Child Soldiers: An On-Going Practice Throughout the World

Michael Streich

May 25, 2013

First published in Decoded Past

 

In December 2012 a journalist in North Lebanon asked fifteen year Hussein what types of weapons he uses. “AK-47, AKMS, SKS, M16, M4...I know how to use many types of guns. I know how to use G#, FAL, Seminov…I participate in all the battles.” The boy told the reporter he would die as a martyr and wasn’t afraid to die. The interview was documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute. April 24, 2013, the German daily Bild featured a brief video filmed in North Waziristan depicting a small group of boys learning to fire various weapons. Some are orphans. All are ready to fight for al-Qaeda.

 

Child Soldiers in History

 

That young boys would be a part of military action was taken for granted during the Middle Ages. Several years ago, an attempt was made to consider English King Henry V as a war criminal for slaughtering prisoners at the 1415 battle of Agincourt. William Shakespeare’s play on the subject suggests that Henry reacted to the killing of boys - young men who stayed behind the lines guarding the baggage train. Contemporary British historians suggested that this massacre of boys may be overstated, although young men, some as young as twelve, filed the ranks of the infantry.

 

Boys were indispensable in wars. Over four hundred years later, as Britain forged an imperialist empire, its armies utilized drummer boys, “…a tough lot…soldier’s orphans and the like as young as ten years of age…they could hardly remember a life outside the barracks…” Writer Donald Morris’ detailed accounting of the tragedy at Isandhlwana (1879) notes that age was no barrier to both sides of the Zulu conflict.

 

If the few sources - some unreliable, can be trusted, the year 1212 was marked by several attempts on the part of charismatic youths to launch a Children’s Crusade. Recent scholarship questions the reliability of available sources and many general texts do not even mention this popular crusade. The Economist, in December 21, 2000, however, published a brief account of the crusade, blaming a small group of leaders inspiring the others. The writer gave valid historical parallels: “Adolescents defended Berlin against the Russians in 1945, ships’ boys were long a feature of the British navy…”

 

If any part of the fanciful medieval stories are true, the child-crusaders were in several cases captured and sold as slaves, drowned at sea, or settled in areas like Genoa, Italy. What was the parental response? According to the same dubious sources, the father of one of the leaders of the Children’s Crusade was hanged by angry parents. Some writers attempting to explain this crusade, reference the folklore tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but the legend is not traced to 1212 and there is no other evidence to support this analysis.

 

Historical Perceptions of Children

 

A basic problem lies in the notion that the past can be explained by contemporary standards, at least within industrial societies. The use of children as soldiers, for example, continues to be documented in over two dozen nations according to NGOs and organizations like UNICEF. The “rights of the child,” however, are relatively contemporary. Historians have referred to children in the Middle Ages, for example, as “little adults.” Jacques Le Goff, writing about social and cultural trends, comments that, “…childhood was not treated as a matter of serious concern…”

 

The twenty-first century has not changed the perception of children as commodities to be exploited by groups seeking power. A January 2012 report by Human Rights Watch, for example, details the use of children in Mali. According to observers, “…several were only 12 or 13 years old, all armed with big guns…” An April 2011 discussion on a WikiLeaks document by Spiegel Online notes that several inmates at the Guantanamo camp “were minors.” Spiegel profiled one detainee from Afghanistan who was 17 when captured as a “child soldier.”

 

Is There a Double Standard?

 

It can be argued that child soldiers were integral to the survival of a society, such as in the case of Ancient Sparta. The Agoge, an exceptionally rigorous training center for males, created the warriors famed in the Ancient world for their prowess. The contemporary debate, however, is fueled by societies that value children and hold deep sensibilities regarding childhood and youth. At the same time, western societies accept military prep schools and summer camps that serve to turn young boys into military ready recruits.

 

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) contains many protocols governing every aspect of children under the age of eighteen, including their use in military conflicts. Most member nations signed the Convention, although the United States Senate never ratified it. Despite such global efforts, however, children continue to be recruited and trained at very young ages in a practice woven deep in the history of many cultures: the exploitation of society’s weakest and most vulnerable members.

 

Resources

 

The children’s crusade: fairly holy innocents. (December 21, 2000). The Economist. Accessed May 22, 2013.

 

Flock, Elizabeth. Child soldiers still used in more than 25 countries around the world. (March 14, 2012). Washington Post. Accessed May 22, 2013.

 

Le Goff, Jacques. Medieval Civilization. (1988). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

 

Mali: Islamists Should Free Child Soldiers. (January 15, 2013). Human Rights Watch.

 

Morris, Donald R. The Washing Of The Spears. (1965). New York: Simon & Schuster.

 

Report on Sunni Child Soldiers in North Lebanon. (December 18, 2012). Special Dispatch No. 5097.  The Middle East Media Research Institute.

 

Schmitz, Gregor Peter. Guantanamo’s Child Soldiers. (April 28, 2011). Spiegel Online International. Accessed May 21, 2011

 

Sadly, Ancient Democracies are best viewed in the graveyards of Greece, Rome, and the Ancient Middle East. This tomb is in Turkey along the western coast.

 
The Rise and Fall of Democracy: Can it Happen in the United States?

Michael Streich    

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence begins with the ringing words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal…” Thomas Jefferson’s words go on to highlight the “unalienable” rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But, as students of American history have long pointed out, this would not become reality for over two hundred years. The development of a democratic society in which all members share both political and social rights, took a very long time in American history.

 

The Early Republic

 

Framers of the United States Constitution were cautious and followed the precepts known to them regarding representation. Only white males that owned property (land) could participate politically. The Constitution, as it was originally ratified, only allowed for the House of Representatives to be elected by direct popular vote. The President, ultimately, was elected by an Electoral College and Senators serving in the national legislature were appointed by state legislatures.

 

By the 1820s states began to change voting qualifications to open the franchise to all white males whether they owned property or not. Historians estimate that between 1824 and 1828, nearly one million new voters were eligible to participate in the political life of the fledgling nation.

 

By the 1840s, groups of women began to actively advocate for the right to vote. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention publicized the Declaration of Sentiments, written by early Feminist leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. The early Women’s Movement would join forces with a growing Abolitionist Movement, hopeful that their political emancipation would come with the emancipation of slaves. The 15^th Amendment proved them wrong.

 

The Post Civil War Years

 

The Fifteenth Amendment, adopted in 1870, upheld the right to vote by all citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” On the heels of the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing “equal protection of the laws” and “due process,” the Fifteenth Amendment enabled African Americans the opportunity to participate politically.

 

But even as Southern states sought to circumvent Reconstruction legislation designed to mainstream freedman into the political system, social equality was not addressed. Additionally, the clamor to include women in the political process met with deaf ears.

 

The “separate but equal” doctrine, affirmed by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v Ferguson, denied blacks social equality while prohibitive policies geared toward political participation kept blacks from exercising the vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other local devices in the South stifled the notion that “all men are created equal.”

 

Women finally achieved the right to vote in 1920 with the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment, although some territorial jurisdictions had already allowed women to vote in that last 1800s.  It was not until 1964 that the Twenty-Fourth Amendment did away with the “poll tax” as a requirement to vote in a national election. By 1971, citizens attaining the age of 18 were given the right to vote.

 

Social Equality in the United States

 

Enough evidence exists from the lives of post Civil War Radical Republicans that social equality between races was not a part of the political equality enshrined in federal law and Constitutional amendments. Social equality began with Brown v. Board of Education when the Warren Court ruled that separate but equal was “inherently unequal.” The inability of African American students to obtain an equal education directly impacted their ability to be successful in society.

 

Ultimately, the Civil Rights movement and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legislative initiatives would pave the road toward social equality for all citizens. Over two hundred years after Jefferson’s Declaration, the nation would truly become the world’s greatest democracy.

 

Sources:

 

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development

Addendum February 12, 2021

 

Can democracies survive? Venezuela, once a wealthy nation due to vast oil reserves, is led by a dictator, Nicholas Maduro, who is supported by Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Turkey, under Tayyip Erdogan, has grown closer to the Kremlin as any aspects of democratic government in Ankara have been weakened. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whom former President Trump calls his “favorite dictator” presides over an ever tightening government with fee personal freedoms.

 

In many so-called democracies elected leaders are being replaced by military groups as in Myanmar (Burma) where Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted February 1, 2021 by a military coup. Even India, in recent history a strong democracy, is showing movements weakening freedoms and parliamentary rule. As to the ten-year-old “Arab spring,” this turned out to be a media myth and wishful thinking on the part of western democracies.

 

There is also the fear that the Covid pandemic may bring out the weaknesses in some democracies as vaccination inequalities become apparent throughout the world.

 

In the United States, over 250 years of democratic tradition, albeit with many historical obstacles to overcome, may be in dire jeopardy with the growing divide between Republicans, Democrats, and “patriot-populists” tied only to Donald Trump and who will stop at nothing to appease their man. During one “rally,” they cheered "twelve more years" and the press have quoted individual MAGA followers proudly stating that Mr. Trump was their dictator.

 

Perhaps the fault lies in the American classroom where standards in American History have been obliterated for several decades. Additionally, American education has split decisively between non-public and public schools over the last few years with Trump’s Secretary of Education. Little wonder most Americans do not know their own history and can easily be exploited.

This can be seen in the formulation of policies favoring the private schools and weakening restrictions and regulations designed to bring education equity in all aspects of the classroom.

 

There is much to be done to rebuild a strong democracy with leaders of integrity that the citizens can look up to. There is much to be done to ensure that EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS, indeed to government itself, reads and knows the Constitution.

{First part of Article originally published in 2009 in Suite 101. Copyright of entire article belongs to Michael Streich. Any reprints require written permission.]

Kronstadt Uprising: Revolt Against the Bolshevik's Revolutionary System in Russia

Michael Streich

October 3, 2009

 

In March 1921 the sailors at Russia’s Kronstadt naval base rose in revolt against the Bolshevik-led government of V. I. Lenin. Kronstadt sailors had played a significant role in the October 1917 revolution and one historian characterized them as Lenin’s “praetorian guard.” Yet by early 1921, conditions in Russia had deteriorated, notably in the rural areas where many of the new recruits were from.

 

They felt betrayed by the revolution and attempted to return to the original ideals of the 1917 revolution which included “all power to the Soviets.” Historian Paul Avrich writes that the Kronstadt Revolt was the “proletariat rising up against the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

 

Causes of the Kronstadt Uprising

 

Lenin’s policy of War Communism was felt keenly in the cities and the countryside as requisition squads removed foodstuffs into the cities to keep the factories running. Although the Whites were becoming less of a threat to the Communist government, the on-going effects of the Civil War were everywhere. In Petrograd, severe food shortages as well as the dwindling supply of heating fuel posed serious problems.

 

The Kronstadt garrison reacted to these events with threats of militancy, forming committees to draft demands that included freedom of speech and the press. The sailors represented a variety of political ideologies but none of these were remotely in sympathy with the Whites or royalist tendencies. Despite this, Lenin branded them the tools of the “White Guard generals” and labeled their movement as “petty-bougeois counterrevolution…”

 

Response of the Bolsheviks

 

Tensions escalated as both sides refused compromise. Prominent leaders of the revolution and the government, men like Kalinin and Zinoviev, went to Kotlin Island to speak to the dissidents, only to be drowned in criticism and threats. The men once referred to as “the pride and glory of the revolution” by Trotsky, became the greatest single threat to Communist rule.

 

Under the leadership of S. M. Petrichenko, the revolting garrison was confident that their movement would spread beyond the walls of Kronstadt. This “expectation,” as stated by Leonard Shapiro, was sparked by the harsh treatment of the people of Petrograd where factories were bring forcibly closed, worker strikes and demonstrations responded to violently, and steep increases in food costs that left most inhabitants on the threshold of starvation.

 

The winter ice still shielded Petrograd from the heavy guns of the Baltic Fleet, notably the Petropavlovsk and the Sevastapol. Kronstadt was surrounded by smaller fortresses and initial attempts to take them had not been successful. The Bolsheviks brought in forces from other cities, hard-core supporters who would have no empathy with the Kronstadt defenders. The strategy worked, despite adverse weather conditions, and the naval base fell. Those that were not shot were sent to penal camps. Petrichenko, along with a few fortunate survivors, fled to Finland.

 

Results of the Kronstadt Revolt

 

Some revolutionaries like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman who were in Petrograd in March 1921 and left an account of events, were genuinely shaken. The Bolshevik leadership characterized the uprising as inspired by help from the West and by forces seeking to undo their power.

 

Without a doubt the uprising represented a serious threat and Lenin was forced to deal with it in the harshest possible way. Portraying the dissidents as counterrevolutionaries and White Guard tools mollified the average Russian. At the same time, Lenin phased out War Communism in favor of his New Economic Policy. The Kronstadt Revolt was soon to lose the very reasons for its inception.

 

Sources:

 

Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1974)

George F. Kennan, Russia and the West (New York: New American Library, 1961)

W. Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989)

Leonard Shapiro, The Russian Revolutions of 1917 (New York: Basic Books, 1984)

Adam Ulam, The Unfinished Revolution (New York: Random House, 1984)

[Copyright owned by Michael Streich; any republishing requires written permission. Article first published in Suite101]

Isolationists and American Foreign Policy:

Pearl Harbor Forever Ends a Failed Ideology

Michael Streich

November 11, 2011

 

On Monday, December 8, 1941, every U.S. Senator and representative except one, voted to go to war with the empire of Japan. Only Montana Representative Jeanette Rankin, a life-long pacifist, demurred. The Pearl Harbor attack united Americans and instantly converted the isolationists in Congress. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg recalled his own immediate change after receiving a telephone call about the attack Sunday at four o’clock in the afternoon: “That day ended isolationism for any realist.”

 

Isolationism before the Pearl Harbor Attack

 

Isolationism is still used to describe the ideology of those not willing to intervene in foreign matters if the impact of such affairs affects U.S. security interests. In the years before Pearl Harbor, isolationists believed that the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were natural barriers, protecting the United States from the anti-democratic regimes creating havoc in Europe and Asia.

 

Extreme isolationists believed that any U.S. assistance either directly or indirectly would result in foreign entanglements inconsistent with Constitutional prerogatives. They pointed to World War I and deplored the prospect of sending American boys to fight in foreign wars.

 

Isolationists Represented Liberal and Conservative Views

 

Pearl Harbor and World War II changed the meaning of isolationism. Pre-war isolationists that criticized Franklin Roosevelt’s handling of the war were, often ironically, dubbed reactionaries and anti-interventionists despite their life-long liberal pedigrees. This included Democrat Burton Wheeler and Jeanette Rankin. Wheeler, in his memoirs, comments that, “Never before had the question of whether one was a liberal or conservative turned on his view of foreign policy.”

 

Isolationists like Vandenberg hated Communism and fascism as much as those eager to commit to war. On September 15, 1939 Vandenberg wrote in his diary, “…I decline to embrace the opportunistic idea…that we can stop these things in Europe without entering the conflict.” Isolationists viewed every White House attempt to assist Britain and France as a potential door through which the United States would step into a long and bloody conflict much like World War I.

 

Senator Gerald P. Nye’s committee hearings on World War I, culminating in a controversial report in 1936, provided some ammunition for isolationists and Americans favoring neutrality. Historian Wayne Cole states that, “It is significant that the particular controversy that ended the investigation in 1936 involved President Woodrow Wilson’s role in World War I – not the activities of munitions makers.” Like Wilson, FDR appeared to be maneuvering the nation into war, a perception that led to later conspiracy theories linking Roosevelt to the Pearl Harbor attack. Senator Tom Connally writes in his memoirs that, “…the most effective medium for channeling American public opinion into isolationism during this period was the Nye Committee investigation…”

 

Connally blamed Gerald Nye and “his cohort” Arthur Vandenberg for using the committee hearings to publish “half-truths” in order to further their isolationist agenda. According to Connally, this included a blistering indictment of Wall Street and U.S. bankers that “duped” the government “…into shedding American blood” in 1917. Connally also identified different “schools” of isolationism, equating, for example, Burton Wheeler with anti-British sentiments. Another isolationist viewpoint was attributed to William Borah who believed in the two-ocean defense idea and had been one of the chief opponents of Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations.

 

Japanese Action Unites Americans

 

1941 was a crucial year for Britain as it struggled against what was perceived as an imminent invasion by Nazi Germany. In January 1941, as the issue of Lend-Lease was being debated in Congress, the New York Times stated that, given the scope of European affairs, the ideology separating isolationists from “interventionists” had become academic. According to the Times, “The Roosevelt Administration opposed ironclad isolation, insisting that a great nation must lift its voice against treaty violations and infringements of international law…”

 

Pearl Harbor ended the debate. A New York Times editorial, referring to the years of “Hamletlike irresolution,” concluded that the declarations of war “instantly united us” and brought a sense of relief to all Americans: “Their spirit was no longer troubled; their soul was no longer divided; they knew at last what they must do.”

 

The same sentiment had been expressed in Congress on December 8^th where one representative referred to the “war mad Japanese devils…” American hero Charles A. Lindbergh, a leader in the isolationist movement, volunteered to serve with the Army Air Corps. His acceptance was hailed as “a symbol of…newfound unity.”

 

Burton Wheeler’s early 1941 predictions that the “New Deal Triple A foreign policy [would] plow under every fourth American boy…” were not unfounded, but other observers compared the United States to 1917 when a declaration of war was almost too late. The Pearl Harbor attack, defended by General Tojo at his trial in 1947, forever ended isolationism.

 

The subsequent Cold War imposed an on-going interventionist policy supported by former isolationists like Arthur Vandenberg. The defense of democracy became a global imperative not by design but from the lessons of history and the impossibility of avoiding foreign entanglements.

 

References:

 

“America’s Role: A National Debate,” New York Times, January 19, 1941

Wayne S. Cole, Senator Gerald P. Nye and American Foreign Relations (The University of Minnesota Press, 1962)

Tom Connally, My Name Is Tom Connally (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1954)

“The Lone War Dissenter,” NPR, December 7, 2001

Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1952)

Burton K. Wheeler, Yankee from the West (Doubleday & Company, 1962)

[First published in Suitew101; copyright owned by Michael Streich. Reprints require written permission]

 

Enlightenment Ideas Challenge the Old Regime

Thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau Left a Long Legacy of Criticism

• Jun 29, 2009
• Michael Streich

Voltaire: Crush the Infamous Thing! - Mike Streich

Enlightenment thinking applied the rational principles of the Scientific Revolution to social and political institutions, seeking to liberate man from the Old Regime.

Writing in 1996, Russian history professor David MacKenzie ended his section on Jean-Jacques Rousseau by stating, “It should be evident why nineteenth century radicals and conspirators like Babeuf, Buonarroti, and Mazzini venerated Rousseau so greatly as their spiritual father.”

Rousseau and Voltaire, two of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers, may well have been the ideological architects of the French Revolution, influencing men like Robespierre and Mirabeau. Yet they were part of a larger movement that, taken as a whole, challenged the Old Regime throughout Europe.

Literary Revolt against the Status Quo

Enlightenment thinkers believed in the perfectibility of man, that the same rationalism used to explain the Cosmos in mathematical terms could be applied to the social condition. This meant challenging the fundamental underpinnings of the Old Regime: press censorship, capital punishment, religious intolerance, and the lack of an independent judiciary.

Particular criticism was leveled against the Catholic Church, which in France and Austria had immense land holdings and represented an entirely separate estate. “Enlightened despots” like Joseph II of Austria took on the church, bringing it under royal control. France was another matter.

Voltaire, when asked about the church, famously answered, “crush the infamous thing!” Rousseau was also a critic of the church, writing about moral laxity among priests and equating the hierarchy with the corrupt and extravagant nobility. Indeed, most bishops and archbishops came from the upper nobility.

Writing in the early 1840s, Mikhail Bakunin, the father of Anarchism, stated in a letter that “he shared Rousseau’s faith in the future victory of mankind over priests and tyrants.” (Kelly, 108) Not only did the church perpetuate mysticism and superstition to control the people, according to Enlightenment thinkers, but it was intimately allied with the ruling elites that merely exploited the masses.

Rousseau and the Social Contract

The Social Contract begins with one of Rousseau’s most often quoted phrases: “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau’s point is that natural freedom does not translate into natural rights because of barriers erected by the ruling elites. As in his book Emile, only nature can produce and stimulate the freedom of innate goodness. In contrast, the political, religious, and social institutions that maintained the status quo structures corrupted man. In the next century, Russian radicals would apply this concept to the millions of Russian serfs.

Other Enlightenment Thinkers

Philosophes like Montesquieu influenced the forms of government. Montesquieu’s book, Spirit of the Laws, called for, among other things, a separation of governmental powers, highlighting a strong and independent judiciary. The American idea of “separation of powers” and “checks and balances” was influenced by Montesquieu.

Scottish philosopher Adam Smith rejected mercantilism and government regulation of trade and business in The Wealth of Nations (1776), arguing that laissez faire would produce a prosperous and unfettered merchant and business class, creating in England a “nation of shop keepers.”

Men of Letters and Correspondence

The ideals of Enlightenment thinking were spread at fashionable salons, Masonic lodges, and coffeehouses. The proliferation of printing presses helped disseminate Enlightenment thinking. But it was the correspondence networks that perhaps most influenced the spread of progressive ideas. Voltaire and Diderot corresponded with Russia’s Catherine the Great, Diderot even accepting an invitation to visit Catherine at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

Long Term Effect of the Enlightenment

Although the 19th Century would rebel against sterile rationalism and foster movements like Romanticism and, in America, the Second Great Awakening, social philosophies, notably those of Voltaire and Rousseau, would fuel Utopian Socialism and subsequent movements of revolution. Long after death, Rousseau would prove that empires might rise and fall, but ideas live on forever.

Sources:

• Michael Burleigh, Earthly Powers: The Class of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2005)
• Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation Volume II (Alfred A. Knopf, 1969)
• Aileen Kelly, Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism (Yale University Press, 1987)
• David MacKenzie, Violent Solutions: Revolutions, Nationalism, and Secret Societies to 1918 (New York: University Press of America, 1996)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 

Alexander the Great Conquers Persia

Three Significant Battles Enabled the Greeks to Defeat Darius III

• Jun 27, 2009
• Michael Streich

Frequently out-numbered, Alexander demonstrated risk-taking as well as strategy against the forces of Darius III, ultimately conquering the empire of Cyrus.

Alexander the Great was only twenty years old when his father was assassinated in 336 BCE. After consolidating his power in Macedonia and putting down revolts in Greece, notably at Thebes, he turned his attention to the Persian Empire. A military risk-taker, Alexander was also a superb strategist, seen in the siege of Tyre, the Scythian defeat at the River Jaxartes, and his final battle against Darius III at Gaugamela (Arbela in older history texts).

Alexander Marches into Anatolia

Crossing the Hellespont in 334 BCE, Alexander hastened to Troy where he sacrificed to Athena and paid homage to Achilles, the legendary Greek hero he believed to be an ancestor. Educated by the great philosopher Aristotle, Alexander had become devoted to the works of Homer, traveling with a copy of the Iliad and influenced by the super-human exploits of past history.

The Persian satraps hastily gathered a force that included Greek mercenaries to stop Alexander. In that same year, the two forces met at the River Granicus. Against the recommendation of his generals, Alexander attacked immediately, massacring the Persian cavalry and infantry although almost losing his life in the process.

The Persians fled in disarray, leaving the Greek mercenaries to their fate. Several thousand of these unfortunates were sent back to Greece as slaves, the rest were massacred. Turning south, Alexander marched along the Aegean coast, capturing cities and leaving Macedonian garrisons that maintained control.

Syria and Persia Conquered

At the battle of Issus in 333 BCE Darius III confronted Alexander with a mighty army. The Persians relied on a larger force but would repeat mistakes made at earlier battles with the Greeks such as at Plataea and the Marathon plain. Alexander’s cavalry, positioned on the Greek right flank, attacked the Persian left flank, driving toward the army’s center. Darius himself was positioned on the left flank. Darius turned and fled, sending his army into a rout.

Alexander marched south to Egypt, accepting the surrender of numerous Persian cities and strongholds. Only Tyre and Gaza resisted. Both were besieged and taken. With the destruction of Tyre, Alexander also neutralized Persian naval abilities in the Mediterranean. Arriving in Egypt in 332 BCE, Alexander extended Greek influence, further beginning a process historians refer to as Hellenization.

The battle of Gaugamela was the last fight against Darius and would clear the way for Alexander’s triumphal entry into both Babylon and Susa. At Gaugamela Darius assembled a vast army, choosing the battle site himself. Much like at Issus, however, Alexander employed his infantry on the left flank and his cavalry on the right. He also kept men in reserve.

Alexander’s cavalry again helped to win the day as the Macedonian phalanx held back Persian onslaughts. Darius turned and fled. Alexander was now the master of Persia. Appointing Greeks to command garrisons, Alexander also retained Persian officials, particularly those that had treated him favorably.

Both Babylon and Susa were spared from destruction. The Greeks were under strict orders not to plunder or harass the inhabitants. Persepolis, the spiritual center of the Persian Empire, was not as fortunate. Accounts relate that the decision to burn the city after having looted the palaces and temples came during a night of riotous drinking and that Alexander himself danced naked before the flames of the city.

The destruction of Persepolis in 330 BCE was highly symbolic. In many ways, the firing of the city was an act of revenge for Persian destruction of Greek temples, notably in Athens, during the Persian wars. From Persepolis Alexander turned toward India. He reached the Indus River but turned back after his men refused to go any further. In 323 BCE Alexander died in southern Persia, leaving no heirs.

Sources:

• Martin Van Creveld, The Art of War: War and Military Thought (London: Cassell & Co, 2000)
• Lynn Montross, War Through the Ages 3rd Ed (New York: Harper and Row, 1960)
• Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burnstein, and others, Ancient Greece: A political, Social, and Cultural History (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

 

Rise of the Planter Class in Pre-Revolutionary Colonial America

• Jul 8, 2011
• Michael Streich

The colonial Southern planter class traced its power and wealth to the profitable English mercantile system and the growth of slave labor.

The growing prosperity and power of the Southern elite planter system can be traced to the seventeenth century. By the time the American Revolution began, a small group of elite planters managed to consolidate their control from Virginia to the Carolinas. Much of this prosperity and power was based on the profits tied to the protected market of the British mercantile system as well as an ever-growing population of slaves. Elite planters lived better, ate better, and socialized better than their poorer counterparts, developing what historian David Hawke refers to as “opulent plantations.” According to Hawke, “The wide gap between rich and poor in the Chesapeake…had already appeared before the seventeenth century ended.”

Increasing Wealth of the Southern Planter Class

The increasing wealth of the Southern planter class coincided with the rapid growth of port cities and towns, enabling them to send raw materials to England while at the same time ordering luxury items that defined a new class of colonial American aristocrats. Writer Henry Wiencek comments that, “The pride of the planters demanded that no expense be spared to proclaim their status.”

Prior to the American Revolution, an already debt-prone George Washington, for example, ordered a new coach from England. No expense was spared on a carriage that featured only the finest trimmings and made out of the costliest materials.

At the same time, Washington was transforming Mount Vernon into an enviable estate, first with tobacco profits and later with funds from his wheat crop as well as an inheritance. Historian Ira Berlin states that, “Planters took on the airs of English gentlemen…” as they forged “seats of small empires…”

Birth of the First Families in the Pre-Revolution South

Much earlier, the diary of planter William Byrd II demonstrated a life that included civic duties and leisure. Byrd described what he ate everyday, including such selections as boiled beef, roast beef, goose, and mutton. Few poor farmers could afford to sit down at a table to the types of food mentioned by Byrd. His social pursuits, when not tending to his plantation, included much merriment and card playing. Byrd was an educated man who read Greek.

Tobacco and rice, the chief export commodities of the colonial South, received generous subsidies through the mercantile system; both were enumerated goods. Historian Oliver M. Dickerson writes that, “Next to tobacco, rice was the most important commercially grown agricultural crop of the continental colonies.” Both became the seeds of fortune that created the great plantation estates and the “First Families” that, ultimately, would rule the South politically.

Slavery Helps to Create Powerful Planter Elites in the South

Slavery, however, made the cultivation of such crops highly profitable. Elite planters possessed the financial means to purchase slaves, frequently reselling slaves to less powerful, fledgling planters. According to Berlin, “Having enslaved black people…the grandees knit themselves together through strategic marriages, carefully crafted business dealings, and elaborate rituals, creating a style of life which awed common folk, and to which lesser planters dared not aspire.”

As the political leaders, the elite planters wrote the slaves codes, beginning with the 1676 Virginia revolt led by Nathaniel Bacon. Slave codes deprived free blacks of their rights and helped to separate slaves from poor whites, many of whom began their colonial experiences as indentured servants. Slave codes were amended throughout the years, giving planters unlimited control over their slaves. Further, slavery became more advantageous as mortality rates decreased, an initial problem with the influx of Africans unaccustomed to the climate and diseases.

Permanence of the Southern Slave System

By the time of the American Revolution, Southern planters identifying with the Patriot cause were powerful enough to ensure that the Jeffersonian phrase, “all men are created equal” did not apply to people of color. After the Revolution, the same elites ensured that any hint of slave emancipation was quashed. Slavery was an integral component of the plantation system, ensuring both prosperity and political power.

The ante-bellum planter class was rooted in pre-revolutionary conditions that in large measure owed its success to the profitable British mercantile system. This emerging success, based on agricultural profits, coincided with the growing importation of slaves. By the time of the Revolution, a distinct Southern planter class formed sectional goals that would eventually conflict with the an industrializing North.

Sources:

• Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries Of Slavery In North America (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998)
• Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts And The American Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951)
• David Freeman Hawke, Everyday Life In Early America (Harper & Row, 1988)
• William A. Link and Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, The South In The History Of The Nation, Volume One (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999)
• Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.