Nowherelands: Lost Countries of the 19th and 20th Century
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- KIAOCHOW
- A Capricious Emperor in a Rotten Game
- Hans Weicker (1908): Kiautschou. Das Deutsche Schutzgebiet in Ostasien S. C. Hammer (1917)
- TIERRA DEL FUEGO
- Dictator in Gold
- Arne Falk-Rønne (1975): Reisen til verdens ende Carlos A. Brebbia (2006): Patagonia, a Forgotten Land Patricio Manns (1996)
- MAFEKING
- Boy Scouts Using Diversionary Tactics
Laxmibai Tilak (2007): Sketches from Memory I’ve become a Christian. Take care of your sister. There is a river at Nasik as well as Jalalpur. See that she doesn’t take her own life NARAYAN VAMAN TILAK
A Capricious Emperor in a Rotten Game It was December 1897 and the century was on the wane when the German Foreign Minister Bernhard von Bülow spoke the words that would later become so famous: ‘We do not wish to throw anyone into the shade, but we also demand our own place in the sun.’107 Today, the phrase is mostly used in arguments about access to sunlight and views in villa neighbourhoods. The original occasion was quite different. Germany had been late joining the race to acquire colonies. On most continents, they were already lagging well behind the other great European powers. Now came the battle for China. Germany longed to establish a naval base in the region. At the same time, it wanted to have a bridgehead for exporting goods to China, which had become one of the most dynamic markets outside Europe in a few short years. The occasion presented itself when two German missionaries were murdered in the village of Juye, in the south of Shandong Province, by the shores of the Yellow Sea. The crime was probably committed by members of the nationalistic organisation, The Long Knife. Although the Qing Dynasty promised that the culprits would be found and punished, German naval forces soon came sailing into Jiaozhou Bay and took possession of the surrounding coastal area. The bay was sheltered and offered an ideal base for a fleet. The landscape in the interior was also inviting, with fertile, forested slopes that climbed towards the mountain formations to the north. Evenly scattered across it all lay small, peaceful villages, whose inhabitants were farmers and fishermen. When the Germans arrive, it is still winter, with sub-zero temperatures at night, and the annual growth of algae, with its distinctive smell of rotten eggs, has not yet made an appearance. Nor are there any warning signs of the black syphilis that will later make the area so notorious among sailors on shore leave. It is said that there is no cure for this illness, which causes the penis first to swell up dramatically, and then, over the course of a few weeks, to rot and fall off – testicles and all. The local population is also scared to death, even though they haven’t learnt anything at all about the effect the illness has on women. Not even the local barefoot doctors can offer more information. And perhaps this isn’t so strange since the whole business is, in fact, no more than a myth invented by the German authorities to keep the ships’ crews out of the whorehouses. Later, it will be used with equal success by the Americans in Okinawa, South Korea and Vietnam.108 Officially, Jiaozhou Bay was not occupied. Germany’s ambitions of increased trade with China called for diplomatic solutions, although it kept a whip at the ready too. The result was a 99-year lease on the bay and the adjacent coastal area. And the whole thing was ringed by a spacious security zone with a radius of 50 km. In addition, China would pay for the construction of three Catholic churches, and would grant Germany all conceivable concessions for coal mining and the construction of railways throughout Sandong Province. The area was christened Kiautschou – more commonly Kiaochow in English – and became a regular German colony. For Germany this provided a long-awaited occasion for celebration. At home in Dresden, Kiautschou cakes appeared in the bakeries, followed by Kiautschou schnapps, Kiautschou cigarettes and Kiautschou cigars, until the whole business became clichéd. The colony also got its own stamps, depicting Kaiser Wilhelm II’s elegant pleasure yacht, with its virile, threatening ram bow. It was identical to most other German colonial stamps of the time, although neither the ship nor the Kaiser ever came to the southern seas. The Kaiser preferred to cruise in the Norwegian fjords. And it was on one of these trips that he drew the sketch for what would later be called ‘Völker Europas, wahrt eure heiligsten Güter’, popularly known as ‘The Yellow Peril’.109 The sketch was developed into a monumental painting by the national romantic artist, Hermann Knackfuss. It portrays the arts and industries under the protection of the Army. Beneath a Gothic arch stand ideal female forms, representing Art and Industry. A threatening cloud is coming up towards them. Fearful hostile forms emerge from it. A Teuton warrior advances to meet the fearful forms.110 The fact that the Teuton warrior mentioned here comes equipped with blond curls and angels’ wings speaks volumes. Wilhelm II was afraid that the Asians would threaten the white race once again, the way Genghis Khan’s hordes had done a few hundred years before. He wanted to unite Europe in a crusade against Asia before it was too late. But the painting was savaged by the critics, while its message was rejected and sometimes ridiculed. Slightly offended, the Kaiser shelved the project. All the same, we can assume it sent an exciting shiver up his spine when the Boxer Rebellion flared up in 1899. This was sparked by the Germans’ arrogant annexation of Kiaochow, along with a whole series of similar actions by Great Britain, France and Russia. The Boxers formed a secret confederation, which they preferred to call the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists. They fired up the population to attack anything that smacked of colonialism, mostly at the expense of the mission stations and Christianized Chinese people. The colonial powers responded by sending massive forces deep into China, and the rebellion was crushed. Once again, Kaiser Wilhelm seizes the opportunity: Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under the leadership of Attila, gained a reputation, by which they still live in historical tradition, so may the German name be known in such a fashion in China that no Chinaman will ever again dare to look askance at a German.111 [1901: Hohenzollern II, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s pleasure yacht. Standard German colonial issue.] Now that the power relations had thus been settled once and for all, Kiaochow embarked upon a period of expansion, backed up by German capital. Rail links to Peking were completed and connected up with the Trans-Siberian railway. This allowed German businessmen to make the journey from their homeland in three weeks. Tsingtao, formerly a fishing village, was expanded, with port facilities, broad streets, elegant administrative buildings and banks. Electricity and sewage systems were introduced. The surrounding areas were cleared of forests, and silk factories, sawmills, tile factories and breweries were set up. And along the border in the west, a series of twelve forts was built. Eventually, many wealthy Chinese also moved in to enjoy all the modern comforts. Even Sun Yat-sen, later a revolutionary leader, was taken by it: ‘I am impressed. This city is a true model for China’s future.’112 In November 1914, it all came to an end when the colony was invaded by Japan, which had entered the First World War on the allied side a couple of months earlier. After the war, the Chinese took over again. Once more the area was incorporated into Shandong Province, today one of the wealthiest provinces in China. The city of Tsingtao was renamed Qingdao. The Red Guards laid waste to the churches in the 1950s, but there are still some remains of the more secular colonial buildings. Still, the most notable reminder of that time is Tsingtao Beer, a brand developed by German brewers in 1903 that is now viewed as China’s best beer. Hans Weicker (1908): Kiautschou. Das Deutsche Schutzgebiet in Ostasien S. C. Hammer (1917): William the Second as seen in contemporary documents and judged on evidence of his own speeches Hermann Knackfuss (1895): Völker Europas, wahrt eure heiligsten Güter, based on a sketch by Wilhelm II. The painting has gone missing, but is widely available as a lithograph. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under the leadership of Attila, gained a reputation, by which they still live in historical tradition, so may the German name be known in such a fashion in China that no Chinaman will ever again dare to look askance at a German KAISER WILHELM II
Dictator in Gold Right at the southern end of the American continent lies the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, Land of Fire. Actually, it was originally called Land of Smoke, after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who navigated the area in 1520, noticed the locals lighting interconnected and unusually smoky bonfires along the shoreline. The expedition ship then travelled further west, into a labyrinth of bays, coves and fjords. Here, it first encountered a series of low, grassy islands, dense with forest. The further west it sailed, the hillier the land became, culminating in the high, sharp mountain chains interspersed with glaciers where the country ended at the Pacific Ocean. Magellan sent home reports of a short, cold and damp summer. To the south, where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans finally met beneath the cliffs of Cape Horn, the climate was sub-arctic; and over the centuries that followed, the violent storms there made the region notorious as one of the world’s largest ship graveyards. Although Tierra del Fuego was long deemed economically uninteresting, the situation quickly changed when gold was found in the area well into the 1800s. This sparked a lengthy conflict between Chile and Argentina, both of which wanted dominion over the archipelago. Tierra del Fuego never became a separate country, although it would soon seem to be once Julius Popper came on the scene in 1886.113 Although he was only twenty-nine, Popper’s hair was already thinning, but he compensated for it amply with a neatly trimmed moustache and a full beard. This only partially concealed his pronounced underbite, a feature he shared with Austria’s royal house of Hapsburg, which contributed for a while to the myth that he was actually Archduke Johann Orth. Johann had vanished without a trace en route from Salzburg to La Plata in Argentina – a tremendously convenient occurrence for him, since he had gradually built up a harem of sixteen lovers and had undertaken to pay annual upkeep for all of them. Julius Popper did little to dispel the myth. In fact, though, he was Romanian, born into a Jewish family in Bucharest, and had trained as an engineer in Paris. He had since travelled the length and breadth of the planet, via Egypt, China and Siberia and as far as the American continent, working as an itinerant expert in expansion and modernization. In Cuba, he helped breathe new life into the seafront at Havana by designing a modern city plan. Leading a heavily armed expedition, he soon found large quantities of gold and took over the firm Compañía de Lavaderos de Oro del Sud (the Southern Gold-washing Company). Shortly afterwards, Argentina granted him the rights to all gold deposits in Tierra del Fuego. This marked the beginning of an empire based in Punta Arenas, a sandy headland on the mainland side of the Strait of Magellan in the far north. Popper quickly made a name for himself as a man about town with a large appetite for champagne and caviar. He always wore a uniform and established a hundred-strong private army whose members all dressed up in brilliantly coloured regalia, and where nobody was ranked below lieutenant. The army was constantly on the move, punishing thieves and unauthorized gold-diggers with great brutality. After a while, they also started hunting down the indigenous people.
The stamps are never postmarked. And since there are no traces of gum left on my slightly yellowed stamp, I reckon it has been used, possibly on a letter or a package sent between the widely dispersed gold fields and Punta Arenas. The stamps are never recognized by Argentina, which charges extra postage on all onward dispatches. Popper’s empire is now in its heyday. He starts to plan an expedition to the Antarctic to claim territorial rights, apparently on behalf of Argentina, although he undoubtedly has his own agenda, too. His ship, the Explorador, is fitted out in Buenos Aires and the Norwegian whaling skipper C. Hansen is hired as captain. It is on a journey to inspect the final arrangements that Popper is poisoned and dies. There are plenty of indications that it was an assassination instigated by a powerful sheep farmer. Another theory suggests that the English wanted to frustrate the Antarctic expedition. Popper has no heirs, and after his death, his empire rapidly crumbles. Even his mother in Romania doesn’t inherit a penny. [1891: Standard issue with a face value of 10 centigrams of gold dust, with a motif of gold-mining equipment.] Argentina and Chile eventually manage to clear up the division of the territory. It reflects the population base, with one-third going to Argentina and two-thirds to Chile. Some fishing and farming takes place, and in the 1950s, oil activity starts up in the north of the country. Further south, tourism has long ago taken over as the most important industry. Arne Falk-Rønne (1975): Reisen til verdens ende Carlos A. Brebbia (2006): Patagonia, a Forgotten Land Patricio Manns (1996): Cavalier seul Their Hutts are made like a behive and open on one side where they have their fire, they are made of small Sticks and cover’d with branches of trees, long grass etc in such manner that they are neither proof against Wind, Hail, rain or snow. JAMES COOK
Boy Scouts Using Diversionary Tactics When a horse was killed his mane and tail were cut off and sent to the hospital for stuffing mattresses and pillows. His shoes were sent to the foundry for making shells. His skin, after having the hair scalded off, was boiled with his head and feet for many hours, chopped up small, and with the addition of a little saltpetre was served out as ‘brawn’. His flesh was taken from the bones and minced in a great mincing machine and from his inside were made skins into which the meat was crammed and each man received a sausage with his ration.116 This is the situation in January 1900 at the little station town of Mafeking in the British Cape Colony, just across the border from the Boer republic of Transvaal to the east. Mafeking was founded in 1860 out on the veldt, the stony steppe-like highland landscape where the great Molopo River has its source. We are halfway through the Boer War, which the British started in order to get their hands on the huge diamond and gold deposits the Boers had been managing for almost fifty years. Half a year earlier, before the outbreak of war, the British colonel Robert Baden-Powell decided to place himself under voluntary siege in Mafeking. His aim was to lure Boer troops away from the battlefields further to the southeast where their presence might prove decisive. His preparations took three months. Food and other consumables were stockpiled, and fortifications and trenches were built, all connected with a tangle of telephone lines. Most importantly, the whole town was encircled with a dense network of landmines, which made it practically speaking impregnable. The Boers rose to the bait and advanced with six thousand men, who besieged the town just a couple of days after the British had issued their declaration of war in October 1899.
The black district in the northwest consisted of scattered groups of round, straw-roofed huts, which accommodated around 7,500 members of the Baralong tribe. They were the original inhabitants of the region, and they basically favoured the British over the Boers. It was easy for them to pass through the frontline, and they helped out as spies and couriers, taking messages in and out of the besieged town.117 But they were kept away from armed duties, because this was supposed to be a ‘white man’s war’. The Boers’ main plan was to starve the Britons out. At the same time, they launched a heavy bombardment against the town. But their cannons were small and inaccurate. Few of the towns’ inhabitants were hit, and any damage to the mud-brick houses was easy to repair with damp clay rolled up in burlap and stuffed back into the holes. The situation with food was worse. It hit the indigenous population hardest, as they got much smaller rations than the whites.118 Even so, everybody was soon reduced to eating donkey and horse. They also soaked the oats from horse-feed to use as gruel. The patients in the field hospital were served rice pudding made out of rice powder requisitioned from the town’s hairdressers. Beyond that, the life of the town continued pretty much as normal –ostentatiously so to some extent: the hope was that this would discourage the Boers, who monitored every tiniest detail from the scaffolding set up beyond the minefield. For their part, the Boers strictly observed the Sabbath peace, and there was no cannon fire on Sundays. The British seized the opportunity to arrange open-air concerts, theatre productions and sporting events, especially cricket. And everyone attended in their Sunday best, the women in fluttering frocks, hand in hand with their neatly dressed children. The Boers couldn’t believe their eyes. The high point came when the British produced stamps for internal post within the town. There was probably no real need for them, but the British knew what they were up to. Because there’s no better way to prove that a society is working properly than to give it its own stamps. In terms of quality and design they were close to perfect, too, with perforations and gum and all. They were printed at Townsend & Son on the town square. A photographic process was used, which involved placing the negatives directly onto paper coated in light-sensitive chemicals produced from ferro gallate, an extract of acacia sap. Shaded fields therefore appeared almost white, while the rest ended up in different shades of blue, all impressively precise. It is almost impossible to get hold of these kinds of stamps today, and there are many forgeries. My slightly yellowed specimen has obviously been damaged at some point: a tear in the upper-left corner has been repaired. I assume that this at least increases the chance that it is genuine. The motif is a boy on a bicycle and is based on a photograph of thirteen-year-old Warner Goodyear. He was the leader of the town’s cadet corps, for boys aged nine and older. The child soldiers were dressed up in khaki uniforms and broad-brimmed hats with a yellow band, and their mission was to keep watch and deliver post. They went everywhere by bicycle once all the donkeys had been eaten.
All this time, the British newspapers had their own correspondents on the ground in Mafeking,119 and people back in England followed the whole affair with growing enthusiasm. When victory was achieved, the Lord Mayor of London went out onto the balcony of Mansion House on Queen Victoria Street: ‘We never doubted what the end would be. British pluck and valour when used in the right cause must triumph.’120 [1900: Sergeant Major Warner Goodyear on a bicycle. Produced through a photographic process.] Robert Baden-Powell became a great national hero. In 1907, he used this prestige to start the Boy Scout movement, which aimed to combat further degeneration in the British race. Baden-Powell held up the Liberal government as a ghastly example: ‘Free feeding and old age pensions, strike pay, cheap beer and indiscriminate charity do not make for the hardening of the nation or the building up of self-reliant, energetic manhood.’121 Warner Goodyear died aged just twenty-six after being hit on the head by a hockey ball. For many years, his sisters, Lottie, Maude and Lorna, continued to run the library on the square in Mafeking. Yüklə 463,42 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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