib, who arrived at the yacht just as they setting sail, came up to Farouk with a flushed expression.

“Sir, I am not responsible for this,” said Naguib, stepping on-board.

“There are others – fanatical ones – I was not called upon – I implore that you do not hold me personally responsible,” said the army general.

Farouk believed that these were the words of “a man being pushed too far from behind,” adding “I can only fear for his life now.”

Farouk’s prediction was not wholly accurate, but then not completely untrue. After being deposed by Nasser as Egypt’s first president less than three years later, Naguib would live under house arrest and was not allowed by to emerge from obscurity until Mubarak’s presidency began in 1981. After giving interviews on his brief time as president and penning his memoirs, Naguib died in 1984.

But on that fateful day, who was Naguib referring to?

Had he realized that he was merely a pawn in Nasser’s political game – or was he referring to the possible unseen hand in the coup, the Muslim Brotherhood?

To read the second part of the series, entitled “Did the Muslim Brotherhood overthrow Egypt’s King Farouk?”  click here.

To view the entire seven-part series, visit the King Farouk: The Forgotten Memoirs homepage.

The overthrow of Egypt’s King Farouk: a dramatic departure from power - Al Arabiya News

By Dana Huntley 

Originally published by British Heritage magazine. Published Online: January 30, 2013

Wallingford is a quiet riverside town on the Thames, with its violent history remembered as part of the distant past.

It's a picturesque backdrop for good old-fashioned murder

Sitting on the south side of the River Thames a dozen miles below Oxford, Wallingford is a quiet, almost sleepy, market town of 7,000. Baskets of flowers hang from shops and public buildings surrounding the market square. Folks pop in and out of Greggs and Boots, and wheel their shopping trolleys from Waitrose to the car park. The Tourist Information Centre at the Town Hall closes for lunch and the pubs are quiet through the midday. Yet behind the placid façade of rural English life, murder lurks behind every hedge and garden wall.

Welcome to "Causton," county town of the fictional county of Midsomer. For 15 seasons Wallingford and the surrounding countryside and communities have been the principal location of the popular ITV production Midsomer Murders. Through 2011, the series' hero was Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, played with understated relish by the popular John Nettles. On his retirement from the role, he has been replaced by nephew John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon). Here in the bucolic heart-of-England countryside, the bodies have been dropping like proverbial flies since 1997. It's been calculated that Midsomer is among the most dangerous places on earth, bested in its murder rate only by Cabot Cove, Maine (Murder, She Wrote). In fact, Wallingford is as quiet as it appears. The frenetic Criminal Investigation Division of Midsomer Murders just doesn't exist. Wallingford does have a police station, of course—open 10-2 three days a week, principally for the convenience of people needing to pay traffic fines. For other matters, the phone line to Thames Valley Police is posted.

For fans of the series, which has been broadcast in more than 220 countries worldwide, however, the town is recognizable indeed. The Market Place and the Town Hall at its head have been filmed in many scenes over the years. The Corn Exchange is now the community theatre, and doubles as Causton Playhouse. Its resident amateur dramatic company, the Sinodun Players, has provided extras in crowd scenes a number of times over the years. Locals are accustomed to spotting familiar faces in the crowd. Wallingford Bridge and local shops also make an appearance from time to time.

Yes, it might seem just all a bit of play-acting, a picturesque town making a picturesque background for that most entertaining and English of genres: the good, old-fashioned murder mystery. After all, that's why we love those murder mysteries so. Against the most unlikely of backdrops, the most unnatural of crimes occur. From a world of order, disorder erupts. Enter DCI Barnaby or Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot or Brother Cadfael, and ultimately order is restored. Murder mysteries are comedies, not tragedies. Justice is done and the world is put right.

Ironically enough, however, Wallingford's benign appearance is deceptive. Far from being simply a lovely generic market town, the south Oxfordshire community is a most appropriate locale for its law-and-order setting.

Back in the 9th century, Wallingford was a border town, linking Wessex and Mercia at its ford across the Thames. It was a frontier town, fortified by Alfred the Great as one of the most important Saxon "burghs" against the rampages of invading Vikings. Two centuries later, William the Conqueror ordered a castle built to control those same Saxons. It dominated the Thames Valley for the next 600 years. After the fortress became the last garrison to hold out for the king during the Civil War, Parliament had the castle razed in 1652. In those more violent centuries, law and disorder often depended on who was holding the weapons. Only the earthwork ramparts of Wallingford Castle remain today, splayed across quiet gardens and meadows in the heart of town at the river's edge.

Since the 17th century, of course, both law and the administration of justice have become more codified. For that, much credit is due Judge William Blackstone. A young professor of law at nearby Oxford University, Blackstone was appointed Magistrate (or "Recorder") of Wallingford in 1749 and purchased the property here in 1758 that was home until his death in 1780. Here, Blackstone wrote and published four volumes called Commentaries on the Laws of England that became the first codification of English civil law. Just a few years later, Blackstone's Commentaries formed the basis of the new United States Constitution and legal system. The guidebook to Wallingford asserts a bit optimistically, "Blackstone's is a familiar name to most Americans."

The judge and father of English jurisprudence was a churchwarden in the town parish of St. Peters, and actively campaigned for the church's rebuilding in the 1770s, contributing significantly to the building of its spire and donating its Communion Silver. On Blackstone's death in 1780, he was buried in St. Peters and his memorial adorns its aisle. Unhappily, the church is no longer an active house of worship, but you can sign out the key at the Town Hall TIC.

If Wallingford has a historic role in law, however, it also takes great pride in its connection to those lovely English murders. For the town was also the home of Agatha Christie. The unexcelled master of the genre moved to Wallingford in 1934 with her husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, and lived in the community until her death in 1976. Their home, Winterbrook House, is privately owned today, but sits behind a hedge just off the street on the southern outskirts of town. A blue plaque marks the house. The best-selling author of all time (with more than 4 billion books and counting), Dame Agatha Christie generated more corpses and solved more murders than even Midsomer Murders can boast. While Christie took care to avoid local publicity, her one active involvement was to serve as the president of the Sinodun Players from 1951 until her death. She and her husband had reserved seats for the troupe's performances at the Corn Exchange.

A regular worshipper at St. Mary's Church, Cholsey, on Wallingford's southern edge, Dame Agatha and her husband are buried together in the corner of Cholsey churchyard. A mossy tombstone marks their graves. It's not hard to imagine Dame Agatha popping in to the butcher's shop or arriving with Sir Max for a local theatrical production. It's not hard to imagine Miss Marple sitting on a bench in the market square, or DCI Barnaby greeting his wife in front of the Town Hall. Causton is, after all, meant to be an English "Our Town"—a nowhere and everywhere far from the urban noise and tarmac—where life is peaceful and timeless and values are untrammelled. It's what we want in our world, even if that's not the world we live in day-to-day.

Wallingford fits the bill just right. The Wallingford Museum (in the pretty 15th-century Flint House) unpacks its proud local history delightfully, complete with Christie's typewriter, books and correspondence, as well as details of the town's anonymous celebrity as "Causton." Judge Blackstone lies peacefully beneath the spire of St. Peters. Meanwhile, children play down in the water meadows next to Wallingford Bridge in the spire's shadow. And someone has to water all those hanging flower baskets. Sometimes life imitates art perfectly.

Murder Most Midsomer: How Life and Art Flow Together in the Market Town of Wallingford

By Dana Huntley

Originally published by British Heritage magazine. Published Online: November 05, 2013 

Every morning, grooms and riders lead race horses through Middleham's market square on their way to exercise on the moors.

'Much of the castle still stands, on high ground, its ramparts overlooking the gentle bare hills and valleys of Wensleydale'

There the bones lay, thrown unceremoniously into a hastily dug hole beneath the choir of the church of Greyfriars in Leicester. And there they remained, unmarked and unknown for more than 500 years, until last autumn when a team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester discovered them. Richard III, last king of the House of York, last king of the Plantagenet dynasty that had ruled England for 300 years, had been found. Next spring, his mortal remains will be interred in Leicester Cathedral with due ceremony. We told the story in our July issue.

If one of history's great mysteries has been solved by the discovery of Richard's bones, however, another still remains: Was King Richard III the villain that history has long portrayed him to be? Up in his home country of Yorkshire, they've never been of that opinion, so I went back to Yorkshire to unpack this back-story. After all, inquiring British Heritage readers always want to know.

The youngest child of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, was born in 1452 at the Yorkist stronghold of Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire. He spent much of his boyhood, though, in Middleham Castle, Wensleydale, some 50 miles northwest of York, being raised by his cousin, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick. The Wars of the Roses was heating up, essentially a Plantagenet family squabble between the then ruling Lancastrians loyal to the weak King Henry VI and the nobles who had rallied around Henry's kin, the Duke of York. Young Richard was only 8 when his father was killed in the Battle of Wakefield, and the next year his eldest brother was crowned King Edward IV following the Battle of Towton in 1461. Richard remained largely at Middleham until he was 12, when he joined his brother. For the 20 years until his death on Bosworth Field, Richard's life was devoted to battle and royal administration.

They were rough years—a time to be looking over your shoulder. Allegiances shifted constantly, treachery was commonplace and armed conflict always in the wings. By the time he was 17, the young knight, now Duke of Gloucester, had his own command at his brother's side. Though Richard did suffer from idiopathic scoliosis, he was by all accounts a skilful and fearless combatant, who played significant roles in Edward IV's victories in the battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury while he was still a teenager.

Among the many offices and honours that were conferred upon Richard by his brother over the years, none was more important than his role as president of the Council of the North. The vast holdings he had accumulated by forfeiture, kinship and marriage to Anne Neville, daughter of his cousin, made him the richest noble in the kingdom. From the early 1470s, Richard virtually ruled the north of England, and soon left his brother's court to return there, where his principal seat was Middleham Castle. He was not yet 21 and a veteran battle commander. Richard and Anne's only child, Edward, was born there in 1473.

Today Middleham is a quiet, small town—not much more than a village. Even now it takes a good hour to drive there from York; in Richard's time it would have been a hard day's ride. Much of the castle still stands, on high ground, its ramparts overlooking the gentle bare hills and valleys of Wensleydale. From the 1700s, Middleham has been the North's principal centre for the training of racehorses. Some 500 of them are now housed, trained and exercised daily on the moors surrounding the town. Modern thoroughbreds and quarter horses are a far cry from the military coursers and plodding wagon horses that clopped the town's cobbled streets in Richard's day.

Richard was often on the move, of course. His holdings stretched as far west as Penrith Castle in Cumbria and included castles at Skipton and Richmond, and Sheriff Hutton Castle a few miles northeast of York—the administrative and ecclesiastical capital of the North. In 1480, war with Scotland occupied him for several years. Both in York and across the north, Richard was highly respected as a lord and administrator. Then, in April 1483 his brother the king died, and the Duke of Gloucester headed south.

He had been named Lord Protector of his two young nephews, including Edward IV's 12-year-old son who was to succeed him as Edward V. The country and its capital were rife with the machinations of jockeying for political power, including the large and influential family of the queen, Elizabeth Woodville. On Richard's arrival in London, the young princes were ensconced in the royal residence of the Tower of London—where it would have been quite customary for a king to safely await his coronation. Not surprisingly, there are several versions of what happened next.

Putatively, Richard was informed that his brother's union to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid because of an earlier marriage. On June 22, the Bishop of Bath and Wells preached a sermon outside St. Paul's declaring the boys illegitimate and proclaiming Richard the rightful king. A petition was subsequently presented to the duke asking him to take the throne, to which Parliament later unanimously assented in a document called the Titulus Regius. Richard accepted and was crowned king on July 6 at Westminster Abbey. Up north in York and in Middleham, Richard's accession was joyfully celebrated. But it certainly wasn't everywhere. Every conveyance of power was contested in those turbulent 15th-century decades and no political act went unchallenged. Every noble had something to gain and something to lose.

That summer, the young princes in the Tower disappeared from public view. Now the king, Richard III has always been accused and held responsible. In fact, no one knows what happened to them—another of history's great mysteries still unresolved. What did happen was that Richard faced armed rebellion led by his former ally the Duke of Buckingham, and then the rallying of the last Lancastrian loyalists to Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond. Two years later, the king met Tudor at Bosworth Field, and the rest, as they say, is history.

That the triumphant Henry Tudor wanted the body of the dead king disposed of quietly is quite reasonable given the times. That subsequently Tudor historians, and artists like William Shakespeare, would be given to blackening Richard's reputation is rather understandable as well. So, was Richard III's legacy as dark and evil as it has been portrayed over the intervening centuries?

Let's go back to York, where Richard was affectionately known as "The Lord of the North." The city's tallest medieval gatehouse is Monk Bar, its upper story given to the city by Richard in 1484. Since 1992, Monk Bar has housed the Richard III Museum. Its exhibition puts Richard on trial for the murder of the two young princes, and visitors are invited to render their own verdict. Frankly, it is pretty camp and even tacky, and, of course, there are a plethora of souvenirs to be purchased (www.richardiiimuseum.co.uk). More seriously, however, focusing on what has proven flashy and dramatic, though totally unanswerable for five centuries, has obscured what we do know about the brief reign of Richard III.

After being crowned king for less than six months and having faced down an armed rebellion, in December 1483 Richard established the Court of Requests, where poor people without recourse to legal representation could have their grievances heard. The next month he instituted the notion of bail, to prevent the imprisonment and seizure of property of accused individuals before trial. Richard also directed that law be translated into English from the French it had written in from Norman times. And he abolished any restrictions on the sale and printing of books, effectively becoming the first monarch to champion freedom of the press.

That's not the sort of picture we usually see of the last Plantagenet king. Still, it's not a bad record of accomplishment for a king who spent his two-year reign largely occupied with defending his throne. Every medieval monarch had blood on their hands; it was the necessary and expected nature of their office, whether in Richard's case that included the blood of his nephews may never be known.

In the North Country, however, where Richard's Council of the North had materially improved both the rule of law and the economy, the Tudor portrayal of Richard III has never mattered. In York and in Middleham, the king's death at Bosworth Field was greatly mourned. To this day, on the anniversary of Richard's death a requiem mass is said in Middleham church.

Richard III in Yorkshire