Podcasts about russian tsar

THIS WEEK! We have another returning guest with Sergei Antonov, and once again we take a look at The Russian Empire. This time we take a look at what life was like in the Russian Empire. From the lowest serf to the Russian Soldier, To the Nobility, and the Russian Tsar. Find out all this, and much more. This week on "Well That Aged Well", with "Erlend Hedegart".Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/well-that-aged-well. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the introduction of North Korean troops into the war in Ukraine to a budding friendship with Elon Musk, Putin continues to make strange headlines. The real question is whether Putin actually knows what he's doing or if he, as a wannabe 21st century Russian Tsar, is subject to the same seemingly inevitable historical forces as the Tsars of yesteryear. As both a seasoned Putin watcher and the author of many books about Russia, Mark Galeotti is as well positioned as anyone to determined if Putin is a prisoner or a master of history. Churchill famously described Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." In his new book, Forged in War: A Military History of Russia from its Beginnings to Today, however, Galeotti unwraps this mystery by seeing Russia as an eternal prisoner of its geo-strategic vulnerabilities and thus, like Putin, always insecure, land-hungry and bellicose. Professor Mark Galeotti is one of the foremost Russia-watchers today, who used to travel there regularly to teach, lecture, talk to his contacts, and generally watch the unfolding story of the Putin era, until the Kremlin banned him indefinitely in 2022. Based in the UK, he is an Honorary Professor at UCL and heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence. He is also a Senior Associate Fellow with both RUSI and the Council on Geostrategy, as well as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague. Before then, he was Professor of Global Affairs at NYU and head of History at Keele University, and was educated at Robinson College, Cambridge, and the LSE. A prolific author on Russia and security affairs, he frequently acts as consultant to various government, commercial and law-enforcement agencies.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Despite being immortalised in the iconic song by Boney M, the life and death of Grigory Rasputin remains shrouded in mythology and mystery. A mystic healer, political saboteur, and renegade monk, Rasputin's life – and his ‘member' – casts a long shadow over Russian history, not least in the questions surrounding his role in formenting the opposition to the Russian Tsar that ultimately caused the 1917 Revolution, a cataclysmic event that overturned Russia's social and political order forever, and preceded wider social change in Europe and beyond.  Join Robert and Kate for the second episode of Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things as they unpack the life and times of Russia's greatest love machine – surely one of very few dastardly historic icons for whom genital warts and cataclysmic social upheaval can justifiably be included in the same sentence.  Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things is the Daily Mail's unmissable podcast that promises listeners a weekly dose of royal history and intrigue by unpacking a different royal scandal each week.  Hosted by Daily Mail columnist and royal biographer Robert Hardman and historian Professor Kate Williams, each episode delves into the juiciest parts of royal history from eras past, and present... but mainly past.  New episodes out every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts.  Presenters: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams Producer: Rich Jarman  Production Manager: Victoria Cecchini  Executive Producer: Bella Soames  Thanks to Dr. Fern Riddell  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a powerful figure in Ukrainian history and an influence in European politics in the second half of the 1600's. His most controversial act was signing an agreement with the Russian Tsar, the consequences of which have reverberated into modern Ukraine. His legacy is also shadowed by Cossack actions against the Jews and the Catholics. How has Khmelnytsky been remembered throughout the centuries and what has been his impact and influence on Ukrainian history? Find out in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Photo Credit: Eugene Chystiakov Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine For more episodes, sources and extras, please visit: ⁠wanderingtheedge.net

Last time we spoke about the Northern Warlords and their respective factions. We covered the three big names, Duan Qirui and his Anhui clique; Wu Peifu and his Zhili cliques and Zhang Zuolin and his Fengtian clique. We also went into the smaller ones like Yan Xishan's Shanxi clique, Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun clique, the Ma clique of the three Ma's, Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin known as the Xibei San Ma “thee Ma of the northwest”; the Xinjiang clique of Yang Zengxin and we barely scratched the surface of the Manchu Resotrationist clique of Zhang Xun. There was over 100 warlords, its really difficult to pick and choose who to delve into the most. However, there were two warlords who were bitter rivals, in a comedic fashion might I add. One was hailed as the good Christian warlord, the other a devilish monster. Today we are going to tell the tales of these two figures.   #95 Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zongchang: the Angel and Devil   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Feng Yuxiang was born in Zhili province, today Hebei in 1882. His parents were poor, his father joined the Qing army to make ends meet. At the age of only 10 he joined the Huai Army alongside his father. He earned a uniform and food but no salary as his rank was “Fu Bing”, deputy soldier. By the age of 16 he proved himself capable and became a regular. Unlike his colleagues who gambled their money away, Feng saved his money and even used portions of it to help out soldiers in need, particularly Fu Bing's. Because of this he became quite popular amongst his comrades. He did not gamble nor drink alcohol. In 1902 he joined Yuan Shikai's guard units and rose through the ranks becoming a company commander. From there he was transferred to the 3rd division, a crack one of Yuan Shikai's soon to be Beiyang Army.  During the Xinhai Revolution Feng Yuxiang joined the Luanzhou uprising against the Qing, supporting the revolutionaries in the South. The uprising was suppressed by the Beiyang army and Feng was imprisoned by Yuan Shikai. Once Yuan Shikai stole the presidency of the Republic, Feng was released and he took back his military position while supporting Yuan Shikai's regime. By 1914 he became a brigade commander and helped supress uprisings in Henan and Shaanxi. It was also during this year Feng Yuxiang developed a curiosity about Christianity. He converted to Christianity, being baptiszed into the Methodist Episcopal Church. When Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, this ushered in the Anti-Yuan resistance. Feng Yuxiang helped supress anti-yuan forces of General Cai E in Sichuan, but in the process, began secrely negotiating with Cai E. He formed an agreement to “put on a show” rather than actually fight. After Yuan Shikai's death, Feng Yuxiang was deprived command of the 16th Mixed Brigade, something he had come to see as his personal property. He managed to stay in touch with its officers who remained loyal to him personally. Now it gives away further episodes to dvevle deep into the following years, but what I will say, Feng Yuxiang played important roles in critical moments of the wars during China's warlord Era. To be blunt, Feng Yuxiang was a real game of thrones little finger kind of guy if you get the reference. He always looked where the wind was blowing and was quick to switch sides turning the sides of one clique against another. He would found the Guominjun Clique, a sort of little borther to the Kuomintang, but its powerbase was located in the north rather than the south. Feng Yuxiang's career as a warlord began right after Yuan Shikai's death, but he certainly set himself apart from other warlords. Feng Yuxiang would receive a lot of western press for his rather, very different methodology compared to the other warlords. In a lot of ways, he was similar to a public school headmaster in England. He forbade his men from smoking tobacco or opium, from drinking alcohol and he forced them all to study the bible. He forbade prostitution, gambling and selling drugs. He quickly earned the nickname “the Christian General”. He had a reputation of baptizing his troops with fire hoses, though this has been highly contested. Indeed he was a hardcore Christian and actively promoting Christianity while showing no tolerance for other religions in China. For exmaple in 1927 when entering Henan Province he launched a cmapaign to supress Buddhism by expelling over 300,000 monastic members and confisciating hundreds of Buddhist monasteries for military purposes. In 1923 a British Protestant Missionary, Marshall Broomhall said this of him “The contrast between Cromwell's Ironsides and Charles's Cavaliers is not more striking than that which exists in China to-day between the godly and well-disciplined troops of General Feng and the normal type of man who in that land goes by the name of soldier ... While it is too much to say that there are no good soldiers in China outside of General Feng's army, it is none the less true that the people generally are as fearful of the presence of troops as of brigand bands”. Feng Yuxiang required his troops to take part in sports, gymastics and hardcore marches. Any illiterates were forced to learn to read and write, many were also trained in trades so they would not simply leave the army and become bandits. Feng looked at Christianity as a means of providing morale and disciplin for his army, he often told foreign missionaries  'Remember that your chief work is not to try to convert the rank and file of my army, but to use your strength in trying to get all my officers filled with the Spirit of God, for as soon as that takes place, the lowest private in the army will feel the effects of it”. Feng Yuxiangs was closely intouch with his troops often stopping to chat with them about their living conditions. He reduced corporal punishments, encouraged singing patriotic songs. One of the oddest things that I came across when I was making my Warlord Era content on the Pacific War Channel was video's of Feng Yuxiang personally checking the fingernails of his troops. He was pretty hardcore about cleanliness, I guess “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Alright that is a lot of information about the good toe shoes Christian General Feng Yuxiang, now let me talk about Zhang Zongchang, the Dogmeat General. Zhang Zongchang was born in 1881 in Yi county, present day Laizhou in Shandong. He grew up in an impoverished village, his father was a trumpeter, a headshaver and a rampant alcoholic. His mother exorcized evil spirits. . . Yeah she was basically a witch, oh and she left Zhang and his dad chasing another man. The family moved to Manchuria when Zhang was in his teens and he immediately got involved in petty crime around Harbin. Zhang would work as a pickpocket, bouncer, prospector and bandit throughout his life. He ended up doing some work as a laborer in Siberia amongst the Russians, picking up some Russian in the process, something that would really help his career out later. He then became a Honghuzi bandit roaming the Manchurian countryside when the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 hit. During the war he served as a Imperial Russian Army auxiliary, interestingly enough his future boss who was also a Honghuzi did the same for the Japanese. After the war he went back to his Honghuzi lifestyle, becoming the leader of a local bandit gang.   During the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Zhang was leading his Honghuzi as a sort of revolutionary desperados gang. He then went to Jiangsu and joined the Green Standard Army where he impressed his commander officer Cheng Dechuan so much so he made Zhang his successor…or Zhang threatened the guy who knows. Thus for a little while Zhang was leading a small cavalry detachment under the Division commander Leng Yuqin, battling Honghuzi groups. During the second revolution of 1913, Zhang became the divisional commander when Leng died. There was an issue with his division, the revolutionary General Feng Guozhang did not like them, probably because they were criminals, so he reduced their role in the revolution to being a symbolic unit. Zhang responded to this by murdering the revolutionary Chen Qimei in Shanghai in 1916, proving his loyalty and reliability to Feng Guozhang. Feng Guozhang later became vice president of the new Republic, appointing Zhang as the commander of his personal guard. As China's Warlord Era began in 1918, Zhang like every other big guy, looked for the best strongman to follow. In 1922 he turned his attention to a new rising star, the tiger of manchuria, Zhang Zuolin.   There is a famous story, that Zhang Zuolin was celebrating his birthday in 1922, seeing countless people showering him with gifts trying to earn his favor. Zhang Zongchang apparently sent him two empty coolie baskets and did not show up in person. Zhang Zuolin was baffled by this at first, until he realized the empty baskets implied Zhang Zongchang was a man willing to shoulder any heavy responsibilities that Zhang Zuolin would entrust to him. This apparently worked like a charm as Zhang Zongchang was rewarded a position within his army.   Zhang Zongchang's time in Siberia and work under the Russians during the Russo-Japanese war paid off as he managed to secure White Russian Mercenaries. These were refugee veterans of the Russian Civil War who had been straddling the Manchurian/Soviet borders. Zhang hired thousands of them, organizing them into units, including Cossack bodyguards. He even recruited woman on a large scale, the first Chinese general to do so. The women mostly served as nurses and one regiment was exclusively white Russian women. The white russians trained their Chinese counterparts resulting in excellent medical, a significant boost for morale and combat capability. The white russians were crucial to Zhang Zongchang's rise as they knew how to build and operate armored trains giving the warlord a huge edge.    Now just like with Feng Yuxiang, I don't wanna give away future parts of the warlord era story, just know Zhang Zongchang greatly impressed Zhang Zuolin and would be rewarded military governorship over Shandong Province. As the Military governor of Shandong, this is where you hear about him being a monster. For those who don't know, Shandong has a long spanning history of being where trouble starts in China. Zhang's mismanagement of Shandong was legendary, to call it one of Shandong's darkest times is an understatement. For example it is said one of his favorite hobbies was “to split melons”, that was bashing in the skulls of people with rifle butts. He also liked to hang people and their severed heads from telephone poles. He would reign over Shandong until 1928 and it was 3 very hard years for the people there. Basically he did what all corrupt officials had done historically in China, he fleeced the population of his province. He implemented excessive taxes and starved public institutions of funds. The provincial education system collapsed in 1927 and the provincial economy was stagnant as all hell, save for the black market. To fight the economic collapse he printed money as fast as it could be printed and became nearly valueless, reminds me a lot of my nation's leader today.   Now any criticism of Zhang Zonghcang or the Fengtian governance would lead to imprisonment and resistance led to more split melons, seeing severed heads hung everywhere. For example if a newspaper criticized his regime, Zhang literally had the editors shot. Things got so bad for the peasants of Shandong,  they formed a group called the Red Spear Militia, branding red-tasseled spears, but not too many firearms. These men and women were completely outgunned trying desperately to resist Zhang Zongchangs tyranny, and tyrannical it was.    He imposed an incredible amount of taxes on the people, taxes on rice, tobacco, firewood, dogs, rickshaws, livestock, brothels, military pensions, opium pipe lighters, honestly anything that could be taxed he taxed. He once forcefully collected donations for a shrine; that shrine was a bronze statue of himself. He extorted money from banks, misappropriated his troops wages, because he was paying them in worthless printed money and gave a monopoly to the opium dealers. In fact he was the personal benefactor for drug lords and arms dealers, the black market was his chocolate factory.   Shandong was so bad, a very young Vinegar Joseph Stilwell visited the area when he was serving as a young military attache at the US legation in Peking. He said the dead and dying littered the streets and the only thing the citizens of Shandong had to eat were crushed soya-bean cakes usually fed to pigs. There were abandoned children everywhere, carts of animals seized by warlord troops and houses literally torn down for the troops firewood. Poverty and famine was rampant.   Now the devastation of Shandong was far removed from Zhang Zongchang however as he kept his quarters in the capital of Jinan (Capital in eastern Shandong). His HQ was described to be more like a medieval court full of extravagant entertainment. He had elaborate feasts, secured French champaign, scotch and his favorite Cuban cigars. He entertained artists, writers, entertainers, arms dealers, drug kingpins, western journalists and such. He loved to play poker with other minor warlords and they were high stakes games, sometimes he would walk away losing 30-50 thousands at a sitting. The poker games were always played with silver dollars and not the useless money he printed for his troops and the citizens of Shandong.    One of his more famous recurring guests was Madame Wellington Koo, this was the wife of one of the most famous Chinese politicians of the age, Wellington Koo was the frontrunner at the Paris Peace conference for China. Now Mr. Wellington Koo's wife had this to say about Zhang “Zhang Zongchang was so delightfully outrageous that he was disarming. There were many stories about him. He was called “old eighty-sin” some said he was the height of a pile of 86 dollars, other said that figure represented the length of a certain portion of his anatomy. When I visited him my Pao Pei and Chow Chow would come with me and Zhang would roar at the servants “never mind what you give Madame Koo to eat. But be sure her dogs get the very best or you'll suffer for it”.   Now why this guy is so famous today is of course because of his nicknames and infamous lifestyle. His most famous nickname was the “Dogmeat General”, and its said to be based on his fascination with the domino game Pai Jiu. Others say his favorite brand of tonic was known as dogmeat. And of course there was the rumor he ate a meal of black chow chow dog every day, as it was popularly believed at the time that this boosted a man's vitality. But if you noticed the quote from Madame Wellington Koo, I think he may have been a dog lover. But the part about the man's vitality fits this guy to the core.    He was of course known by the populace of Shandong as “Monster”, but there was also  nicknames like “the lanky general or general with three long legs” were certainly something he publicized heavily. His nickname “old 86” referred to the length of his penis being 86 mexican silver dollars, there was also a nickname “72-cannon Zhang” referring to that length. I mean the man was 6 foot 6, people described him quote “with the physique of an elephant, the brain of a pig and the temperament of a tiger”.    Alongside his penis propaganda, he was a legendary womanizer. Take his other nickname for example “the general of three don't-knows”: he did not know how many women, how many troops, or how much money he had. I think that nickname fits him better than the nickname he gave himself “the Great General of Justice and Might”.    He had a ton of concubines. The exact number of concubines he had has variously been reported between 30-50, but historians have a hard time trying to fix the numbers as Zhang himself allegedly did not know. Allegedly his concubines were from 26 different nationalities, each with her own washbowl marked with the flag of her nation. He was also said to give his concubines numbers since he could not remember their names nor speak their various languages. Many of these women he married, he was a polygamist after all. There was known to be Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Mongolians and at least one American amongst Zhang's women.   Zhang was semi-literate, whenever people asked where he was educated he would say “the college of the green forest” a euphemism for banditry. Despite being semi-literate Zhang Zongchang is famously known for his poetry, most notably his Poem on Bastards:   You tell me to do this, He tells me to do that. You're all bastards, Go fuck your mother. Untitled They ask me how many women I have. To be honest, I don't know either. Yesterday, a boy called me dad. I don't know who his mother was.     Praying or Rain   The sky god is also named Zhang Why does he make life hard for me If it doesn't rain in three days I'll demolish your temple Then I'll have cannons bombard your mom     It should be noted a lot of the poetry attributed to Zhang Zongchang may have been fabricated by a political opponent named Han Fuju who took over Shandong Province after him.  Zhang Zongchang despite being a brutal tyrant by all means, did reward his inner circle well, he had a lot of very loyal officers around him. Zhang Zongchang traveled with a teakwood coffin planted atop a car during his campaigns. He had this done to signify his willingness to die in combat, the old “I win or come back on a shield” idea. During of his failed campaigns, Zhang Zongchang paraded himself sitting in the coffin while smoking a cuban cigar.    So as you can imagine, Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin were quite different characters to say the least. Yet both these men were born under very similar conditions. Both were born into poverty, both joined the military and were raised through the ranks with the help of patrons. Both became warlords leading cliques that allied themselves to larger cliques. Both men avoided silver bullets, the term silver bullet was used during this era to refer to being assassinated by a subordinate who was bribed by a rival warlord. To avoid such a fate, one had to make sure to conserve the loyalty of their officers, which both men did by very different means. Feng used Christianity like a glue to bind his soldiers together. He provided missionaries to encourage conversion. If christianity did not work, he employed nationalism. In the mid 1920's he became very hostile to the unequal treaties that Europe and Japan plagued China with. He began indoctrinating his men with anti-imperialistic literature and ironically began brushing shoulders with the anti-religious Soviet Union. The USSR would become his main benefactor, earning him a second nickname “the red general”. Zhang Zongzhang was much more akin to other warlords at keeping silver bullets at bay. He paid his inner circle in silver, he made sure the pockets of his best men were always full. He allowed every evil corrupt thing imaginable to occur under his subordinates hands. Zhang Zongchang was a ruthless tyrannical monster who focused on his own power above all.   Both warlords had to navigate the extremely complex alliance and rivalry system amongst the warlords. Feng Yuxiang aligned himself with the Yuan Shikai, then against Yuan Shikai, then again for Yuan Shiaki, with the Zhili clique, the Kuomintung, Communists and basically whoever looked to be winning at the time. Chiang Kai-shek said of him “the so-called Christian General was a master in the art of deception”. This was extremely true, Feng Yuxiang was a hell of a backstabber, his career actually was propelled by it. Zhang Zongchang tossed his lot in with Banditz, then Russians, then with the Fengtian Clique out of necessity, brushing shoulders with the Japanese by proxy. Zhang Zongchang really did not have any large ideology, he went with the flow as long as it benefited him. In many ways both men sort of just did what they did to empower their positions.    The people living under their rule could not have had a more different experience. Under Feng Yuxiang, Christian beliefs were enforced, a more progressive outlook was present. He did a lot to improve the living conditions of ordinary people under his control. He promoted education heavily, healthcare, infrastructure development. He was insane about discipline and thwarting corruption. He stopped gambling, smoking, drug trafficking, prostitution, he really was a man of law and order. Zhang Zongchang was the complete opposite, it was as if he was trying to outdo the devil himself. Zhang Zongchang, ruled with an iron fist, extracting resources from the population through taxation, extortion, and forced labor, while enriching himself and his inner circle. Under Zhang the common people starved, they were pillaged, raped, abused in all manners. Zhang took away funds from education, infrastructure (unless it was a statue of himself), from anything that would benefit the people. Zhang loved to smoke cigars, drank excessively, had 50 concubines, and was literally bestfriends with the black market of China.   Inevitably given their spheres of influence both warlords would run into each other in the 1920s. Feng Yuxiang's powerbase was around Shanxi and Hebei while Zhang Zongchang was firmly in Shandong. These territories border another, producing frequent clashes over strategic resources, trade routes and territorial disputes. While Feng Yuxiang betrayed many cliques, he more or less stuck to the Kuomintang. At one point Feng Yuxiang even joined the Fengtian clique to only betray them. Zhang Zongchang remained loyal to the Fengtian clique, pretty much until his death. By the way his death would be at the hands of an officer who served Feng Yuxiang, so I guess Feng won in the end haha.    Most warlords were ostentatious in their dress and lifestyle, but Feng Yuxiang was quite an exception to this. Numerous photographs show warlords sporting glittering uniforms copied from other nations. For example, Zhang Zuolin wore a large gold braid, numerous decorations, giant gleaming buckles, shoulder pads and white gloves. He had a small peaked cap suggesting he was modeling himself on a Russian Tsar. Chiang Kai-Shek favored an american style officers uniform with a high peaked cap. Many warlords liked French-styled kepis, British ww1 uniforms with sam Brown belts or helmets with enormous plumes. Pull up a picture of Zhang Zongchang and its absolutely ridiculous. He has giant shoulder pads, large medal star decorations, a giant belt, a large ribbon cross over, double golden braids, white gloves, basically he looks like hes trying to out do Zhang Zuolin. But Feng Yuxiang while a warlord wore the same plain dress as his soldiers.    If you read contemporary or older books on the warlords, you immediately notice the authors favor Feng Yuxiang and talk about him positively, while strongly villianizing Zhang Zongchang. Put simply the propaganda wars that were going on during China's Warlord Era were exactly that, Feng Yuxiang made sure he was presented as a good Christian General, while Zhang Zongchang really seemed to bask in being the bad boy or base General. Hell Zhang Zongchang publicized most of what was said about him himself! In the end they were two cogs in a very large machine and they played their parts. During for however long this warlord era lasts on the podcast, we will come to learn about as many of the warlords as I possibly can cover. They are colorful characters who had a profound effect on the formation of Nationalist China and the People's republic of China.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Thus were the tales of the good Christian General Feng Yuxiang and the basest warlord, Zhang Zongchang. We will further tell the tales of their ventures in the battles of China's Warlord Era, but in the next episode we are going to meet the Southern faction Warlords!

For over 300 years, the Romanov family ruled over the Russian Empire.  After the Communist Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, and he and his family were placed under house arrest, where they ultimately met a grizzly fate. For decades after their deaths, the world wondered what happened to them until their bodies were discovered and identified 80 years later.  Learn more about the fate of the last Russian Tsar and his family on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors BetterHelp Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month ButcherBox Sign up today at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to choose your free steak for a year and get $20 off."  Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last time we spoke about the Red Bearded Honghuzi Bandits. Yes Manchuria and many parts of China proper have had a bandit problem going back to ancient times. The borderlands between the Russian Empire and Qing Dynasty proved to be the perfect grounds for bandits to evolve. The Honghuzi were getting larger, more organized and certain leaders amongst them would have long lasting impacts on the history of China. Such names that come to mind are Zhang Zuolin and the Dogmeat General Zhang Zongchang. Such forces were incorporated officially into the Qing military to thwart other bandit groups and eventually to harass the Russians or Japanese in conflict looming on the horizon. Everything seems to be hot in Manchuria, Russian has full on invaded her and is reluctant to drag her troops out. There are those unhappy with this circumstance and they will soon make themselves heard loud and clear.    #73 The Yellow Peril and a War in the East   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The Boxer Rebellion is over. The Russo-Chinese War in Manchuria is over. Order had been restored to Beijing and in Manchuria things were significantly quieted down. Now the other nations of the 8 nation alliance had their hands full dealing with the expedition against Beijing and they sort of turned a blind eye to what was a side conflict in Manchuria. But when things were settling down and 177,000 Russian forces had more or less invaded and were occupying Manchuria, well a lot of eyeballs bulged. Britain and Japan sought common cause, both had significant investments in the Asia-Pacific. For example Britain had Weihaiwei and was literally staring down at the Russians over in Port Arthur and Dalien. Japan had been slighted by the triple intervention by Russia, Germany and France, losing her acquisitions of Port Arthur and Dalien to the Russians. Manchuria was always seen as a buffer zone to the Japanese, she now hand a toehold in Korea and such large Russian activity in Manchuria was very threatening. Let us not forget the entire war between the Qing dynasty and Japan over Korea, to a lesser extent also had Russian as a 4th party. Russia did meddle in Korea and continuously antagonized Japan. Thus with common cause Japan and Britain formed an alliance on January 30th of 1902. In response Russia and France formed their own on March 16th of 1902. The alliances basically worked to thwart any other great powers from getting involved in a potential war between Japan and Russia.  Now Russia also agreed to the rest of the great powers that she would gradually withdraw her forces from Manchuria. It was to be rolled out in 3 periods of 6 months. The first phase saw southwest Manchuria evacuated and returned to China, but when it came to the second phase, suddenly Russia was making demands for concessions to the Qing dynasty.  Britain, Japan and the US protested the demands and this bolstered China to reject them. Now turned back the clock a bit there was another sticky situation. When chaos was erupting in Korea, King Gojong ran to the Russians for protection for over two years. This turned the nations favor towards the Russians over the Chinese and Japanese. Russia seized this opportunity to strengthen her forces in defense of her legation in Korea, and this action was met with actions taken up by Japan. Japanese and Russian officials met and this was the result verbatim: A further agreement between Russia and Japan had been signed in Tokyo on 25 April 1898. The agreement contained three understandings: The independence of Korea was assured; neither country would interfere in Korea's domestic affairs. There would be no appointment of military or civil advisers without discussion with the interested parties. Russia agreed not to hinder Japan's development of trade with Korea.  Aside from this the Russians of course wanted to seize as much as they could. A Russian-Korean bank was formed in 1897, and a timber cutting contract was given to Russian industrialists in the Yalu river area. In 1901, Tsar Nicholas II told Prince Henry of Prussia, "I do not want to seize Korea but under no circumstances can I allow Japan to become firmly established there. That will be a “casus belli." The contract only came into effect when the Manchurian railway projects were kicking off and when able bodies were around, which came about during the occupation of Manchuria. In april of 1903 Russians acquired some land and established a fort at Yongampo near the mouth of the Yalu river. America and Japan received similar concessions in the region. The Japanese began receiving reports, indicating Port Arthur was being heavily stocked with supplies and a large body of Russian troops were advancing across the Liaodong Peninsula towards Korea. Thus from the Japanese point of view it looked clear Russia was not honoring her agreements. On July 28th of 1903, the Japanese ambassador at St Petersburg was instructed to make it known to the Russians, the 7 demands they made to China was not seen as a “relaxation of her hold on Manchuria but rather a consolidation” Two days later, Russian Admiral Alexeiev was appointed Viceroy of the Far East. Alexeiev would hold supreme power to exercises diplomacy between Russian East Asia and her neighbors as well as command the Russian military and naval forces in the east. From the Japanese point of view, a permanent Russian occupation of Manchuria would be prejudicial over her own security and interests. It would also threaten Korea, which was her sphere of interest, one she was not looking to share. Russia agreed to consider drawing up a new treaty. On August 12th of 1903 a draft was presented at St Petersburg, but in the meantime Russia was strengthening her position in the far east. This tense situation kept going, until January 13th of 1904 when Japan offered to recognize Manchuria as being outside her sphere of interest, if Russia would agree Korea was Japan's sphere of interest. It was to be blunt a very fair deal. Japan requested an early reply to the proposal, but by February 4th of 1904 no reply was forthcoming. Two days later the Japanese ambassador, Mr. Kurino called upon the Russian foreign minister, Count Lamsdorf to take his leave. Kurino explained to Lamsdorf that the Japanese government had decided to adopt some “independent action” deeming it necessary to defend its established rights and legitimate interests. Basically Japan's patience had come to an end. The Russian ambassador to Tokyo, Baron Rosen, had continuously sent warnings to his superiors in St Petersburg that if they continued to corner Japan, she would most certainly fight them. Such sentiment was shared by War Minister General Kuroptkin who resigned in a state of exasperation some months earlier. Tsar Nicholas II did not want a war, but he was continuously assured by his advisers, Japan was not strong enough to fight them. When Mr. Kurino took his leave, the immediate signal was made to Admiral Alexeiev, who was in Tokyo at the time. The new viceroy saw with his own eyes evidence of Japanese mobilization and he advised St Petersburg accordingly. The Japanese foreign ministry confirmed their government had run out of patience. However all of this was taken to be a bluff. It has been theorized Alexeiev was simply not averse to a war with a country he certainly deemed inferior to his own. It is also theorized Tsar Nicholas II probably believed if a war would to break out it would be a short and victorious one, and perhaps such an event could distract the tide of revolution hitting his nation, the people of Russia were not happy anymore about the Romanov rule. Funny enough, all of these talks, deceptions and plans were to take shape in China. The Chinese were literally never even thought of or spoken to, and soon a war would literally occur within their borders against their will. How did this all come about? It might sound a bit funny, but a large reason the Russo-Japanese War would occur would simply be a result of, pardon my french, shit talking by one Kaiser Wilhelm II. When Kaiser Wilhelm I died on March 9th of 1888, Germany fell to Frederick III who died of throat cancer only 99 days after taking the reins. On June 15th, a 29 year old Kaiser Wilhelm II took the throne. Now for those of you who don't know, Otto von Bismarck, the man who unified Germany was during the late 19th century one of the greatest political players in the world. Bismarck had an incredible understanding of the balance of power theory and studied all the most powerful nations national interests. He brokered international deals using his knowledge to increase Germany's standing in global politics and he also in many ways designed a system of international alliances to thwart a global war….which ironically would in many ways cause ww1. If you want to know more specifically about this by the way, check out Kings and Generals alliances that caused WW1, I wrote that script and its a fascinating story. Dan Carlin famously referred to Bismarcks work as creating a giant hand grenade, that if the pin got pulled out, only Bismarck understood how to put it back in. While Bismarck was in power things were pretty good, but he was such a colossal figure, that when the young Kaiser came into power, many of his advisers suggested he was being overshadowed by Bismarck. Kaiser Wilhelm II listening to his advisers, sought to stop Bismarck from taking the quote en quote “day to day” administration. Conflicts began to arise between the two men. Wilhelm did not understand the complexities of Bismarcks international relations and saw him as far too peaceful. Wilhelm gradually fell under the influence of his military leaders to the dismay of Bismarck who thought the Kaiser would lead them swiftly into a war with a nation like Russia. In 1890 Bismarck resigned under pressure from Wilhelm II and other German leaders, and as Dan Carlin would say, now the grenade he created was set to go off. Now when the new Kaiser venturing into international relations, he was deeply influenced by a ideological concept that he would use as a tool to coerce international players to act out. The concept is known as the “yellow peril” “le Peril Jaune” as coined by Russian sociologist Jacques Novikow in the late 19th century. In essence the yellow peril was a racist ideology that held asians to be subhuman, like apes and monkeys, but also that as a racial group should they unite, they would threaten what was thought to be the superior race of the day, whites. Basically the idea was that if all the nations of asia were to unite, they could retaliate against the White nations who were at the time colonizing or forcing unequal treaties upon them. There was also a religious element to it, that Christianity was under threat from the hoards of the east.  Now back to Wilhelm II, one of his advisers was the diplomat Max von Brandt who advised him that Imperial Germany had major colonial interests in China. The Triple Intervention that Germany endorsed was justified by the Kaiser under the guise it was to thwart what he began calling “die Gelbe Gefahr / the yellow peril”. The Kaiser began a propaganda campaign using the famous allegorical lithograph “Peoples of Europe, Guard your Most Sacred Possessions” created in 1895 by Hermann Knackfuss. You can google the image. The lithograph portrays the European monarchs with Germany as the leader of Europe personified by a “prehistoric warrior-goddesses being led by the Archangel Michael against the yellow peril from the east. The east is seen as a dark cloud of smoke which rests eerily upon a calm Buddha, wreathed in flame”. The imagery is very apparent, white and christianity is under threat from asian and their eastern religions. This type of ideology goes all the way back to Ancient Greece and Persia, its the age old west vs east stuff. Today you would call this sort of talk, a race war. Now you are probably asking, ok this leader of Germany is just a racist dude, how does this cause a war between Russia and Japan? This story is rather hilarious and hard to believe, but in summary, the Kaiser used the ideology to trick his cousin into war.  For those unaware, Kaiser Wilhelm II was first cousins with King Geoerge V of Britain,  to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, to Queens Marie of Romania, Maud of Norway, Victoria Eugene of Spain, and even the woman he would eventually marry, the Empress of Russia. Now the Germany presented to Wilhelm was involved in some alliances. I mentioned Britain and Japan had an alliance and France and Russian had an alliance. Wilhelm and his advisers sought to increase Germany's stature. Wilhelm believed that if Russia went to war with Japan, it would break up the Franco-Russian alliance and with no one else to turn to, Russia would seek an alliance with Germany. Wilhelms reasoning was that France was not supporting of Russians expansion into asia and such aggressive actions like going to war with Japan would be highly disapproved by France. The French Premier Maurice Rouvier publicly declared that the Franco-Russian alliance applied only in Europe and not Asia and that if Japan and Russia went to war, France would remain neutral. Such rhetoric seemed to prove Wilhelms beliefs. Germany meanwhile felt threatened by Britain and had embarked on what was known as the Tirpitz Plan in the late 1890s. The Tirpitz plan was Germany's plan to achieve world power status through naval power, but the world's greatest navy of course was Britain at the time. What essentially happened was Germany challenging Britain to an arms race in the form of naval warship building programs. Everything the Kaiser pursued during the late 19th century was what was called “Weltpolitik / world politics” which essentially was just Germany's imperialistic foreign policy to become a global power. Wilhelm and his advisers were playing world politics to weaken rivals and strengthen Germany plain and simple.  So Wilhelm believes he can break the French-Russian alliance and squeeze himself in Frances place if he can get the Russians to go to war with Japan who just happened to be allied to Germany's main rival, Britain. Some real game of thrones stuff here. Wilhelm also believed if Germany could pull this off, France would be compelled to join them, forming a triple alliance against Britain and Japan so they could all pursue their expansionist policies in places like Asia. There was also the belief pulling this off would pull Russia away from the Balkans which was a huge source of tension with Germany's main ally Austro-Hungary. Thats all fine and dandy, but how does Wilhelm get his cousin Tsar Nicholas to go to war with the Japanese, here comes the yellow peril.  Starting in 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm began using the Yellow Peril ideology to portray Germany as the great defender of the west against the barbarism of the east. But then all of a sudden Wilhelm began sending personal letters to his cousin Nicholas praising him as the quote “savior of the white races” and began urging him to take a more hardened approach to Asia. The letters between the two have been referred to as the “willy-nicky” letters, consisting of 75 messages sent back and forth between 1895-1914. I wont list them all of course but lets take a peak at how Wilhelm wrote to his cousin. In 1895 Wilhelm wrote this from Kaltenbronn Schwarzwald. I will paraphrase of course there's a ton of fluff. Dearest Nicky, I thank you sincerely for the excellent way in which you initiated the combined action of Europe[27] for the sake of its interests against Japan. It was high time that energetic steps were taken, and will make an excellent impression in Japan as elsewhere. It shows to evidence how necessary it is that we should hold together, and also that there is existent a base of common interests upon which all European nations may work in joint action for the welfare of all as is shown by the adherence of France to us two. May the conviction that this can be done without touching a nations honour, take root more and more firmly, then no doubt the fear of war in Europe will dissipate more and more. The kind and most valuable messages which you sent me through Osten Sacken[28] by Count Eulenburgs transmission in Vienna have given me a signal proof of your loyalty and openness towards me. I shall certainly do all in my power to keep Europe quiet and also guard the rear or Russia so that nobody shall hamper your action towards the Far East! For that is clearly the great task of the future for Russia to cultivate the Asian Continent and to defend Europe from the inroads of the Great Yellow race. In this you will always find me on your side ready to help you as best I can. You have well understood that call of Providence and have quickly grasped the moment; it is of immense political and historical value and much good will come of it. I shall with interest await the further development of our action and hope that, just as I will gladly help you to settle the question of eventual annexations[29] of portions of territory for Russia, you will kindly see that Germany may also be able to acquire a Port somewhere were it does not "gêne" you. You can see how Wilhelm is egging on his cousin about how Germany will have his back if he were to be bolder in Asia. Also the cute end bit about Germany acquiring some ports.  In 1898 for a New Years letter Wilhelm sent this Dearest Niky May this New Year be a happy one for you dear Allx and the whole of your house and country. May the plans, which you mature be fullfilled for the wellfare of your people. Henry's mission^ is one of the steps I have taken for the help and countenance of your lofty Ideals—without which no sovereign can exist—in promoting civilisation I. e. Christianity in [41] the Far East! Will you kindly accept a drawing I have sketched for you, showing the Symbolising figures of Russia and Germany as sentinels at the Yellow Sea for the proclaiming of the Gospel of Truth and Light in the East. I drew the sketch in the Xmas week under the blaze of the lights of theXmas trees!  Here Wilhelm is pressing upon the religious aspect and is basically flattering Nicholas. Again in 1898 Wilhelm wrote Dearest Nicky I must congratulate you most heartily at the successful issue of your action at Port Arthur ; we two will make a good pair of sentinels at the entrance of the gulf of Petchili, who will be duly respected especially by the Yellow Ones ! I think the way you managed to soothe the feelings of the "fretful Japs"by the masterly arrangement at Korea a remarkably fine piece of diplomacy and a great show of foresight; which Is apt to show what a boon it was that by your great journey,^ you were able to study the Question of the Far East locally and are now morally speaking the Master of Peking! Fretful Japs indeed In 1902 we get probably the most important letter involving the yellow peril Dear Nicky This is the more necessary as/certain symptoms in the East seems to show that Japan is becoming a rather restless customer and that the situation necessitates all coolness and decision of the Peace Powers. The news of the attachment of the Japanese General Yamai^—former leader of the Jap. troops in China—to the Legation at Peking in order to take in hand the reorganisation of the Chinese Army—i.e. for the unavowed object of driving every other foreigner out of China—is very serious. 20 to 30 Million of trained Chinese helped by half a dozen Jap. Divisions and led by fine, undaunted Christian hating Jap. Officers, is a future to be con- templated not without anxiety; and not impossible. In fact it is the coming into reality of the *'Yellow Peril" which I depicted some years ago, and for which engraving I was laughed at by the greater mass of the People for my graphic depiction of it ... Your devoted friend and cousin, Willy, Admiral of the Atlantic".  And there it is, an army of millions of Chinese led by Japanese officers, the yellow peril. So for years Wilhelm egged on his cousin, making him believe he was this savior of the white race, holding the yellow hoard back from sweeping over Europe. Wilhelm also made sure to leave ambiguous ideas that Germany had Russians back, that if war came and let's say a nation like Britain jumped into the mix, Germany would jump in too. Arguable if there was any reality behind these claims. Now back to the situation in the far east, King Gojong found his nation stuck between two tigers again, this time it was Japan and Russia. He believed the key to the issue was Manchuria and sought for Korea to remain as neutral as possible so she could hope to preserve her independence, I would saw independence with finger quotes. Meanwhile the Chinese ambassador to St Petersburg, Hu Weide was receiving reports from Beijing on whether Russia or Japan were likely to win such a war and how it would favor China. It was argued it was in China's interest for Japan to win, because a Japanese victory would likely breakdown Russians stronghold on Manchuria and perhaps China could wrestle it all back in. China decided in December of 1903 to remain neutral if war came, because while she knew Japan was the only one in the far east capable of pushing Russia out, she also did not know what Japan's ambitions might be in Manchuria.  In early 1904 negotiations continued between Russia and Japan, but like I mentioned earlier Japan gradually figured out Russia was not being serious. This was more than likely due to an infamous message sent by Wilhelm to Nicholas in December of 1903.  Since 97—Kiaochow—we have never left Russia in any doubt that we would cover her back in Europe, in case she decided to pursue a bigger policy in the Far East that might lead to military complications (with the aim of relieving our eastern border from the fearful pressure and threat of the massive Russian army!). Whereupon, Russia took Port Arthur and trusting us, took her fleet out of the Baltic, thereby making herself vulnerable to us by sea. In Danzig 01 and Reval 02, the same assurance was given again, with result that entire Russian divisions from Poland and European Russia were and are being sent to the Far East. This would not had happened if our governments had not been in agreement! Nicholas for his part was prepared to compromise with Japan, but the incessant letters from Wilhelm egging him on as a coward for thinking about compromising gradually broke the Tsar. The Kaiser wrote this: undertaking the protection and defence of the White Race, and with it, Christian civilization, against the Yellow Race. And whatever the Japs are determined to ensure the domination of the Yellow Race in East Asia, to put themselves at its head and organise and lead it into battle against the White Race. That is the kernel of the situation, and therefore there can be very little doubt about where the sympathies of all half-way intelligent Europeans should lie. England betrayed Europe's interests to America in a cowardly and shameful way over the Panama Canal question, so as to be left in 'peace' by the Yankees. Will the 'Tsar' likewise betray the interests of the White Race to the Yellow as to be 'left in peace' and not embarrass the Hague tribunal too much?. Nicholas replied he still sought peace, and Wilhelm replied in telegram “oh you innocent angel, this is the language of an innocent angel. But not that of a White Tsar!” Regardless of the Tsar's feelings, Japan was firmly under the belief Russia was not serious about seeking a peaceful solution to their dispute over Manchuria and Korea. When Japan proposed recognizing Manchuria was Russia's sphere of influence if Russia would respect their sphere of influence over Korea, the Russia counter proposal was basically, no, Russia would retain Manchuria and Korea would be open game.  Potential diplomatic resolutions between the two nations had thus failed. Historians generally argue it was the fault of Nicholas II who pushed his administration to give no ground. Why he acted this way though has two major arguments, one I have highlighted, the egging on by the Kaiser, but there was another element at play. The Russian people were frankly fed up with the royal family, the people were looking for change. To start a war and rile up patriotism could have been an attempt to quell the Russian people from revolutionary actions and in retrospect it certainly seems the case. The Tsar's advisers despite being hawkish did not seek a war with Japan, they simply wanted to bully what they thought was a weaker nation into submission. Because the reality was, Manchuria was far, the trans siberian railway was not complete, moving troops and provisions such a distance was a colossal task.  Japan performed a large scale study of the Russian power in Manchuria. The Japanese had been secretly surveying and mapping as far as east of Lake Baikal. In 1904 the Japanese had 380,000 active and reserve army forces, 200,000 in the 2nd reserve, another 50,000 in conscription reserve and 220,000 trained men of the national army, thus they could in theory toss 850,000 men into a conflict and by conscripting perhaps 4,250,000 who would all have to be trained taking time and money. Japan's effective strength was 257,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry and 894 artillery pieces. They held 12 infantry divisions each containing 11,400 infantry, 430 cavalry and 36 guns a piece. Their troops received 12 months training, once the war started this would be cut to 6 months. Their artillery battalions held 3 batteries with both field and mountain guns ranging in caliber of 2.95 inches to 4.72 inches. Their infantry were equipped with a modern 1900 .256 inch magazine rifle that could fire 2000 yards but was effective at 300. Each soldier carried a knapsack, greatcoat and shelter tent. In their sacks were two days rations and entrenching tools. For machine guns they would receive Hotchkiss guns. The logistical system for the Japanese would be much better than the Russians. They had a series of lines of support. The soldiers carried two days rations, with echelons of transports that carried provisions behind them. Each division had its own transport battalion, including an ambulance train to deal with casualties. Chinese carts, Chinese and Korean coolies would all be paid premium prices for logistical aid. The Japanese would buy local foodstuff from the Koreans and Chinese at premium prices to earn the local populaces support over the Russians. For the Russians their army stood roughly at 4.5 million, but only 6 of the 25 European army corps would play an active role in the far east. By February of 1904 the Russians had roughly 60,000 troops, 3000 cavalry and 164 guns posted at Vladivostok, Harbin and Port Arthur. By Mid february this would be increased to 95,000; with 45,000 at Vladivostok, 8000 at Harbin, 9000 in Haicheng; 11,000 near the Yalu and 22,000 around Port Arthur. The Russian had the European 1st, 4th, 8th, 10th, 16th and 17th army corps each numbering 28,000 rifles and 112 guns. Alongside these were 7 Siberian corps. While the Russians held the advantage in numbers, the trans siberian was not complete and the route going around Lake Baikal formed a massive delay. Lake Baikal is basically the size of Switzerland, around 386 miles long. Thus the forces in Manchuria would be at the mercy of local foodstuffs for provisions, which meant they were competing with the Japanese to purchase them, while the Japanese had their own nations foodstuffs coming via sea transport, from Korea and of course within China. The Russian troops were armed with a .299 caliber rifles, but their training was lackluster and required all men to fire at short range on orders from superior officers. The upcoming war would catch the Russian gunners in the midst of a  re-equipment programme. A third of their guns were a new 3 inch quick firing gun with a range of 6000 yards, capable of battering the Japanese artillery. However the gunners training period was quite literally on the job. Thus many of the gunners were coming into the conflict with a new technology they had not even fired yet. Japan's population was then 46.5 million, Russia's 130 million. The Russian military opinion saw the Japanese “as little people who lived in paper houses…and wasted hours on flower arrangement and tea ceremonies”. However, Minister of War Kuropatkin visited Japan in 1903 and was impressed by their infantry and artillery, stating that they were equal to any European army, and advocated avoiding war with them. Russia's navy was much larger, but divided between the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Pacific, whereas Japan's was concentrated in her home waters. By 1902, Russia began strengthening her Pacific squadron and, by the end of 1903, had 7 battleships, 7 cruisers, 25 destroyers and 27 smaller ships. The IJN (the Japanese Navy) consisted of 6 battleships, 10 cruisers, 40 destroyers and 40 smaller vessels. The Russian ships were a hotchpotch of differing types, armaments and speeds, with a varied amount of armor protection. The Japanese ships were nearly all British built, uniform and faster. Alcohol excess amongst Russian crews was a serious problem. Baltic crews spent the 6 months of winter ashore because the gulf of Finland froze and because of bureaucratic demand for uniformity. So did the crews of the Black Sea fleet. Thus, Russian sailors spent less time at sea and less time training. The Japanese navy under British instruction spent more time at sea, and trained intensively. Japanese sailors were literate, while most Russian sailors were not. These variables would come out to play when dealing with steam-driven warships, the most technologically advanced weapons of the day. At the outbreak of the conflict the Russian Far East fleet would have 7 battleships, 6 cruisers and 13 destroyers at Port Arthur. At Vladivostok were 4 first class cruisers, with a number of torpedo boats. At Chemulpo in Korea were the protected cruisers Varya and gunboat Koreyetz. A crucial component of the conflict would be commanding the sea ways. Both nations recognized this fact all too well. The Russian far east fleet was constrained from year the round training by being icebound in Vladivostok for 3 months of the year. Her fleet was also a ragtag bunch with different armaments, speed, armor and flexibility. Russia was dependent on foreign built ships, though she was fully capable of building her own. Russia had ships built from Britain, Germany, France and the US. The Russian navy was based on conscription at 7 years with 3 years of reserve.  The IJN combined fleet was led by Vice-Admiral Heihachiro Togo. The two divided squadrons of the Russian Pacific Fleet were commanded overall by Admiral Oskar Ludvig Stark. The Main Russian squadron was in Port Arthur and the other cruiser squadron was at Vladivostok under the command of Admiral Nikolai Skrydlov. Port Arthur offered some shore artillery battery defense, though it was underfunded due to divestments for the development of Dalny, and its dry dock capabilities were quite limited compared to that of Sasebo. The Russians were bluffing the Japanese while continuing the strengthen their position in the far east. But the Japanese would not wait for them to do so.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Kaiser Wilhelm II had egged his cousin Tsar Nicholas II into facing against the Empire of Japan. Little did the Russian Tsar know, but he was about to send his nation to their doom, for the Japanese had done their homework and were determined to rid Manchuria of the Russian menace

Last time we spoke about the origins of the Big Sword Society and the invulnerability technique known as the Armor of the Golden Bell. China was certainly no stranger to sects and martial art groups. The Big Sword Society rose up to counteract the rebels and bandits that plagued parts of China like good old Shandong province. However when Christian missionaries began to get involved in the mix things got ugly quick. Bandits would exploit the conversion to christianity to protect themselves from justice. The Big Sword Society had been largely successful combating bandits, but when it came to matters involving the church they were powerless. Finally enough was enough and now the Big Swords were tussling with the Christians, truly raising hell. Yet for now the Big Swords averted fatalities and limited their attacks to property, but what would happen if they turned up the heat?    #58 The Juye Incident & Scramble for China   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The story of Pang Sangjie and the minor skirmish between the Big Sword Society and Church was quite minor. French Jesuits reported two main mission residence at Daitaolou and Houjiazhuang were attacked alongside Christian homes in over 16 villages. The church settled the losses with local Qing officials for only 2000 strings of cash on June 26th, before the final battle had occurred. The Germans in Shandong submitted their report which amounted to petty vandalism to chapels in 17 villages and the burning of 119 rooms in Xue-Jonglou. For this they received 12,020 strings of cash. There were no Christian casualties during the entire conflict either Chinese or foreign. The Big Swords got rowdy, targeted the property of the Christians, but made sure not to take lives. If they had wanted to take lives, they easily could have as they demonstrated. The Qing authorities were too busy with another ongoings, there was a large Muslim rebellion raging in Gangsu and Shaanxi seeing General Dong Fuxiang with numerous forces going into the northwest. Thus the trouble of the Big Swords was pretty small in comparison.  But what if the Big Swords began killing Chinese christians, or some foreign missionaries? How would the church react, how would foreign nations react? We talked a lot about French Catholic missionaries, some protestant British and Americans, but another large group came from Germany. There were three missionaries working on behalf of the “Societas Verbi Divini” Society of the divine word. This was a catholic society founded in Steyl, Netherlands in 1875, which drew mostly German priests into its ranks. When Otto von Bismarck came into power, there was a conflict known as die Kulturkampf, basically the church wanted clerical control over education and ecclesiastical appointment. Otto von Bismarck and other enlightenment minded leaders sought a separation of church and state and this led to countless priests fleeing places like Germany. In 1882 the Society began sending missionaries to Shandong province. Three German missionaries working on behalf of the society of the divine wind, George Stenz, Richard Henle and Francis Xavier Nies were at a missionary residence in Zhangjiazhuang in Juye county. This was the mission station of Stenz, it was around 25km west of Jining. The two other men had come to visit. Henle was quite discouraged because his work was going very slow, thus Stenz urged him to take a break. The three men did their best to raise their spirits on the evening of November 1st, 1897, the night of all saints day. They sang songs from their childhood as Stenz played his zither. They practiced the requiem for the following day. When they retired for the evening, Stenz gave up his own room to his two guests and moved over to the servants quarters. It was around 11pm, when suddenly shots rang out into the night, the courtyard was full of torches. A band of 20-30 armed men raced towards the missionary quarters. They charged the door to Stenz quarters which were unlocked as the priest had no reason to believe anything like an attack would occur. The mob grabbed Henle and Nies and hacked them to death. Apparently they realized neither were the local missionary, as the mob continued to ransack the building searching for Stenz. They checked the church, the missionary quarters and such, but they never checked the servants quarters. The christian villagers became aroused by the mob and raised their own mob to combat them, driving the assailants out. It was not certain who committed the murders, but people generally assumed it was the work of the Big Swords Society. So why the hell did all of this happen? Nine men were rounded up by Qing officials, these men were vagrants, the usual suspect types. Two of men of the nine were executed for the crime, but no one really believed they were guilty. Stenz certainly did not believe them to be the assailants, everything was done in haste, with little to no actual investigation. The governor Yuxian claimed that it was the work of a band of robbers, but there was no evidence of robbery, except for a few pieces of clothing being stolen from Stenz's room. Regardless, if it was a simple case of robbery, they would certainly have not resorted to murder, especially against foreign missionaries. It was certain, particularly to Stenz that this was a deliberate attack on German missionaries. Why might Stenz believe so, he had good reason to believe the residents of Juye would wish harm upon him and his colleagues.  Local villagers told Stenz, that Henle's failed work in the southern town of Yuncheng was the actual target of the attack. Henle had been interfering in lawsuits and made a few enemies. He apparently was a very difficult man to get along with, so much so, even his own christian congregations had revolted against him. However despite Henle's reputation, its more than likely Stenz that was the target of the attack. He was the resident missionary and the mob literally targeted his room. According to Stenz, he heard them screaming his name as they searched for him. Stenz was not very popular. He was a particularly militant member of the society of divine word. In his autobiography the very first line reads "On September 29, 1893, I received at Steyl the mission cross which was to be at once weapon and banner in my fight for the Kingdom of God." He was also a racist, and I do not mean by today's standards. When he first arrived to China, in Shanghai, he wrote a description of the people, it is as follows. “An entirely new world now opened before us. Crowds of slit-eyed Chinese swarmed about the harbor—prominent merchants in their rustling silks and poor coolies in ragged clothes that did not hide their filthy bodies. Confidence was not our first impression on reaching this gate of the Celestial Empire. Cunning, pride, and scorn flashed from the eyes that met our inquiring looks”. He often wrote about how lazy and procrastinating the Qing officials were and that the food was unpalatable in the nation. He was mortified when forced “to use two short pieces of stick” to eat. Its easy to say Stenz had a rough time adapting to life in China. His experience as a missionary in China was that of suffering and homesickness. He was trained prior to coming to China, but this training was designed to steel himself into a martyr. Indeed he alongside countless other missionaries were taught their deaths in the service of god were a sign of grace. Father Xavier while in China had written back home "More than once I have prayed to God for the grace of martyrdom, but most likely it will not be granted to me. My blood is not deemed red enough by God, and is still mingled with the dust of this earth." The oral history of the event, passed down by local villagers had Stenz and other missionaries interfering in lawsuits. In the case of Stenz he was also accused of raping 10 local women, and participating in christian theft. Though these claims could easily be false, it at least tells us what the locals thought of such a man. Stenz also gave his own oral account of the incident. In Stenz account he talks about how a few members of the White Lotus sect enrolled in his church from the village of Caojiazhuang. He refused the admission of the headman from that village, because he was accused of stealing and killing an ox from a neighboring village. This refusal lead to a lot of villagers becoming upset. Stenz recent converts were from some of the wealthiest families in that village and they began refusing to make normal contributions to village festivals such as paying for food for feasts. This led the other villagers to try and force the christians to pay, and they went to local Qing authorities to complain. Stenz became convinced it was all the work of the headman he refused and he believed that man joined the Big Swords to lead the attack on his mission. Given the previous instances of conflict between the church and Big Swords, such a explanation has merit. Perhaps the villagers sought revenge on the missionaries and went to the Big Swords for help or, perhaps they simply pretended to be members of the Big Swords. Regardless it seems clear, bandits were in their ranks. A story often told of this incident includes a former bandit named Liu Derun who apparently was seeking revenge against the Juye magistrate who had arrested and tortured his wife or daughter. To attack a missionary could bring about the end to the magistrates career. Regardless of why it all happened, it seemed certain to the church that they were indanger. The anti-christian conflicts that had occurred in the previous years were well known, and the involvement of the Big Sword Society also. All of this was seen as a godsend to the missionaries and the new German government. In 1897 Germany was an infant nation looking to flex her muscles on the world stage. Her economy was the largest in continental europe, she was emerging as Britain's rival in the world of trade. German's new position in China reflected her competition with Britain and she was becoming a force to be reckoned with. In 1890 the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank became the first non-British foreign bank in China. However, while German trade was thriving, her military capacity to expand her foreign markets were lackluster. This was also coming upon the time Alfred Mahan's “the influence of sea power upon history” had come out in 1890 which proscribed naked force to be employed to protect one's market in the age of imperialism. The German navy was the 5th largest in the world, far below her ranking in economics. Her navy was being developed by the legendary Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz backed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. A late 19th century navy required coaling stations, and for Tirpitz he desired one in China. Germany requested a lease for a naval base in China in October of 1895, and the following year Tirpitz scouted potential ports, and thought Jiaozhou Bay on the Shandong peninsula to be an excellent location. Jiaozhou held a deep water port, and was surrounded by mineral resources. Alongside this, German missionaries of the society of the divine word were operating in the region which was a large bonus. By November of 1896 Germany was determined to acquire Jiozhou and Heyking in Beijing, looking for any means necessary to grab them. When news came to Berlin on november 6th of 1897 of the murdered missionaries, Wilhelm was delighted “that a splendid opportunity had at last arrived”. The next day Wilhelm met with advisors and argued "It is the last chance for Germany to get a possession anywhere in Asia and to firm up our prestige which has dropped.... [N]o matter what it costs, we must not under any circumstances give up Kiaochow. It has a future for economic development as well as industry, a future which will be greater and more meaningful than Shanghai is today." Meanwhile back in China the Qing officials were as incompetent as usual. As was becoming typical of any incidents involving missionaries, the Zongli Yamen received news of the missionaries murders on November 7th from the German ambassador, before any local officials ever reported it. The Qing court immediately understood the dangerous situation, the Emperor realized Germany would use the situation to seize a harbor. The Emperor ordered governor of Shandong, Li Bingheng to be reprimanded for his incompetence, but on November 14th, German warships arrived at Jiaozhou bay. The local Qing garrison withdrew from the area, without firing a shot. Li Bingheng immediately reported the potential invasion to the Qing court urging them to fight the invaders ''Since they started the feud, we have no alternative but to resist.' He proposed they raise 5 additional companies of soldiers in Caozhou to drive the Germans out. However the Qing court rejected his proposal stating such recruits would be worthless in battle. The Qing court responded with this to Li "although the enemy has certainly acted arbitrarily, the court will definitely not mobilize its troops. The foreigners' actions rely entirely on power. If our power cannot assure victory, we will absorb a great loss." They were not wrong in this regard, do remember they literally just lost a war against Japan. The Qing navy was shattered, the imperial treasury was on the verge of bankruptcy already paying indemnities to Japan, how could China resist Germany at this time? One thing the Qing court understood was the balance of power theory. Europe was divided and all competing in China. When Japan claimed the Liaodong peninsula, the triple intervention of Russia, France and Germany had occurred. The Qing court expected Russia to yet again intervene against the Germans now, hell Russia had also shown desires for Jiaozhou bay. However the Qing did not know Wilhelm had been talking to Tsar Nicholas, convincing him to take Port Arthur and Dalien, while Germany could seize Jiaozhou. You have probably heard of the great scramble for Africa during the late 19th century. This involved multiple world powers literally scrambling to seize colonies in Africa, well this situation was also occurring in China. You may have seen a famous painting by the Artist H. Meyer, depicting China as a pie being carved up by the leaders of the great powers. There is a description of the painting which helps greatly for a audio podcast haha “En Chine: Le gâteau des Rois et... des Empereurs” Le Petit Journal Supplément Illustré, January 16, 1898 Artist: H. Meyer “In this French rendering, Queen Victoria glares at the German Kaiser, while the Russian, French, and Japanese figures look pensively at China. The Kaiser stabs his knife into the German-leased territory Jiaozhou (Kiao-Tcheou) in Shandong, acquired in 1898, while the Russian Tsar puts his fists on Port Arthur (the Chinese port of Lüshun, leased in 1897). The caption reads: “China: The cake of Kings and Emperors.” The Germans had long been seeking a port on the Chinese coast, and the Juye incident was a perfect pretext to grab Jiaozhou. On November 6th Kaiser Wilhem sent a telegram to the Tsar stating “sending a German squadron to Jiaozhou, as it is the only port available to operate from as a base against marauders. I am under obligation to Catholic party in Germany to show that their missions are really safe under my protection”. For quite a while, the great powers had engaged in a sort of gunboat diplomacy with China, to compel her government to bring persecutors of Christianity to justice. However now Germany was taking things into her own hands to suppress anti christian activity on Chinese soil. This was quite a novel departure from what the great powers had been doing. Germany had been strong arming China for awhile now, back in October of 1895 the German minister threatened China after some disturbances in Yanzhou. The Qing had failed to act effectively to protect some Christians prompting the minister to say  "my government will have no alternative but to devise methods to protect them ourselves." This was the type of threat the Germans would continue to make and after the Juye incident the Germans demanded a guarantee. However the Qing as much as they wanted to avoid conflict could not guarantee anything, they replied areas like Caozhou were unruly in nature and impossible to guarantee 100% protection. Thus the minister now sent this message "Since China cannot guarantee that in the future such incidents will not recur, our warships are in Jiaozhou and can help you handle the matter." The Qing responded with this "this concerns the internal affairs of China, you need not interfere in it." On December 16th, Wilhelm made a speech and sent his brother in command of an additional squadron to China “Make it clear to every European there, to the German merchant, and, above all things, to the foreigner in whose country we are or with whom we have to deal, that the German Michael has set his shield, decorated with the imperial eagle, firmly upon the ground. Whoever asks him for protection will always receive it.... But if any one should undertake to insult us in our rights or wish to harm us, then drive in with the mailed fist and, as God wills, bind about your young brow the laurels which no one in the entire German Empire will begrudge you. “ So yeah, the kaiser meant business. The Germans pushed extremely hard upon the Qing forcing them to do some pretty extraordinary things. The Qing agreed to construct new cathedrals in Jining and Caozhou where the missionaries were killed and the funds would be coming from their pockets. They were forced to put inscriptions over the doors of the new cathedrals reading "Catholic church constructed by imperial order." On top of this they were forced to build new residences for missionaries in Yutai, Cao, Chengwu, Shan, Yuncheng, Heze and Juye. Five magistrates from those countries were dismissed, one was impeached, a daotai was transferred, and a army commander was also dismissed. Governor Li Bingheng was supposed to be receiving a promotion, viceroyship over Sichuan, but instead he was stripped of his promotion and demoted two grades down. Li Binghengs punishment was largely a result of his anti christian behaviors. The Germans pointed out that in the wake of the Big Sword Society causing troubles in 1896, Li Bingheng had made statements like "Ever since the Western religion came to China, its converts have all been unemployed rascals [xiu-min, lit.: weed people]. They use the foreign religion as protection to bring suits for others and oppress their villages. They use the Church to avoid prosecution, and gradually the local officials, to avoid trouble, bend the law in their favor. After a while the people's long-suppressed anger becomes unbearable. They feel the officials cannot be relied upon, and that they must vent their spleen in private disputes. Thus they gather crowds and seek quarrels, burning and destroying churches." Li Bingheng proposed prohibiting missionary interference in lawsuits, so that local Qing officials could do their job. This all obviously angered the Germans, who complained to Beijing about him.  Now for the common people of Shandong, Li Bingheng was quite loved. Li Bingheng was seen as an honest man and rather good at administrating economic affairs. He managed yellow river works that saved over a million taels in 1895, raised money for the board of revenue about 100,000 per year. While he was seen as anti christian, he also was seen as an uncorrupt official, something quite rare in the late Qing dynasty. The German move was met with exhilaration by other great powers. Sir Claude McDonald, the minister to Beijing from Great Britain said "The effect on the security of our own people will be of the best. It seems hopeless to expect the Chinese to do their duty in protecting missionaries and discouraging anti-foreign movements unless they are forced thereto by some measure as the Germans have taken." An American missionary working in northwestern Shandong named Henry Porter said "the German Government deserve the admiration of all right-minded men, the world over. A great sense of relief was felt by the foreign residents of China. .. . The immediate effect throughout Shantung province is to strengthen every form of mission work.. .. We welcome the German vigor and the German advance." And of course such people were ecstatic about Germany flexing its arms in China, the Big Sword Society had ruffled many feathers. Getting rid of Li Bingheng was seen as a major play to increase conversions in Shandong. Indeed there was a dramatic change with Li Bingheng gone and a German squadron present. A missionary working in Qingzhou reported the proclamations made by the new governor, Zhang Ru-mei to be "much more favorable to the missionary than anything we have been accustomed to in times past." Another missionary working in Wei county reported "The most marked effect we see is the prestige [the Jiaozhou seizure] gives to the foreigners, a prestige that is pitiful to see. The officials seem for the time being to stand in abject fear of any complications with foreigners."  The Germans were pushing the envelope, after the Juye incident, German missionaries got into the habit of placing blame on the Big Sword Society for any difficulties that came about. It was clear to all what they were doing, Governor Zhang Ru-mei remarked "They wish to stir up trouble in this way and let the German troops enter the interior." Local Qing officials began bending over backwards to Christians and lawsuits got worse and worse. Zhang Ru-mei gave an example of one bad situation that arose in the village of Wenshang. There was a dispute over the rights to a village temple, and a Christian had been assaulted. A German missionary sent a message to the magistrate stating the Christian had been killed, prompting the magistrate to rush to the scene to find the man had only light injuries. Nonetheless the magistrate prepared a list of 20 people guilty of the crime and they were forced to kneel and beg for forgiveness before converting to christianity. The German missionary praised the 20 chinese who he called good people, then he stated none of them should be prosecuted as he pulled out his own list with 5 other guilty chinese villagers. The 5 were forced to pay a sum of around 170 strings of cash. Then the same missionary demanded the village as a whole be fined 900 strings of cash. The magistrate anxious to be rid of the situation, increased the sum and added a banquet to be made for the missionary.  So as you can see the church was really abusing this situation. The protestant missionaries in the region were quite jealous, one of their missionaries went on to say "The influence of the Catholic persuasion is felt in nearly all parts of the field. Multitudes are flocking to them for the sake of 'help' in various forms, chiefly for the 'power' that is supposed to reside in them more than in the Protestant." The Kaiser famously was quoted to say “hundreds of thousands of Chinese would feel the iron first of Germany heavy on their necks”. Indeed Germany humiliated China and received a lease of Jiaozhou bay from 1898 that would last until 1920. 50 kms of the Jiaozhou bay area was proclaimed a neutral zone in which Chinese sovereignty was limited in favor of the Germans. Germany did not stop there, they immediately went to work grabbing mining and railway concessions within Shandong province. The scramble for concessions was on. Germany seized influence over Shandong; Russia seized influence over Northern Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang; France seized Yunnan, most of Guangxi and Guangdong; Japan seized Fujian; Britain seized influence over the whole of the Yangtze river valley and Italy requested Zhejiang province and was rejected by the Qing government haha. I always loved that aspect of this, despite China literally being torn apart, Italy was still seen to be too small to grab a piece, get rekt.  The Kaiser's actions had reinforced China's fears about missionaries, or as many of the locals called them “devils”. In common Chinese believed the missionaries were working on behalf of their respective governments as a pretext for seizing territory in China. To the common Chinese things looked like things were getting wildly out of hand. The Christian converts were becoming not only more numerous, but had extravagant demands. In one famous case a Christian agricultural worker forced his non christian employer to serve him a feast. Over in Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi bitterly resented hearing these reports and would go on to say “These Chinese Christians are the worst people in China. They rob the poor country people of their land and property, and the missionaries, of course, always protect them, in order to get a share themselves.” It was truly a problem, it was breaking the social fabric of village life. Chinese christians were barred from traditional ceremonies and festivals in their own villages and more crucially they no longer had to share the costs of them. They were not allowed to practice ancestor worship which was a fundamental aspect of Chinese society. As one Qing scholar using the pen name Wen Ching put it “As soon as a man becomes a Christian he really ceases to be a Chinaman”. It was commonly believed many only converted because they were too poor to afford food and were disparagingly referred to as “rice Christians”.  Empress Dowager Cixi asked a foreign diplomat at one point “Why don't these missionaries stay in their own country and be useful to their own people?” At the time she made this remark there was over 700,00 Catholic converts ministered by more than 850 nuns and priests, mostly from France. Another 85,000 protestant Chinese were under the guidance of 2800 missionaries, mostly from Britain and America. As Ron Burgundy once said “boy that escalated quickly”. China was being carved up, her social fabric was being torn apart, foreign powers were bearing their boots down upon her, who could come to her rescue?  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. China was literally being carved up by the great powers of the globe. The Kaiser had ushered in a scramble, and now China braced itself for further humiliation. Was there anyone who could save China for the foreign menace? 

Fabian Hoffmann is a PhD scholar at the Oslo Nuclear Project. His research focuses on the proliferation, deployment and use of "non-nuclear strategic weapons", particularly conventional precision strike capabilities, and their implications for nuclear strategy and wider nuclear weapons policy (e.g. nuclear proliferation and nuclear disarmament). Before joining the University of Oslo, Fabian worked as a research assistant at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). He holds an MA in War Studies from King's College London, UK, and a BA in International Relations from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Nuclear weapons pose an enduring challenge to international security. The Oslo Nuclear Project is a research program, which analyzes nuclear challenges to the international security. The program also educates a new generation of experts on nuclear weapons and international security.   Chapters: 00:00 Where did your interest in international relations come from? 10:00 Is preventing war a motivation for studying war? 13:00 Being naïve vs being realistic. Is war a part of our nature? 17:00 Should we be exposed more or less to war? 22:23 Where is the knowledge on nuclear weapons located? 24:40 It's not in Putin's interest to use nuclear weapons. 29:40 Potential different kinds of nuclear strikes  32:57 Tactical nuclear weapons vs. strongest conventional weapons 36:00 Nuclear deterrence 37:50 The hierarchy of military units from firing squad to division and corps 39:39 Potential use of tactical nukes in Ukraine? 40:58 NATO would have to get involved if Russia used nukes 50:00 Could Putin potentially escalate from tactical to strategic ICBM's? 53:42 The current nuclear power balance in the world 57:00 Which countries have nuclear weapons? 58:30 Should Ukraine have kept their nukes, 1994 Budapest memorandun., 01:03:40 Where is the tacit knowledge on creating nuclear weapons located? 01:11:25 The US can't produce the F22 Raptor anymore, due to lack of competent people and tacit knowledge 01:15:00 Would we accept new western countries acquiring nuclear weapons? Like Norway? 01:22:50 Mutual Assured Destruction, communications and retaliation 01:29:25 US tracking russian SSBN's (Sub Surface Ballistic Nuclear subs) in the Atlantic for weeks 01:33:00 How does a nuclear warhead work? 3 different kinds 01:45:25 The Russian Tsar boma, biggest nuclear explosion ever. 01:47:00 Transparency 01:51:00 Iran, Stuxnet, Saudi Arabia and North Korea 02:00:00 Missile defences, the Kinzhal and the US Patriot systems 02:21:21 USS Gerald R. Ford in the Oslo Fjord 02:23:30 F16's, AIM-120 AMRAAM, should we give them to Ukraine? 02:28:20 How long will the western support for Ukraine last? NATO membership? 02:35:49 UN peacekeeping forces, could they enter Ukraine? 02:42:46 Taiwan and China – the next big conflict? Nuclear risk? 02:50:46 Possible outcomes of Ukraine-Russia conflict

On another explosive installment of Disinformed, a man between Michaels melts down, we border on remembering the water, and a Russian Tsar meets an ignominious end.https://linktr.ee/disinformedpodcastSources:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Alexander_II_of_Russia https://www.rbth.com/history/333524-5-attempts-alexander-of-russia-murderhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervomartovtsy https://www.prisonersofeternity.com/blog/assassination-of-tsar-alexander-ii/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_I_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Konstantin_Pavlovich_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist_revolthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_reform_of_1861 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Purchase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%27s_law_(Arizona) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_to_the_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt#Russian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Manege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesya_Helfman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia#CollapseOutro:Semi-Funk by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/4333-semi-funkLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For over 300 years, the Romanov family ruled over the Russian Empire.  After the Communist Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, and he and his family were placed under house arrest, where they ultimately met a grizzly fate. For decades after their deaths, the world wondered what happened to them until their bodies were discovered and identified 80 years later.  Learn more about the fate of the last Russian Tsar and his family on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A look into the history of rhubarb reveals a great past. The Arabs brought the root of the barbarians, which is the transcription of the Latin/botanical name of rhubarb, to Europe. The Russian Tsar later claimed a trade monopoly on rhubarb roots. It was only towards the end of the early modern period (at the beginning of the 18th century) that rhubarb was rediscovered as a vegetable plant. At that time, rhubarb was not cultivated much compared to other fruit and vegetable species. Great things can be expected for the future.

Today we celebrate a man remembered for bringing a ton of new and exciting plant species to California and his profound impact on Santa Barbara in particular. We'll also learn about a year of letter-writing between two garden greats. We hear an excerpt about the first time tulip bulbs were used as money. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a stunning book about our relationship with trees. And then we’ll wrap things up with the sunny State Flower of Kansas: the Sunflower. . Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News National Plant-a-Flower Day | FTD   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events March 12, 1843 Today is the birthday of the Italian American horticulturist Francesco Franceschi (“fran-CHESS-ko fran-CHESS-key”). Born in Italy, Francesco changed his name after coming to America and settling in Santa Barbara, California. With a temperate Mediterranean climate, Santa Barbara became a haven for plant lovers in the 1800s. Francesco’s work elevated him in the plant community. He planted a boulevard of impressive Italian Stone Pines and lined another main avenue with Palm Trees. Always on the lookout for new varieties, Francesco brought Italian Zucchini to California, and he introduced exciting new plants like Cape Pittosporum, Floss Silk, and Naked Coral Trees to California. Fluent in seven languages, Francesco communicated with botanists, collectors, and explorers all over Europe and South America. In terms of legacy, Francesco is remembered for bringing more exotic plants to Southern California than any other man. One specimen that made Francesco famous was the Catalina Ironwood and the story of how he sourced the tree is legendary. In 1894, Francesco made a trip to the Channel Islands to get the Catalina Ironwood. Tragically, this expedition was beset with all kinds of challenges. When the rough waters threatened to sink their vessel, Francesco’s sons had to jump out of the boat. Seeing the commotion and suspecting the Francheschi’s were smugglers, the coast guard fired on them. Yet despite these close calls, Francesco achieved his goal and he managed to bring an entire burl stump of Catalina Ironwood to Santa Barbara. Once he was home, Francesco propagated new Ironwoods from the suckers that formed on the stump and one of these offspring ended up at the Botanic Garden at UC Berkeley. Forty years after Francesco’s rocky trip to the Channel Islands, Santa Barbara made the Catalina Ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. floribundus) the city’s official tree. And today, next to the space where Francesco’s nursery used to be, an oceanside park bears Francesco’s name. And if you’ve ever lamented the way botanical plant names change over time, you’d be in good company with Francesco, who — after learning that Persea gratissima was updated to Persea americana — said, “One cannot protest strongly enough against this modern craziness of creating new names for old things.”   March 12, 2001 On this day Nancy Goodwin of the landmark Montrose Gardens and Allen Lacy American garden writer and columnist launched their garden book called A Year in Our Gardens. This is one of my favorite books and it's a collection of the letters that Alan and Nancy exchanged during a single year. Now, what I love about Alan in Nancy's letters is that these two people are truly real gardeners in every sense of the word - despite their fame and popularity. And so their letters share their horticultural wins and their failures. They talk about plants, of course, but they also share their dreams for their gardens and they even delve into other areas of their life - like their favorite music and what's going on with their family and friends. And as for these two gardeners, Alan and Nancy's gardens and their garden philosophies could not be more different. Alan's garden was on a 100- by 155-foot plot of farmland in Southern New Jersey. And while Alan gardened on sandy soil, that required constant watering, Nancy took a different approach and she never irrigated her garden. Instead, she planted only native plants that would thrive naturally in her garden without any intervention on her part. Anyway, I cannot believe that this is the 20th anniversary of this book coming out, this landmark garden book. And if you don't have it, I encourage you to head on over to Amazon and buy the book because it's truly one of the great garden books. You can get A Year in Our Gardens on Amazon and support the show in today's show notes for around $2    Unearthed Words Deep inside the long, low-line cordon of islands that separated the northern provinces of the Dutch Republic from the North Sea stood the West Friesland town of Hoorn. Until the 1550s, Hoorn had been one of the most important places in the Netherlands, thriving on Baltic trade. Now nearly a hundred years later, the ships that had once unloaded cargos of hemp and timber at its docks, sailed on to Amsterdam. Hoorn was dying; the port had slipped into a long, slow decline from which it was never to recover. Somewhere in the center of this ruined town, in the first half of the seventeenth century, stood a house with three stone tulips carved into its facade. There was nothing else special about the building… But this is where tulip mania began. The stone flowers were placed there to commemorate the sale of the house, in the summer of 1633, for three rare tulips. It was in this year... that the price of bulbs reached unprecedented heights in West Friesland. When news of the sale of the tulip house got out, a Friesian farmhouse and its adjoining land also changed hands for a parcel of bulbs. These remarkable transactions... were the first sign that something approaching mania had begun to flourish. For three decades, flower lovers had used money to buy tulips. Now – for the first time – tulips were being used as money. And just as strikingly, they were being valued at huge sums. — Mike Dash, Tulipomania, Chapter 10: Boom   Grow That Garden Library Forest by Matt Collins This book came out in 2020 and the subtitle is A Journey Through Wild And Magnificent Landscapes. In this book, Matt journeyed across North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Along with photographer, Roo Lewis, the two men captured the history, science, and human stories behind some of the most amazing environments in the world. Together, the two men explored earth's lush woodlands and wild landscapes - and along the way, they uncovered the relationships that humans have with trees. And here's what the publisher wrote about Matt’s book: “Matt explores the captivating history behind some of the world's most enchanting for us. This book is organized by tree species, including the Hardy Pines in a forest in Spain, the towering firs of the American West, and the striking Birch groves found in Germany. And in addition to all of that Forest offers a beautiful blend of photographs, scientific trivia, and engaging human stories.” This book is 256 pages of gorgeous tree photography and the magnificence of the forest of our planet. You can get a copy of Forest by Matt Collins and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $4   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart March 12, 1903 On this day, the Kansas State Flower was officially selected. Governor Willis Bailey signed the legislation that designated the wild native Sunflower or Helianthus as the state flower. And it turns out that during that same time period, Nebraska was also considering the Sunflower. But when Kansas made it official, Nebraska dropped its bid. And so today, Kansas remains the only state that can officially claim the Sunflower. Now in the years, leading up to the official selection of the Sunflower, many Kansans were writing about its beauty. In fact, the Topeka Capital wrote “Kansas boasts a number of men who can write a good Sunflower verse, but none of these can do it more entertainingly than Ed Blair.” Ed Blair was a Kansas poet and author, and in 1901, he wrote an ode to the Kansas Sunflower. Here's a little excerpt: Oh, Sunflower the Queen of all flowers,  No other with you can compare  The roadside and fields are made golden  Because of your bright presence there. Now, with regard to the Sunflower, there are a number of fun facts that just may surprise you. First of all, they are definitely native plants to the Western hemisphere. And through the ages, they've been used for dyes and oil and food and even medicine. In fact, in both Mexico and in Native American tribes, the Sunflower was used to treat chest pain. Now most gardeners will attempt to grow Sunflowers at some point. So if you find yourself wanting to give it a try. Here are a few things you should consider. First of all, Sunflowers really do need a ton of sun. Don't be stingy with the sunshine and put them in part shade. These are plants that really appreciate all the rays they can get. Second. Sunflowers not only grow in full sun, they actually follow the sun. They exhibit behavior that's known as Heliotropism. In the morning, the Sunflower heads will face East. And then the Sunflower heads will move to track the sun throughout the day. Now as they mature, this tracking movement will become less pronounced as the stem loses its flexibility in order to support the large mature bloom. Now in terms of botanical history, there is a story about the Sunflower that I love to tell. In 1972, a young student named Charles B. Heizer Jr. wrote a lovely tribute about his mentor and teacher, the botanist Edgar Anderson. "Student Days with Edgar Anderson or How I Came to Study Sunflowers." Charles sifted through the many letters he had received from Edgar during his lifetime - they filled up a folder over two inches thick. Over the years, Edgar was an encouraging mentor to Charles, writing, "What an incredible gift good students are…" and "if you are tired of [Helianthus] and don't want to look at 'em anymore for a while, why by all means put them aside. Don't let anybody's advice, including mine, keep you from what you are happiest doing." And here's another fun Sunflower story. When the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, saw Sunflower for the first time in Holland, he fell in love with them and had them brought back to Russia. The Russian public loved Sunflowers as well -  but not just for their happy flowers. Unlike other cooking oils, the oil from Sunflower seeds was approved for use during Lent by the Russian Orthodox Church. By the early 1800s, two million Acres of Sunflowers for planted in Russia every single year. Ironically, over the next century, immigrants from Russia would bring Sunflower seeds with them when they immigrated to the United States. And even though these plants were originally native to the Western hemisphere, the Russian hybrids actually had evolved and had bigger blooms than the original American varieties. And finally, Mabel Thompson, a resident of Kansas wrote a poem called, “When the Sunflowers, Bloom,” and it was shared in the Chanute Daily Tribune in July of 1903 - just three months after the Sunflower was made the official state flower. And I found Mabel's poem to beat absolutely charming and I thought I'd close the show with it today.   I've been off on a journey. I just got home today.  I traveled East and North and South and every other way.  I've seen a heap of country and cities on the boom,  But I want to be in Kansas, when the Sunflowers bloom. You may talk about your lilies, your violets and roses,  Your asters and your jazzy-mins, and all other posies. I'll allow they all are beauties and full of sweet perfume,  But there's none of them, a patchin’ to the Sunflowers bloom. Oh, it's nice among the mountains, but I sorta felt shut-in.  It'd be nice upon the seashore. if it wasn't for the din. While the Prairie's are so quiet and there's always lots of room.  Oh, it's nice, still in Kansas when the Sunflowers bloom. When all the sky above is just as blue as can be.  And the Prairie's are waving like a yellow drifting sea.  Oh, it's there my soul goes sailing and my heart is on the boom In the golden fields of Kansas. When the Sunflowers bloom.  — Mabel Thompson, Here's When the Sunflowers Bloom   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

In this episode of Eat My Globe, our host, Simon Majumdar, shares things you didn’t know you didn’t know about one of what he calls the “lexicon of luxury.” Along with Champagne, truffles, and lobster, caviar has become an ingredient that speaks of indulgence and opulence. However, that was not the case for all of its long and fascinating history. So if you want to know why a Russian Tsar insisted his taxes be paid in caviar, why improvements in shipping made caviar a luxury, and why 19th century American bars used to give away caviar sandwiches for free, come and join us on the next episode of Eat My Globe. Make sure to follow along every week and follow us on: Twitter: @EatMyGlobePcast Instagram: @EatMyGlobe Facebook: @EatMyGlobeOfficial   Twitter: @SimonMajumdar Instagram: @SimonMajumdar Facebook: @SimonMajumdarPage LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-majumdar-2760156

President Donald Trump returned to the White House, having quickly defeated the Communist Chinese Wuhan Virus, and said Americans are “learning to live” with COVID-19 just like the seasonal flu. The Media attack Trump, comparing him to Mussolini and a Russian Tsar. President Trump has ordered White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to move forward with the declassification of the smoking gun documents that formed the predicate for the Trump-Russia HOAX. The delay in the release of these vital documents may be due to CIA Director Haspel, who was CIA London Station Chief from 2014 to early 2017, and may have played a key role in using the FBI to approach DEEP State operatives Stefan Halper and Joseph Mifsud to target Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. All signs point to an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, launched from the UK. US State Department officials broke the law by monitoring Americans during Ukraine scandal. One of the prime culprits: disgraceful former Obama Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie "Hair on Fire" Masha Yovanovitch, who created an "enemies list." Masha was a key witness in the trumped-up Ukraine phone call farce which resulted in the political impeachment Coup attempt, for which all participants including Charlie need to be prosecuted. "Collusion," all roads lead to Hillary Clinton and her Cabal of Clowns. DNI John Ratcliffe now has all of the tools to expose the crimes, unmask the perpetrators, and begin to bring the Cabal to justice from bottom to top. The rats can run, but they cannot hide. It's hammer time. Finally the Leftist operatives pretending to be public servants in the DOJ, such as Mueller American Inquisition Persecutors Extraordinaire, Andrew Weissmann and Aaron Zelinski are in the crosshairs. Dr. Corsi begins a series of broadcasts exposing the truth behind the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941. Dr. Corsi interviews Boris, who continues to expose the hidden agendas behind the Coup against President Trump, the disruption of the US election process, and an underhanded maneuver to enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to put his real puppet, Barack Hussein Obama, back in the White House. Last night in Salt Lake City, Vice President Mike Pence fracked Democrat Socialist Kamala Harris. Pence was calm, cool, and collected as he drilled Harris and broke through her human shield, "moderator" Susan Page. Harris on the other hand was evasive, duplicitous, confused, harried, and lie-prone...that is, when she was not disavowing the Harris/Biden base by promising not eliminate fracking, prompting AOC to Tweet that fracking is bad, absolutely. Not good to spank your supporters. Refusing to answer whether or not she and her co-President would pack the Supreme Court, the answer is obviously a clear, YES! Harris tried to make the false and laughable claim that she and Sleepy would not raise taxes, and Pence pounced, retorting that Biden has already clearly stated he would reverse the Trump tax decreases...eliminating a decrease results in an increase, even Willie Brown should have taught Harris that fact. Democrat Socialist Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy "The Gavel" Pelosi, has clearly lost her mind...perhaps from inhaling her own exhaust gases due to that hideous fruit salad adorned face mask. Pelosi is talking about invoking the 25th Amendment against President Trump. The President's medical restrictions will be removed tomorrow, enabling him to hold rallies and debates.

President Donald Trump returned to the White House on Tuesday, having quickly defeated the Communist Chinese Wuhan Virus, and said Americans are “learning to live” with COVID-19 just like the seasonal flu. The Left, led by the savages in the press, disappointed that there is not going to be a state funeral for President Trump, are now spewing out FAKE news and disgusting rumors and speculations the denigrate the President. In other words, back to business as usual. The Media attack Trump, comparing him to Mussolini and a Russian Tsar. As President Trump was fighting off Biden's BFF Communist China's gift to the world, Creepy Joe was out in public. (Mothers, hide your children) “I Wanna See These Beautiful Young Ladies and I Want to See Them Dancing When They Are Four Years Older, Too.” YIKES! In a dramatic pivot, Biden then displayed his utterly racist basic nature by suggesting he was able to hide out in his bunker because 'some Black woman was able to stack the grocery shelf.' Do you think that will come up in the next debate? Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to debate Democrat Socialist Kamala Harris tomorrow night. It will be interesting to see how the VP debate differs from the Trump vs. Biden-Wallace throw down, during which President Trump fought off the tag team combo of Incoherent Joe & his human shield Trump-hater Chris Wallace. I am sure Harris is getting ready to grumble. Just when you thought our "justice" system could not get any worse, Everett “Erika” Bickford, a transgender elections judge in Pennsylvania, who's physical appearance reminds one of a character from the movie "Beetlejuice," has been charged with two counts of election code violations, including prying into ballots. Tip of the tip of the iceberg. Surprise, Surprise. US State Department officials broke the law by monitoring Americans during Ukraine scandal. One of the prime culprits: disgraceful former Obama Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie "Hair on Fire" Masha Yovanovitch, who created an "enemies list." Masha was a key witness in the trumped-up Ukraine phone call farce which resulted in the political impeachment Coup attempt, for which all participants including Charlie need to be prosecuted. Visit https://www.corsination.com where passionate patriots gather to learn and share the truth. Livestream Monday - Friday 11:00am Eastern CloutHub https://app.clouthub.com/channels (Channel #119) YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/jrlcorsi Facebook https://www.facebook.com/drjeromecorsi Periscope.tv https://www.periscope.tv/w/1OwxWLqVpjwKQ?q=jerome+corsi

Come gather around the campfire and let me take you to the tragic and brutal end of the Russian Empire. Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, and their children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei had no idea that they would be the last royal family before the brutal civil war led by Lenin and the Bolshevik revolutionaries that would lead to the formation of the first communist state, the Soviet Union. Learn about their lives, the influence of mystical faith-healer Rasputin, and their tragic fate at the hands of the Red Army. This is the story that inspired numerous royal imposers, as well as the 1997 animated film "Anastasia" and the Broadway musical based on the movie. Also check out our YouTube channel Campfire Stories: Astonishing History and follow us on Facebook. This episode includes sensitive content. Listener discretion is advised. Support the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/CampfireStoriesSources for this episode include: https://www.history.com/news/romanov-execution-royal-relatives-george-vhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russiahttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/17/let-romanov-family-rest-peace-together-says-princess-100th-anniversary/https:/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5960717/A-minute-minute-breakdown-doomed-Russian-Tsar-family-executed.htmlhttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036404/Massacre-Russian-royals-Horrific-hours-dynasty.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/18/world/address-by-yeltsin-we-are-all-guilty.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Tatiana_Nikolaevna_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Olga_Nikolaevna_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Nikolaevich,_Tsarevich_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Anastasia_Nikolaevna_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Maria_Nikolaevna_of_Russiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Feodorovna_(Alix_of_Hesse)https://www.history.com/news/romanov-family-tree-descendants-imposters-claimsSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/CampfireStories)

Aleksandr Pushkin Aleksandr Sergeyeviçh Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright and novelist. He was born in 1799 in Moscow and died aged on 37 in St Petersburg. Hie was fatally wounded on a duel fought with his brother in law, a soldier who had attempted to seduce Pushkin’s wife. Pushkin’ great-grandfather was African, kidnapped from Africa, probably Cameroon, by the Turks and taken to Russia where he became the favourite of Peter the Great and rose to be a famous military engineer. Pushkin is rightly considered to be one of the greats of Russian literature and he was massively talented. He was a supporter of greater political freedom and so came under the surveillance of the Russian Tsar’s secret police, leading to his exile. The Queen of Spades story is very well written and there seems no superfluous detail or incident. The first scene of the gamblers sets up the story and Herman, who Pushkin leaves in the background while the story of the mystical St Germain and his grandmother’s magic secret of winning at cards is discussed. We realise, that though Herman is strangely quiet during this sequence it is because he is taking it all in.  Herman begins to stalk the Countess and his sly plot is to get at her by the seduction of her young companion Lisa. Herman is so sly that he persists against Lisa’s initial refusal and Pushkin comments wryly that Herman knows the female heart. Be persistent, boys, is the message, and you will win her round.  Many legal cases of stalking and harassment have begun with this mentality, of course. There is nothing admirable about Herman at all, which is important because we as readers know right from wrong and we want the villain to get his just rewards. I have a memory that some versions of the Queen of Spades have her winking, and so her wink, which might otherwise be comic, is sinister here. I also wonder who commands the grandmother to give the secrets of the cards to Herman against her will from beyond the grave? Is the ghost just saying this, or is she in league with another mysterious supernatural power who both want to see the scoundrel punished? Finally, it is the Queen of Spades, who must represent the spectral countess, that brings him down, winking as she does so. The Count de St Germain The Count of St Germain was a real historical figure who lived in the 18th Century. One story claims he was the son of a prince of Transylvania. The Count was educated in Italy by the Medicis. Later in the 19th Century it was said that the Count was of Jewish origin, born in Alsace by the Rhine.  He was a bit of a trickster and used many names. He is one of the late alchemists, but like them claimed to have discovered the Elixir of Life, or the Philosopher’s Stone, the goal of alchemy and claimed to have lived for five hundred years. Tales of his skill at magic abounded and so Pushkin incorporates him into his story. A later rumour has him arrested as a Jacobite spy in 1749 in London, just after the. Highland Rebellion for all you fans of Outlander. Later he appeared at the French court of Louis XV. Later still, he appeared in Holland during the Seven Years War. A man of mystery indeed: a man who knows secrets! Faro Faro also known as Pharaoh is a card game of French origin that generally was played for money rather than pure fun. It was popular in the 1800s, but gradually Poker became the favoured game for gamblers. Faro was popular among gamblers because it was easy to learn and gave good odds for gamblers. However, it was easily rigged by the gambling houses and caused a great deal of hardship and loss. The banker has an entire deck of cards and the players, known as punters. The first card of the deck was burned off, called ‘soda’ and then the banker dealt two cards, one to the left and one to the right. The right card was the bankers card and the left card,... Support this podcast

Today we celebrate the Italian botanist who introduced coffee and bananas to Europe and the botanist who described new varieties of mums from China on this day in 1822. We'll learn about the man who could see the capabilities of a landscape In the botanist who wrote encouraging letters to one of his students. Today's Unearthed Words Feature sayings and poems about the winter mindset. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that helps you encourage different types of wildlife into your garden. I'll talk about a garden item you'll use every spring if you like to grow plants from seed and then we'll wrap things up with a cute little story that involves loganberries. But first, let's catch up on a few recent events.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart   Curated Articles The Scent Of Fear – The Aphid Alarm Pheromone Great Post on The Scent of Fear – the aphid alarm pheromone via @Entoprof "Aphids, when perceiving a threat to their neighbors by a predator or parasite, flee the scene rapidly, by flight, if winged, on foot if not, or even by leaping from their host-plant to the ground below. "   A Growing Concern: Is It Ever OK To Steal Plant Cuttings? | Life And Style | The Guardian A growing concern: is it ever OK to steal plant cuttings? "At Potted Elephant, the thief cut tendrils of Philodendron, Variegated Monstera and Scindapsus from live plants in his greenhouse – some from Jarrell's personal collection of rare plants."   Now, if you'd like to check out these curated articles for yourself, you're in luck, because I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. There's no need to take notes or search for links - the next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events 1617  Today is the anniversary of the death of the 17th-century Italian botanist Prospero Alpini. Alpini introduced coffee and bananas to Europe. Alpini was also the first person to make observations about sexual differences in plants. The male and female flowers of the date palm, for instance, are borne on separate plants. This knowledge allowed Alpini to become the first person to fertilize the female flowers of the date palms artificially. Date palms were popular garden plants in Roman gardens. The fruit is very useful and is the basis for syrup, alcohol, vinegar, and liquor. The genus "Alpinia", belonging to the order Zingiberaceae (Ginger Family), is named for Alpini. Alpinia is also known as the ginger lily. Ginger lilies are perennials and the blooms have a gardenia fragrance. Ginger lilies are a wonderful cut flower.   1822  On this day in 1822, Joseph Sabine ("Suh-BEEN") gave a presentation to the London Horticultural Society. He was describing some new varieties of Chinese chrysanthemums. Eleven different kinds of mums had been imported two years earlier, in 1820, and had been thriving in the society's garden at Chiswick. In 1753, Carl Linnaeus, renowned Swedish botanist, combined the Greek words chrysos, meaning gold with anthemon, meaning flower. Chrysanthemum (Dendranthema grandiflora) is the birth flower for November. In Japan, the highest Order of Chivalry is the Imperial Order of the Chrysanthemum. And National Chrysanthemum Day, aka the Festival of Happiness, has been celebrated in Japan since 910. Chrysanthemum Day is always celebrated September 9th - the ninth day of the ninth month because, in terms of numerology, that day, September 9th, is regarded as an auspicious day. Now, when Joseph Sabine described the Quilled Pink Chrysanthemum in detail for the London Horticultural Society, members had only heard about the Quilled Flamed Yellow variety. The Quilled Pink was exciting. Sabine, would not even recognize modern mums. Although some mums still look like their sister flowers, daisies, mums are being bred to be showier. Regardless of their appearance, mums belong to the Compositae, or daisy, family. And, there's another highlight for Joseph Sabine. He was serving as the Secretary of the Horticultural Society and is remembered for sending David Douglas on his 6-month expedition to North America. Douglas named the Digger Pine, Pinus Sabiniana, in honor of Joseph Sabine.   1783  Today is the anniversary of the death of the renowned landscape gardener Lancelot Capability Brown. In the 1730s, Lancelot ended up at Stowe, working for the great William Kent - the eminent painter and Landscape Architect. The garden at Stowe was a landscape garden with lots of straight lines and formality. The end result was a garden that looked like a painting with an 11-acre lake. The main area of the garden was the Elysian Fields ("uh·li·zhn"); 40 acres featuring buildings and monuments that flank two narrow lakes called the River Styx. The monuments in the garden honor virtuous men of Britain. The time Lancelot spent with Kent at Stowe transformed not only the land but also Lancelot - from a gardener to a Landscape Architect. It was his big break, and it gave him the confidence to set out on his own. After Stowe, Lancelot traveled all over England. When working for clients, he would stare out at the blank canvas of a new project and seek to find the "capabilities" of the Landscape - removing worker's cottages or older gardens when he felt the need to do so. It earned him the unshakeable nickname of Capability. Capability Brown's skill of seeing landscapes and then creating them made him very popular. Everyone with means wanted a Capability Brown landscape - they craved his signature look, his garden designs, and garden temples. What everyone essentially wanted was beauty -  and Capability created beautiful gardens. For 19 years, Capability served as the King's Master Gardener. Today, at least 20 Capability gardens still exist and are under the care of England's National Trust. When Lancelot died, the English writer Horace Walpole, sent word to the noblewoman Anne FitzPatrick that, "Lady Nature's second husband," was dead. He also sent a poem about Capability to the poet and gardener William Mason: "With one Lost Paradise the name Of our first ancestor is stained; Brown shall enjoy unsullied fame For many a Paradise, he regained."   1946  The botanist Edgar Anderson wrote to his student Charles B Heiser Jr: "Oh stamp collecting, when will taxonomists ever take any interest in being biologists? Once, when I traveled with E.J. Palmer, I went to a good deal of trouble to get a whole sheet of lily pods, and he threw it away because it made such a nasty looking specimen, and he wasn't certain what species it belonged to anyway." It turns out, this was just one of many letters that Edgar wrote to his student. In 1972, Charles wrote a lovely tribute about Edgar called "Student Days with Edgar Anderson or How I Came to Study Sunflowers." Charles sifted through the many letters he had received from Edgar during his lifetime - they filled up a folder over two inches thick. Over the years, Edgar was an encouraging mentor to Charles, writing, "What an incredible gift good students are…" and "if you are tired of [Helianthus] and don't want to look at 'em any more for a while, why by all means put them aside. Don't let anybody's advice, including mine, keep you from what you are happiest doing." Sunflowers or Helianthus Annuus ("HE-LEE-ann-thus ANN-you-us") are native to North America. When the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, saw sunflower for the first time in Holland, he fell in love with them and had them brought back to Russia. The Russian public loved sunflowers as well -  but not just for their happy flowers.   Unlike other cooking oils, the oil from sunflower seeds was approved for use during Lent by the Russian Orthodox Church. By the early 1800s, two million Acres of sunflowers for planted in Russia every single year. Ironically, over the next century, immigrants from Russia would bring sunflower seeds with them when they immigrated to the United States. The Russian hybrids had bigger blooms than the original American varieties.  Now, most gardeners attempt growing sunflowers at some point, so if you find yourself wanting to give it a try, here are some tips to consider: First, sunflowers really do need a ton of sun. Don't be stingy with the sunshine and put them in part shade. These are plants that really appreciate all the rays they can get. Second,  Sunflowers follow the sun; they exhibit a behavior known as heliotropism.  In the morning, the heads will face East, and then the heads will move to track the sun throughout the day.  As they mature, they're tracking movement will become less pronounced as the stem loses its flexibility in order to support the large, mature bloom. Third, don't be surprised if you find a few sunflowers reseeding themselves in your garden after your initial planting. It's a lovely surprise and a little memento from that first batch of sunflowers. Finally, once the seeds ripen, the birds will begin to visit, and you'll notice more activity from species like goldfinches -  they love sunflower seeds. If you feel inclined, you can dry some of the seed heads to share later with the birds during the cold months of winter.   Unearthed Words Here are some words about the winter mindset: Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. — Victor Hugo, French poet, and writer   Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. — Victor Hugo, French poet, and writer   The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and blood.  — John Burroughs, American naturalist, and writer, "The Snow-Walkers," 1866   Winter blues are cured every time with a potato gratin paired with a roast chicken. — Alexandra Guarnaschelli ("GORE-nah-shell-ee"), American chef   Keep your faith in beautiful things; in the sun when it is hidden, in the Spring when it is gone. And then you will find that Duty and Service and Sacrifice—  all the old ogres and bugbears of —  have joy imprisoned in their deepest dungeons! And it is for you to set them free — the immortal joys that no one —  No living soul, or fate, or circumstance— Can rob you of, once you have released them. —  Reverend Roy R. Gibson, Poet & Critic   Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. — Richard Adams, English novelist, Watership Down   To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings - travels in warm climes. To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death. — John Burroughs, American naturalist, and writer   Grow That Garden Library Wildlife Gardening by Kate Bradbury The subtitle to this book is: For Everyone and Everything (The Wildlife Trusts) An easy-to-follow gardening guide endorsed by the Wildlife Trusts and the RHS to help you encourage different types of wildlife into your garden. Kate Bradbury is an award-winning writer who specializes in wildlife gardening. She is the author of The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, she works on BBC Gardeners' World magazine and regularly writes for the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian to name a few. What I love about Kate's book is that she breaks it down by groups of species, and each chapter explains what they require to thrive, what their role in the garden is, and how they contribute to the garden ecosystem. Chapters cover pollinators, birds, and amphibians, wasps, flies, and so on - some will be your favorites, while others will be new to you. Kate offers many plant suggestions. And, don't forget that your garden is a shared space. It's for you AND these other species. Kate hopes you are able to observe the habitats in your garden throughout the year. Ultimately, this is a book about creating a space that's as much for you to relax in as it is for the other species you welcome into it, and about getting to know the wildlife around you. You can get a used copy of Wildlife Gardening by Kate Bradbury and support the show, using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for under $13.   Great Gifts for Gardeners Ladbrooke Genuine Mini 4 Hand-held Soil Blocker - Most Popular Soil Blocking Tool! $33.99 Genuine Ladbrooke "Mini 4" soil blocker is the most popular size worldwide. Part of the unique Micro / Mini / Maxi "nesting system" for starting seeds and transplanting starts. (Mini 4, Micro 20, and Cubic Inserts sold separately.) Essential organic gardening product; easy to use and reusable for years. This eco-friendly system saves on plastic pots. Most popular size - makes four - 2" soil blocks. Zinc coated steel will last for years. It is made by Ladbrooke - makers of the highest quality products! Note: these are utilitarian gardening tools. Cosmetic blemishes and water bathing marks made during manufacturing are natural, and in no way alter the functionality of the tool.   Today's Botanic Spark When I was researching Edgar Anderson,  and reading Charles Heisler's tribute to him. I ran across a little story that involved loganberries. Loganberries (Rubus loganobaccus) grow on vines known as brambles. They smell like raspberries, but they are tart and they have a slightly sweet taste. Loganberries are named for their California creator, James Harvey Logan, who came up with the idea to cross a Blackberry with a raspberry. Sadly loganberries don't have a long shelf life which is why you don't see them in the grocery store very often. If you decide to grow them, most people keep the berries on the vine as long as possible - which makes them more flavorful. Anyway, this talk on loganberries brings me back to Charles Heisler's tribute to Edgar, which was titled "Student Days with Edgar Anderson or How I Came to Study Sunflowers." Charles ended his tribute to Edgar with this adorable little story that included Loganberries among other things and it reminds us that botanists are people too. Charles wrote: "I haven't told you anything about [Edgar's] music sessions. He played the recorder. Nor about the square dances at the 'Barn.' Nor about his cooking. I think one of the worst dishes I have ever eaten was his spam covered with bread crumbs soaked in Loganberry juice —  perhaps because he raved about it so. I hope [to have given you] some insight into the character of Edgar Anderson, teacher, and botanist. The latter is the title he chose for himself and his later years at the Missouri Botanical Garden."

Lt. Kije is the story of an imaginary soldier, created when the Russian Tsar misread a smudged name on a list of his men.

In our review of the Russian rulers of old, we turn our eyes to Ivan IV, the first and most controversial of all of the Russian Tsar's.

Lt. Kije is the story of an imaginary soldier, created when the Russian Tsar misread a smudged name on a list of his men.

**Supreme Court justices frown on state's public display of pirate ship's salvage operation** [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/05/legendary-pirate-blackbeards-shipwreck-sails-supreme-court/4166346002/](http://) **“Sea of Plastic” Discovered in the Caribbean Stretches for Miles** [https://returntonow.net/2019/04/25/sea-of-plastic-discovered-in-the-caribbean-stretches-for-miles/?fbclid=IwAR0NEa3n4m88fx66WYhp0GxzUgoVBrjpNKjO7ZFjo328iegy_xee88oVYDQ ](http://) **Gondoliers take up scuba diving to clear rubbish from Venice canals** [https://www.thelocal.it/20191104/gondoliers-scuba-diving-to-clean-rubbish-venice-canals ](http://) **The Interceptor** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 ](http://) **Shipwrecked schooner with unique centerboard gets historic designation** [https://greatlakesecho.org/2019/11/07/shipwrecked-schooner-with-unique-centerboard-gets-historic-designation/ ](http://) **Century-Old Shipwreck Above Niagara Falls Dislodged by Storm, Might Go Over the Edge** [https://www.thedrive.com/news/30847/century-old-shipwreck-above-niagara-falls-dislodged-by-storm-might-go-over-the-edge](http://) **When Sydney Harbour Became Cauldron Of Hell** [https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/australia/quiet-evening-when-sydney-harbour-became-cauldron-of-hell.aspx ](http://) **Hundreds of bottles of posh booze ‘for Russian Tsar' worth £4.7MILLION salvaged from shipwreck** [https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/10299476/hundreds-bottles-of-liquor-shipwreck/ ](http://)

Supreme Court justices frown on state's public display of pirate ship's salvage operation https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/05/legendary-pirate-blackbeards-shipwreck-sails-supreme-court/4166346002/ “Sea of Plastic” Discovered in the Caribbean Stretches for Miles https://returntonow.net/2019/04/25/sea-of-plastic-discovered-in-the-caribbean-stretches-for-miles/?fbclid=IwAR0NEa3n4m88fx66WYhp0GxzUgoVBrjpNKjO7ZFjo328iegy_xee88oVYDQ Gondoliers take up scuba diving to clear rubbish from Venice canals https://www.thelocal.it/20191104/gondoliers-scuba-diving-to-clean-rubbish-venice-canals The Interceptor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 Shipwrecked schooner with unique centerboard gets historic designation https://greatlakesecho.org/2019/11/07/shipwrecked-schooner-with-unique-centerboard-gets-historic-designation/ Century-Old Shipwreck Above Niagara Falls Dislodged by Storm, Might Go Over the Edge https://www.thedrive.com/news/30847/century-old-shipwreck-above-niagara-falls-dislodged-by-storm-might-go-over-the-edge When Sydney Harbour Became Cauldron Of Hell https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/australia/quiet-evening-when-sydney-harbour-became-cauldron-of-hell.aspx Hundreds of bottles of posh booze ‘for Russian Tsar' worth £4.7MILLION salvaged from shipwreck https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/10299476/hundreds-bottles-of-liquor-shipwreck/

Supreme Court justices frown on state's public display of pirate ship's salvage operation https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/05/legendary-pirate-blackbeards-shipwreck-sails-supreme-court/4166346002/ “Sea of Plastic” Discovered in the Caribbean Stretches for Miles https://returntonow.net/2019/04/25/sea-of-plastic-discovered-in-the-caribbean-stretches-for-miles/?fbclid=IwAR0NEa3n4m88fx66WYhp0GxzUgoVBrjpNKjO7ZFjo328iegy_xee88oVYDQ Gondoliers take up scuba diving to clear rubbish from Venice canals https://www.thelocal.it/20191104/gondoliers-scuba-diving-to-clean-rubbish-venice-canals The Interceptor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyZArQMFhQ4 Shipwrecked schooner with unique centerboard gets historic designation https://greatlakesecho.org/2019/11/07/shipwrecked-schooner-with-unique-centerboard-gets-historic-designation/ Century-Old Shipwreck Above Niagara Falls Dislodged by Storm, Might Go Over the Edge https://www.thedrive.com/news/30847/century-old-shipwreck-above-niagara-falls-dislodged-by-storm-might-go-over-the-edge When Sydney Harbour Became Cauldron Of Hell https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/australia/quiet-evening-when-sydney-harbour-became-cauldron-of-hell.aspx Hundreds of bottles of posh booze ‘for Russian Tsar’ worth £4.7MILLION salvaged from shipwreck https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/10299476/hundreds-bottles-of-liquor-shipwreck/

In this episode we run a train on that crazy Russian, RASPUTIN! Hard to kill and even harder to like! We discuss his meddlings with the Russian Tsar and all of the MONK SEX! ALL ABOARD! Pick the next episode:ChupacabraVoodoo & Witch DoctorsAlien AbductionsEmail us at: themidnighttrainpodcast.comor vote at https://www.facebook.com/themidnighttrainpodcasthttp://www.themidnighttrainpodcast.comwww.youtube.com/themidnighttrainpodcastSponsored By:Voudoux Vodkawww.voudoux.com

Spanning 800 years of history, Turku's cultural and financial power was assured when the king of Sweden, who then ruled over Finland, made Turku the seat of government and installed his representative here. But Turku’s golden age abruptly ended with Russia routing the Swedes and conquering Finland in 1808. The Russian Tsar shifted the capital to Helsinki, given it was closer to St. Peteresburg and theoretically easier to administer. Compounding Turku’s bad fortunes, a devastating fire engulfed the city in 1827, incinerating many of its old wood buildings.LISTEN TO AUDIO ABOVE

Grigori Rasputin was known as many things from being a holy man, a mystic, a healer, a seer and even the "Mad Monk of Russia". Though his life and his role within Russia's Royal family is still highly debated by historians, we find that his life (and death) is extremely odd and fascinating. Well known for surviving multiple fatal attacks like a vicious stabbing, being poisoned with a large amount of cyanide, beaten and shot multiple times, but how did this strange man start as a peasant and gain the top ranks among the Russian Tsar family and is he responsible for the fall the last Tsar of Russia? Come listen to this wild story of magic, religion, sex, violence, power and war as People Time takes your for ride through the mysterious and bizarre life of Grigori Rasputin.

On 11 and 13 February 1903, the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, was the venue for one of the most opulent costumed entertainments hosted by a Russian Tsar. It was also to be the last. In reviving the spectacle of the Romanov’s gilded past, Nicholas II, his family and court, demonstrated the untenable gulf that existed between their privilege and the poverty of their subjects. The golden, bejewelled and furred costumes worn at the Ball symbolise a moment, at once triumphant and tragic, just before two opposed worlds clashed violently in the Russian Revolution.  Today, the spectre of the Romanovs continues to compel and cautionary lessons exist for those willing to heed them. The gulf between rulers and ruled, leisure and labour, continues to create problems in the twenty-first century, and costume remains adept at conveying this. Recent commentary on Melania Trump’s clothing presents strong parallels with Tsarina Alexandra, whose ball gown may have cost $10 million. If the Romanov Ball is important for marking a specific point in time, it is also significant for reflecting broader themes and tensions between the ideal and reality of authority and society. It shows, too, how these attitudes are reflected in what we wear, sometimes with unintended and tragic results. The Romanov Ball Greg King, The Court of the Last Tsar: Pomp, Power, and Pageantry in the Reign of Nicholas II (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006). Nicholas Foulkes, Bals: Legendary Balls of the Twentieth Century (Assouline, 2011) Recoloured images of the Romanov Ball costumes.https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2016/11/10/romanov-last-imperial-ball-now-in-color_646547 The Splendour & Misery of the Last Tsarinas, a documentary that considers, and recreates, the lives of Russia’s Tsarinas from Catherine the Great to Alexandra:   https://www.amazon.com/Splendor-Misery-Tsarinas-Hannes-Schuler/dp/B0798MVJB9    Wider Reading Helen Rappaport, The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue Russia's Imperial Family (Hutchinson, 2018) Simon Sebag Montifoire, The Romanovs:1613-1918 (W&N, 2016) Melania Trump, ‘Out of Africa’ ‘That’ Zara jacket Melania wore: https://www.aol.com/article/lifestyle/2018/10/16/melania-trump-reveals-controversial-jacket-was-worn-to-send-message-to-media/23562862/#slide=7441878#fullscreen  Hadley Freeman’s commentary in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/10/talk-about-melania-trump-africa-wardrobe-pith-helmet-nazi Vanessa Friedman’s commentary in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/fashion/melania-trump-africa-trip-fashion-fedora.html

The murder of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, four daughters and young son in 1918, plus how the Soviet Union struggled to feed its people in the 1950s; also the IRA attacks on mounted troops in London's Hyde Park in 1982, the Zionist bombing of the British headquarters in Jerusalem in 1946 and the first steps towards a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. (Photo: Nicholas II, Tsar and his family. From left to right - Olga, Maria,Tsar Nicholas II,Tsarina Alexandra, Anastasia, Tsarevitch Alexei and Tatiana. Credit: Press Association

The Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, four daughters and young son, were shot in the cellar of a house in Yekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Olga Romanoff is his great niece. She spoke to Olga Smirnova about his death and eventual reburial in St Petersburg. (Photo: Nicholas II, Tsar and his family. From left to right - Olga, Maria,Tsar Nicholas II,Tsarina Alexandra, Anastasia, Tsarevitch Alexei and Tatiana. Credit: Press Association

On this day in 1918, a Devonshire newspaper misreported news that deposed Russian Tsar had been shot dead, and at Newton Abbot train station, Gabriel arrives with hopes of reviving his marriage. Written by Lucy Catherine Directed by Ciaran Bermingham Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.

WWI Centennial News SPECIAL This is another special feature presentation of the WW1 Centennial News Podcast. Welcome to PART II of  “In Sacrifice for Liberty and Peace”. This two part special is an adaptation from a live staged event the Commission produced on the April 6, 2017 centennial of America’s entry into: “ war that changed the world”. Edward Bilous as the artistic director, and Chris Christopher as the US WW1 Centennial Commission’s executive producer pulled together an amazing group of artists, historians musician, actors, and others for a live performance staged at the National WWI Museum and Memorial  in Kansas City to an audience of over 3,000 attendees. For this 2-part special we have excerpted key moments from the story that unfolds, the music that was performed and the readings from a cast of amazing actors, orators, musicians and other luminaries. In Part 1 we examined the great debate in America about getting into the war, and today, in Part 2, we present how events overtook the debate and as America declared its entry into WW1.----more---- Talent Credits This podcast was adapted from the live event In Sacrifice for Liberty and Peace: Centennial Commemoration of the US entry into WWI Credits for the live event include: Edward Bilous Artistic Director John Rensenhouse Narrator Michelle DiBucci Music Director Sarah Outhwaite Video Designer   Carlos Murillo Script and Adaptation Greg Kalember Music Producer, Mix Engineer, Sound Design   Portia Kamons Executive Artistic Producer For Virtua Creative Shelby Rose Producer, Media and Special Events For Virtua Creative   Dale Morehouse Speaker   Carla Noack Speaker   David Paul Pre-Recorded Speaker   Janith English Principal Chief of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas   Sergeant Debra Kay Mooney Choctaw Nation   Col. Gerald York Grandson of Sergeant Alvin C. York   Deborah York Great-Granddaughter of Sergeant Alvin C. York   Noble Sissle Jr. Son of Noble Sissle   Featuring Musical Performances by 1st Infantry Division Band Michael Baden John Brancy Francesco Centano Billy Cliff Peter Dugan Ramona Dunlap Lisa Fisher Samantha Gossard Adam Holthus Christopher T. McLaurin Chrisi Poland Aaron Redburn Reuben Allen Matt Rombaum Alan Schwartz Yang Thou Charles Yang Alla Wijnands Bram Wijnands   Cast (In Alphabetical Order) Freddy Acevedo Yetunde Felix-Ukwu Jason Francescon Khalif Gillett Emilie Karas Chelsea Kisner Christopher Lyman Marianne McKenzie Victor Raider-Wexler   Artillery Master Charles B. Wood MEDIA CREDITS National World War I Museum and Memorial:  TheWorldWar.org Library of Congress: LOC.gov New York Public Library: DigitalCollections.nypl.org National Archives: Archives.gov National Historic Geographic Information System: NHGIS.org State Library of New South Wales: SL.nsw.gov.au Imperial War Museums: IWM.org.uk National Museum of African American History and Culture: NMAAHC.si.edu The Sergeant York Patriotic Foundation and the York Family: SgtYork.org Australian War Memorial: AWM.gov.au National Media Museum: NationalMediaMuseum.org.uk Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archive: WoodrowWilson.org Mathers Museum of World Culture: Mathers.indiana.edu Front Page Courtesy of The New York Times Company   PODCAST   THEO MAYERWW1 Centennial News is brought to you by the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission and the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. I’m Theo Mayer - the Chief Technologist for the Commission and your host. Before we get into the main part of the show - - Let me try to set it up: [SOUND EFFECT - WAYBACK MACHINE] We have gone back in time to January 1917. Late last year, in 1916, Woodrow Wilson ran for president under the slogan “He Kept us Out Of War” and “America First” and he won - by a slim margin. In Western  Europe, Eastern Europe, the middle east and other areas around the world -  All tied together by colonial imperialism - the war rages on! NARRATOR Not long after the election of 1916, events would unfold at a rapid pace, until the United States reached a tipping point where isolationism could no longer be an option. January 19, 1917 – Arthur Zimmerman, Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, sent a telegram to German Ambassador to Mexico, proposing an alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event of US entry into the War. ZIMMERMAN "We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance... make war together, make peace together... and an understanding... that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.... You will inform the President of the above... as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain...." NARRATOR The British Admiralty, which had cracked German diplomatic cipher systems, decoded the message within hours. Seeking to influence the American government, the British provided the Americans a copy of the telegram. On the 28t h  of February, President Wilson released the telegram to the press. The appearance of the news nationwide on March 1s t  galvanized American support for entry into the war. January 31, 1917, Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, received a note from the German Ambassador to the United States. GERMAN AMBASSADOR A new situation has... been created which forces Germany to new decisions.... England is using her naval power for a criminal attempt to force Germany into submission by starvation. In brutal contempt of international law, the... powers led by England..., by ruthless pressure, compel neutral countries either to altogether forego every trade not agreeable to the Entente Powers, or to limit it according to their arbitrary decrees. From February 1, 1917, sea traffic will be stopped with every available weapon and without further notice.... NARRATOR This message from the German Ambassador directly contravened the German guarantee to Wilson   that ended unrestricted submarine warfare following the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Coupled with the Zimmerman telegram, Germany’s renewed aggression decisively changed American attitudes about the war.    On February 3, 1917, the United States formally ended diplomatic relations with Imperial Germany. On February 25, 1917, the Cunard Line ship Laconia was struck by German Torpedoes. Floyd Gibbons, an American correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was on board and lived to describe the scene: FLOYD GIBBONS At 10:30 p.m., there was a muffled noise. Five sharp blasts – the signal to abandon. We walked hurriedly down the corridor ... to the lounge which was amidships. We moved fast but there was no crowding and no panic. ...we looked down the slanting side of the ship and noticed ... her water line ... was a number of feet above the waves. ... the lifeboats... rested against the side of the ship.... I could see that we were going to have difficulty in the descent to the water. ‘Lower away!’ someone gave the order and we started downward ... toward the seemingly hungry... swells. The stern of the boat was down; the bow up, leaving us at an angle of about 45 degrees.... The tiers of lights dimmed slowly from white to yellow, then to red, and nothing was left but the murky mourning of the night..... The ship sank rapidly at the stern until at last its nose stood straight in the air. Then it slid silently down and out of sight.... NARRATOR Austin Y. Hoy, a Chicago machinery company executive working in London, cabled President Woodrow Wilson after the sinking of the LACONIA: AUSTIN HOY My beloved mother and sister, passengers on the LACONIA, have been foully murdered.... I call upon my government to preserve its citizens’ self-respect and save others of my countrymen from such deep grief as I now feel. I am of military age, able to fight. If my country can use me against these brutal assassins, I am at its call. If it stultifies my manhood and my nation’s by remaining passive under outrage, I shall seek a man’s chance under another flag. NARRATOR Events abroad also served to tip American opinion. The fall of the Russian Tsar's regime on March 15, 1917 resulted in a greater moral clarity for the Allied cause: the war was now a struggle of democratic nations against autocratic empires. Despite the passions aroused by the Zimmerman telegram and the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, Wilson himself had no personal desire to bring the US into conflict in Europe. Wilson told a journalist off the record: WILSON If there is any alternative, for God’s sake, let’s take it! NARRATOR March 20. Wilson confers with his cabinet. They unanimously vote for War. March 21. Wilson calls Congress into special session for April the 2n  d . On the evening of April the second, 1917, President Wilson addresses a joint session of Congress asking for a Declaration of War. WILSON “While we do these momentous things, let us make very clear to all the world what our motives are. Our object, now as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice as against selfish and autocratic power. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments. We have seen the last of neutrality. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” NARRATOR The Congress rose to its feet and applauded enthusiastically. Cheering crowds lined the streets as Wilson departed from the Capitol. As author Byron Farwell wrote: FARWELL QUOTE It was the greatest speech of Wilson’s life. At about 10:00, when the president had returned to the White House, he and his wife had dinner with friends, after which Wilson wandered into the empty cabinet room. His secretary, Joseph Tumulty, found him there: ‘Think what they were applauding,’ he said to Tumulty. ‘My message today was a message of death for our young men. How strange it seems to applaud that.’ He put his head down on the table in the Cabinet Room, and sobbed.’ NARRATOR Still, in the face of aggression, there were voices of opposition. Arkansas Senator George Norris: SENATOR NORRIS Belligerency would benefit only the class of people who will be made prosperous should we become entangled in the present war, who have already made millions..., and who will make hundreds of millions more if we get into the war. To whom does the war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier. Not to the broken hearted widow. Not to the mother who weeps at the death of her brave boy.... I feel that we are about to put the dollar sign on the American Flag.” NARRATOR The Senate passed the War Resolution with only three Republicans and three Democrats opposed. The House voted 373 for, with 50 opposed. Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to serve in Congress, and the lone female Representative, voted against the resolution. The approved Declaration of War was sent to President Wilson on April 6, 1917. At 1pm that day he signed: “Approved 6 April, 1917, Woodrow Wilson.”   Tolling of the bells 19 gun canon salute   DEBORAH YORK As the country mobilized, we leave you with the voices of two soldiers: PERSHING Major General John J. Pershing to President Woodrow Wilson, April 10, 1917:  “Dear Mr. President: As an officer of the army, may I not extend to you, as Commander-in-Chief of the armies, my sincere congratulations upon your soul-stirring patriotic address to Congress on April 2d. Your strong stand for the right will be an inspiration to humanity everywhere, but especially to the citizens of the Republic. It arouses in the breast of every soldier feelings of the deepest admiration for their leader. I am exultant that my life has been spent as a soldier, in camp and field, that I may now the more worthily and more intelligently serve my country and you. With great respect, Your obedient servant, JOHN J. PERSHING Major General, U.S. Army DEBORAH YORK And from the diary of Sergeant York serialized in  Liberty magazine in 1927: SERGEANT YORK I had no time to bother much about a lot of foreigners quarrelling and killing each other over in Europe. I just wanted to be left alone to live in peace and love. I wasn’t planning my life any other way. ... I figured that if some people in the Wolf River Valley were quarrelling... it wasn’t any of my business to go and interfere, and Europe was much further away.... I never dreamed we’d go over there to fight. So I didn’t pay much attention to it. I didn’t let it bother me until I received from the post office a little red card telling me to register for the draft. That’s how the war came to me, in the midst of all my peace and happiness and dreams, which I felt all along were too good to be true, and just couldn’t last.” THEO MAYER In the meantime, the popular music of the time begins to address the American soldier, his image and his place in the world. IF HE CAN FIGHT LIKE HE CAN LOVE, GOOD NIGHT, GERMANY! If he can fight like he can love, Oh what a soldier boy he’ll be! If he’s just have as good in the trench As he was in the park or on a bench,   Then ev’ry Hun had better run And find a great big linden tree I know he’ll be a hero ‘over there’ ‘Cause he’s a bear in any Morris chair And if he fights like he can love Why, then it’s goodnight, Germany!   Verse 2 Ev’ry single day all the papers say, Mary’s beau is, oh, so brave With his little gun, chasing ev’ry Hun He has taught them to behave Little Mary proudly shakes her head, And says, “Do you remember what I said?”   Chorus If he can fight like he can love, Oh what a soldier boy he’ll be! If he’s just have as good in the trench As he was in the park or on a bench, Then ev’ry Hun had better run And find a great big linden tree I know he’ll be a hero ‘over there’ ‘Cause he’s a bear in any Morris chair And if he fights like he can love Why, then it’s goodnight, Germany! ANNOUNCER I Have A Rendezvous With Death (POEM: No Music or Sound) I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air— I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath— It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows ‘twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... But I’ve a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous. THEO MAYER And so America goes to war and takes her place on the world stage. Nothing would be same again as the country heads into the most rapid and profound transformation of her young existence. World War 1 Centennial news is here to tell you the story - We will explore WW1 Centennial News THEN - what was happening 100 years ago this week. And we will explore WW1 Centennial News NOW - what is happening today with the centennial commemoration of the war that changed the world. And so it begins [MUSIC] That was Part 2 of our special feature presentation of “In Sacrifice for Liberty and Peace” our 2-part special of America’s reluctant entry into World War 1. The US World War One Centennial Commission was created by Congress to honor, commemorate and educate about WW1. Our programs are to-- inspire a national conversation and awareness about WW1; Our podcast and these specials are a part of that endeavor We are bringing the lessons of the 100 years ago into today's classrooms; We are helping to restore WW1 memorials in communities of all sizes across our country; and of course we are building America’s National WW1 Memorial in Washington DC.   If you like the work we are doing, please support it with a tax deductible donation at ww1cc.org/donate - all lower case Or if you are on your smartphone text  the word: WW1 to 41444. that's the letters ww the number 1 texted to 41444. Any amount is appreciated.   We want to thank commission’s founding sponsor the Pritzker Military Museum and Library for their support. The podcast can be found on our website at ww1cc.org/cn   on  iTunes and google play ww1 Centennial News. Our twitter and instagram handles are both @ww1cc and we are on facebook @ww1centennial. Thanks for listening to this special presentation of WW1 Centennial News… A full list of the many talented people who contributed to this production is in the podcast notes.   [OVER THERE]   So long.

Morgan Molthrop fell in love with Greek history at Newman high school and has parlayed that love into a model for his and your life. Morgan s hero, Alexander the Great who is actually a Greek superhero who died in 323 BC at the age of 33 not a Russian Tsar is the inspiration for just about everything in Morgan s current life. He s written a book about him, painted paintings, and has a 13 step plan for successful living for you to follow so you too can be Alex great. Boyanna Trayanova went to Ben Franklin. She didn t fall in love with any Greek gods but she did fall in love with the seminal New Orleans drummer Johnny Vidacovich. Boyanna is a fearsome drummer and leader of One Love Brass Band, a New Orleans brass band take on ska and reggae. Renee Blanchard started out after college working to bring democracy to Burma, and to get toxic chemicals out of cell phones. Having succeeded at both of those goals she came back to New Orleans. And opened Church Alley Coffee Bar on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Now she s moving to Mid City and might possibly get that magnolia tattoo on her shoulder finished. Renee is, by the way, bossy. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marguerite is a satirical comedy set in 1921 France, about a tone-deaf would-be opera diva who thinks she can sing. Music broadcaster Petroc Trelawny reviews.Antonio Pappano discusses conducting Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov for the first time, in a new production at the Royal Opera House with Bryn Terfel as the troubled Russian Tsar.The death of Anita Brookner has been announced. Front Row pays tribute to the Booker Prize winning novelist who was best known for exploring themes of social isolation through her female protagonists.The first major retrospective of the American artist and photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) in the UK for over 40 years opens at the V&A in London this week. Photographer Eamonn McCabe, The Guardian's former picture editor, gives his response to Paul Strand: Photography and Film for the 20th Century, which charts Strand's 60-year career and includes his abstract and documentary photography.Presenter : Kirsty Lang Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

This week, Kaleb prepares another Mythic Origins episode. Enjoy! Mythic and Literature Origins of Rare Game from Final Fantasy XII   Aspidochelon- Likely derived from Aspidochelone, which according to medieval bestiaries is a huge sea creature that resembles a whale or turtle.   Dismas- May refer to Saint Dismas, who according to Christian belief was one of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus. The other thief, Gestas, mocked Jesus for not saving them, Dismas was accepting of his punishment, and asked to be remembered in Heaven. In many traditions, Dismas is on Jesus’ left, which is why some depictions of the crucifixion depict his head tilted to the right, toward Dismas.   Arioch- Hebrew name that means fierce lion. It originally appears in the BOok of Genesis, being the name of the “King of Ellasar.”   Aeros- This one is pretty straightforward. Aero is a Greek prefix relating to air and flight.   Kris- The kris is a dagger from the Malayan archipelago. It is often made with a wavy blade, and is used for both spiritual means and as a weapon.   Ishteen- Means one in Ancient Assyro-Babylonian language. This is symbolic, due to this rare game only appearing once, as he is a Trophy Rare Game.   Chocobo- Chocobo derives from a Japanese Brand of Chocolate malt ball, Called ChocoBall. The mascot for the product is Kyoro-chan, a bird who says kweh…. WTF!!7   Anubys- Obviously derived from Anubis, the greek name for the Jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in Egyptian Mythology.   Phyllo- Phyllo is greek for leaf. It is also the name of a greek pastry, which is made up of tissue thin layers.   Matriarch Bomb- Another obvious one. Matriarch denotes a social organization style in which the mother, or eldest female, heads the family and descent and relationship are determined through the female line. They are generally the most powerful in political positions also.   duism. Vishno- Possibly derived from Vishnu, a popular Hindu god. He is venerated as the Supreme Being in the Vaishnava sect of Hin Imdugud- Imdugud is a lesser divinity of Akkadian mythology. He is the son of the bird goddess Siris. In Mesopotamian Legend, it is known as a lion-headed bird and the sone of the sky god Anu. Also known as Anzu. Tarasque- Derives from Christian Legend. Tarasque was a giant sea serpent with a turtle shell, lions head, and scorpion tail. This beast terrorized France. Saint Martha supposedly charmed the Tarasque into town, where the townspeople slaughtered it. The beast supposedly offered no resistance.   Grimalkin- An old or evil looking female cat. Scottish legend refers to the grimalkin as a faery cat that dwells in the highlands. May be derived from the 1570 book Beware the Cat, by William Baldwin.   Nekhbet- Nekhbet was an early, predynastic local goddess. She was the patron of the city Nekheb. She was often depicted as a vulture, a creature that Egyptians thought only existed as females, having to adopt children. The preistesses of Nekhbet were called muu, meaning “mothers”, and wore robes of white vulture feathers.   Cultsworn Lich- Easy one. A lich is an undead creature. Often, this creature is a result of a transformation, such as a powerful person striving for eternal life. This is obtained by spells or rituals, allowing the individual to bind his intellect to his animated corpse, and achieve immortality.   Juggernaut- Unstoppable force. Derived from the Sanskrit, Jagannatha, meaning lord of the universe.   Kaiser- German title meaning Emperor. Derives from the name of Julius Caesar. Many languages use a descendant of the word Caesar to mean Emperor, such as the Russian Tsar.   Tower- This enemy is a derivation of Babil. It is eluded that this is meant to be the Tower of Babel. This is from a story in the book of Genesis. The story tells of how early humanity was living in one city, and begun to construct a great tower that would extend to the heavens so they could see God. God was pissed, and destroyed the tower, and confused their language. Thus forcing people to spread out among the Earth.   Luxollid- Derived from the Latin word lux, which means lite. It may use the Latin olim, meaning at another time. This may refer to the Gods of XII creating the creature a long time ago.   Rain Dancer- Obvious….   Apsara- A female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hindu or Buddhist mythology. Usually translated to nymphs.   And my favorite,   Midgardsormr- This name comes from Norse mythology, in which Midgardsormr, or “Jormungardr” was the middle child of Loki and a giantess named Angrobada. Odin threw it into the ocean that encircles Midgar (earth) and it grew large enough to reach around the world. It was foreseen that Midgardsormr would do battle with his arch nemesis Thor, on the day of Ragnarok. The sky would darken from the poison mist from Midgardsormr, and the battle would end with the death of them both. Thor will kill Midgardsormr, and then stagger nine steps before dying from its poison.   ***Remix*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNY1dnIcxJk

Over the course of 20-23rd July 1914, the French President and the Russian Tsar met in a summit that had been many months in the making, but which happened to coincide with the plans of Habsburg statesmen back in Vienna... Remember history friends, you can help this podcast and ensure that this is where history thrives! Support us by going to www.patreon.com/WhenDiplomacyFails Follow me on Twitter @wdfpodcast And visit our official website www.wdfpodcast.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On 15th July the French president and Prime Minister set off from Paris to join the Russian Tsar for a summit in St Petersburg on 20th July, herein we recount the journey. Remember history friends, you can help this podcast and ensure that this is where history thrives! Support us by going to www.patreon.com/WhenDiplomacyFails Follow me on Twitter @wdfpodcast And visit our official website www.wdfpodcast.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Power Above Every Evil Throne “The last of the horsemen disappeared into the smoke and the thudding of their hooves receded into the grey distance. The smoke hung on the land. It drifted across the setting sun, which lay like an open wound across the western sky. In the ringing silence that followed the battle, very, very few, pitifully few cries could be heard from the bloody, mangled wreckage on the fields. Ghostlike figures, stunned with horror, emerged from the woods, stumbled and then ran forward crying – women searching for their husbands, their brothers, their fathers, first among the dying and then amongst the dead. The flickering light by which they searched was that of their burning village, which had that afternoon officially become part of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols. From out of the wastes of Central Asia they had swept, a savage force for which the world was utterly unprepared. They swept like a wildly wielded scythe, hacking, slashing, obliterating all that lay in their path, and calling it conquest. And throughout the lands that feared them now or would come to fear them, no name inspired more terror than that of their leader, Genghis Khan.” That’s how one writer described the aftermath of an attack by Genghis Khan and his dreaded Mongol horsemen. There’s never been a leader like Genghis Khan since that time, but many arrogant, murderous tyrants have ridden with bloody hooves across the pages of history. As a matter of fact, that really is history, the rise and fall of the world, one empire after another, of bloody, arrogant tyrants who are not satisfied with where they started but have to have more. This is the spirit of Babylon the Great that we began studying last week in Isaiah 13. It’s mentioned right to the end of history in Revelations 17 and 18. Babylon the Great is finally thrown down by the second coming of Christ. The spirit of conquering kings whose lust for blood and power, money and pleasure spurred them to plunder and pillage little villages like the one described here. But it’s a spirit driven by a deep and more wicked power than any of us can imagine. A malevolent force, the power of Satan himself, which drives them on, attacks the people of God, and seeks to oppose the kingdom of God. Last week, we spoke of the fall of Babylon, that great city, that great empire, which crushed the world and ruined the Promised Land. This week, as we come to Isaiah 14, we’re speaking more specifically of Babylon not just generally, but of the king of Babylon. This chapter speaks specifically of the fall of the tyrant king of Babylon. And while it may refer initially to a specific man in history, I believe it refers to all tyrants in history, all of them. Some theologians think it may speak of nothing more than a single king, perhaps Nebuchadnezzar himself. Others think it doesn’t refer to a human king at all but actually refers to Satan. They point to the soaring language of Isaiah 14. For example, verse 12 says, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn!” The King James version gives us “Lucifer, Lucifer.” Many ancient scholars believed that these verses spoke of the fall of Satan before time began. For myself, I think it speaks of both of these things. I think it speaks at the human level of human tyrants, of kings whose ambition soared above their present circumstances to the point where they actually wanted to be worshipped like gods. Their ambition drove them on, like Genghis Khan and others, to trample defenseless people. But I think it also speaks of the power behind the throne, of Satan as well. And that partnership with Satan, his demonic influence over kings, will continue to the end of time, right through to the time of the antichrist when Christ comes and destroys them both by the splendor of His coming and the establishment of His kingdom forever. That’s what I think is the story of Isaiah 14. So for two weeks, we are going to look at this section of scripture. This week we’re going to focus on the human side. We’re going to talk about the human kings of Babylon, what they have done, and what God promises for them. Next week, we’re going to focus more specifically on Satan, his fall, his ambition, what motivates him, and to the final union between Satan and the antichrist. We’re going to look at the power of every evil throne. The tyrant king of Babylon, we’re going to look behind it. The power behind every evil throne is Satan. But the real story of this chapter is the power above every evil throne and that is God Himself. To God we look, to the sovereign King of the Universe. We can look the tyrant king in the face and be unafraid. We can testify to him of the saving love of Jesus Christ even though he kills us as he killed perhaps our brothers and sisters before us. We can be unafraid of his power because we know there’s a king who holds him in the palm of His hand. God’s Purpose: the Eternal Joy of His Chosen People Despite Israel’s Sin, Chosen Still Now, right at the beginning of Isaiah 14, we see God’s eternal purpose, which is the eternal joy, comfort and security of His chosen people. That’s what God is doing through all of this. Despite Israel’s sin, Israel is chosen still. It says in Romans 11:29, “God’s gift and his call are irrevocable.” Soon after Isaiah’s time, Israel would be sold to Gentile powers. During Isaiah’s time, the Northern Kingdom was sold to the Assyrians. Approximately one hundred and fifty years later, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was sold to the Babylonians. But Isaiah promises here that God will again have compassion on His people and He will choose them again. Look at verse 1, “Once again, he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land.” I believe more than mere restoration is promised here. When the Jews came back to the Promised Land, 42,000 of them, under Cyrus the Great of Persia, they were still under Gentile domination. They had to ask permission for everything. Ezra and Nehemiah had to stand in front of a Gentile king and ask permission. So it has continued throughout the centuries. Jesus calls this the Times of the Gentiles, when Gentile power and influence rules, at least in part, over the Promised Land. But here Isaiah is promising a complete reversal, in which the chosen people will dwell in a position of authority over their former captors. Look at verse 2, “The house of Israel will possess the nations as menservants and maidservants in the Lord’s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors.” This, I believe, does not receive its ultimate fulfillment until the end of time, when the righteous will rule over the judgment of the wicked. Aliens Joining Israel As the Apostle Paul says, “Do you not know that the saints who will judge angels will also judge the world?” (1 Col 6) In the millennial kingdom and even more in the internal state, this concept will have its fulfillment. Verse 1, “Once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land.” God promised to Abraham a land. He made him a promise. It says in Hebrews 11 that Abraham died without receiving the promise. God doesn’t break promises. However, the land they are going to get will be eternal. It will be the new heaven and the new earth, and they will inherit the earth as Jesus promised. That’s the future, ultimately, of all this. And it says that aliens are going to join Israel. Again, in verse 1, “Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.” That’s even better for us because we are Gentiles. We’re not biologically descended from Abraham. We are not children of Abraham. But this is in direct fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham when he was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Back in Genesis 12:2-3, it says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So we, Gentiles, have hope in being included in the promises that God makes to the Jews. This is repeatedly predicted in Isaiah. The fact is that representatives from the nations are actually going to be joining together with the Jews under the covenant promises, worshipping the one true God. I believe this is ultimately fulfilled in the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. The apostle Paul says, in Romans 11, that we, like wild olive shoots, have been cut out of an olive tree that’s wild by nature and been grafted into a cultivated olive tree. We look to Abraham, our father in faith now, and we draw nourishing sap from that root system of the patriarchs, the Jews. God’s Purpose: Bringing Joy to His People in Every Land So God’s ultimate purpose, then, is to bring Jew and Gentile together under the head of Jesus Christ, blessed forever and joyful forever. We will be free forever from concern about the arrogant tyrant who would strike us down and make us miserable. Look at the joy, look at the peace, look at the relief that just flows through this passage. It’s really quite striking, isn’t it? Look at verse 3, “On the day the Lord gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage.” And in verse 7, “All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing.” Celebration! God throws down the king of Babylon so that He can bring joy and relief and security to His chosen people all over the world. The “King of Babylon” Thrown Down A Taunt Song Over the Fallen Tyrant We come to this taunt song. That’s what it’s called. It’s a taunt song where the oppressed people are free forever from the tyrant, and they break forth in singing. They just celebrate. They can’t hold back. When I was growing up, every year we watched the movie “The Wizard of Oz.” Do you remember that movie? Remember when Dorothy’s house falls on the Wicked Witch of the East? The Munchkins come out and discover that she’s dead. Do you remember what they do? They start singing, “Ding dong the witch is dead!” I can hardly even mention that here from the pulpit, but it just seems so perfect. That’s exactly what happens. The oppressor is dead and they’re chanting and singing. They’re celebrating, all the little Munchkins. I thought, “Do I really want images of Munchkins dancing in your minds?” But there it is. They’re celebrating. They’re happy that the tyrant is gone, until of course, the Wicked Witch of the West shows up. Meet the new tyrant, same as the old tyrant. So it has been and so it will be until the antichrist is thrown down by the second coming of Christ. We can look forward to that. There are pockets of relief. There are pockets of celebration that happen. But it’s not until Babylon the Great itself is thrown down, and the final king of Babylon is thrown down, and the wicked malevolent force, Satan, is thrown into the lake of fire, that we will at last celebrate like this. It’s coming friends, and oh, what a shout of joy there will be! What singing we will do when we realize that the one who oppressed us, who tempted us, who attacked us every step of the way, who sought to pull us from Christ at every moment, is gone forever and we’ll never have to deal with him again! Oh, how sweet will that song be! So it’s a time of celebration. It’s a song. Verse 4 says, “You will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon.” Let’s talk about this idea of the King of Babylon. I don’t believe any one specific human king is intended here. Some people think it’s referring to Nebuchadnezzar. I have to tell you, honestly, I hope that Nebuchadnezzar is a brother in Christ. I hope that we will have fellowship together in heaven. I have better hopes than this for Nebuchadnezzar. Let me tell you, I have my predispositions and I’m rooting against this being Nebuchadnezzar. I think God converted him. I really do. If you look at verse 5, I think there’s an indication right in the text that we’re not speaking of any one single ruler, because it speaks of the scepter, the rod of the wicked. Verse 5 says, “The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.” Do you see the plural there? It’s not just one ruler He has in mind. It’s whoever takes up the fallen scepter and then runs with it for a while. One tyrant after another, it’s not just one. So I don’t think it’s Nebuchadnezzar, okay? Are you satisfied? If you think it’s Nebuchadnezzar, come and talk, and we’ll find out. But I think you should be hoping, like I am, that he actually was converted. There’s also no indication that any of this stuff ever happened to Nebuchadnezzar. It seems like he died relatively peacefully and passed his kingdom on to his son, Amul-Marduk. His son passed it on to his son, Belshazzar. We know Belshazzar from Daniel chapter 5. He was there at the fall of Babylon, and he seems like a weak, soft partier to me. He liked the soft life, the comfortable life, the luxurious life. He liked to eat and drink and be merry. There’s no record of him doing any of the kind of crushing oppression that’s spoken of here, though he does die a painful death under the judgment of God. Yet I don’t think this is referring to him. Therefore, I think it’s best to see the human side of this prophecy as referring to the king of Babylon, a representative of the spirit of Babylon, who takes up that tyrannical rod and carries it for a while and smashes the earth with it until his time comes. The people are breaking out in a taunt song against the fallen tyrant. They’re celebrating the end of his tyranny. They’re celebrating his judgment under the wrath of God. They’re celebrating the freedom that the whole world experiences now that he’s dead. That’s what is going on here. Victims of overpowering tyrants are noteworthy. There’s the sense of powerlessness and helplessness that they face. They can do one of two things. If you’re living Germany in 1939 or 1941, and you don’t like what Hitler is doing to the Jews, you have two choices. You can speak up, defy Hitler, and die. It’s suicide and you know it. Or you can quietly, almost in a cowardly sort of way, say nothing. You can pray, hide, hunker down, and wait. Those are your choices. I don’t know if there are any other choices when that kind of tyranny and that kind of power is opposing you. When the victims are alone, they cry out to God for deliverance. Psalm 94:2 says, “Rise up, O judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve.” Let vengeance come. They’re crying aloud for vengeance. It happens even after their deaths in Revelations 6:10, “[The martyrs] cried out in a loud voice, ‘How long, sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’“ They are told to wait a little while longer, until the full number of the martyrs comes in. They’re crying out for God to be their deliverer because there’s nothing else they can do. They’re powerless to stop the tyrant. The Vicious Oppression is Over In the flow of history, death or conquest by another nation is what ends tyranny. It’s not the weak and oppressed that rise up. The ruler dies or some other worse tyrant comes along and topples him from power. That’s how it goes. But there will come a time when tyranny itself will die. The spirit of Babylon will be gone forever and oh, how we long for that day! The vicious oppression will be over. Look at verses 4 through 6, “How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued the nations with relentless aggression.” We see the viciousness of the reign of tyranny described here. The rage of the tyrant has finally come to an end. These self-worshipping tyrants are noteworthy for their rage and their anger. They generally fly into a rage when anyone won’t bow down to them and worship them in some way, or when anyone brings them some bad news that they don’t want to hear. We have Nebuchadnezzar himself, before God dealt with him in chapter 4 of Daniel. In chapter 3, he sets up a statue, 90 feet high and 9 feet wide, made out of gold from top to bottom. I’ve wondered before if he made it out of gold because he didn’t like the statue in chapter 2, which was only a head of gold. He’s like, “Alright, why don’t we have the whole statue out of gold? Maybe I can continue forever.” But he can’t. He’s going to make Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the whole nation bow down to him and his power. Well, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego won’t do it. They bring these three young Jewish men in, and Nebuchadnezzar deals with them very directly. He commands them to bow down or he’s going to throw them into the fiery furnace. They refuse to do it. Very courageously, they refuse. When they make their answer, Nebuchadnezzar flies into a rage. He just goes insane. Angry with them, he orders the furnace heated to seven times hotter than usual. It’s the wrong thing to do! If you really want to make them suffer, you need to cool it off so that it takes hours and hours for them to die. But he’s just not thinking clearly. He is so enraged that anyone would oppose him. That’s the spirt of tyranny. It’s not just him. Hitler was known for his rage, his temper tantrums. Even the highest officials in his regime were afraid to come and bring him bad news. Hermann Goring, who was a vicious man, used to tremble before coming and bringing bad news to Hitler. He said that Hitler had a purple vein that came across his nose and up to his forehead and it would pulsate, almost like it was fit to burst. And he needed medications after these spells of rage would come over him. Then there was Joseph Stalin, who was making plans in 1953 to exterminate the Jews, much as Hitler had. When the plans started to run afoul, as they tend to do when it comes to the Jews (because God sovereignly ordains that they will not be exterminated), Stalin flies into a rage. In March of 1953, he goes into an apoplectic rage. His rage reaches a crescendo. He drops to the floor and he’s dead the next day. His own rage killed him! But in Isaiah 14, it says that, “The rage of the tyrant has finally come to an end.” We don’t need to face it any more. It’s gone forever because God’s not impressed. He’s not intimidated and He will deal with it in His own time. The tyrant uses his overwhelming power to crush all opposition. Military power, I mean. Isaiah 14 says again in verses 5 and 6, “The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression.” It’s what they do. It’s the tramp of the Roman legions, for centuries, through the towns and villages of Europe and Palestine. It’s the sound of Atilla the Hun’s thundering cavalry coming across and bringing waste and destruction, even to the growing church in western Europe. It’s the terrifying sound of Viking longboats coming through the morning mist, landing on the pebbled shores of Lindisfarne and other monastic islands. The Vikings come with bloodthirsty rage. They won’t spare anyone. Not defenseless monks, not women, not children. They’re going to plunder. They’re going to rape. They’re going to pillage. It’s what they do. Of course, it’s the rhythmic, hob-nailed boot march of the Nazis, goose-stepping through the time of their ascendancy, 1939, 40,41, when it seemed they could never lose a battle and no one could ever oppose them. It’s the sound of the Gestapo coming up the stairs in the middle of the night and banging on the door, taking away defenseless people: Jews, Christians, and anyone that opposed them, hauling them off. They are never seen again. They die, gassed in concentration camps. It’s the mindless savagery of the Soviet Union’s anti-Christian crusade. Twenty million Christians were put in gulags and systematically tortured and executed under Stalin. It’s the sound of an enraged mob in China, during the Cultural Revolution, screaming insults at the house-church pastors as they’re marched down the streets with their crime written on placards around their necks. If anyone won’t join in and chant at them, they’re noted by the secret police and they’re arrested as well. It’s tyranny. It’s the rod of tyranny, smashing people with relentless blows. At the end of time, it’s going to reach a crescendo under the blood-thirsty reign of the antichrist, as he dominates the entire world and executes anyone who will not receive the mark of the beast and worship him as God. Peace Results All Over the Earth The terror of the powerful tyrant will be broken. When Christ comes again, He will put an end to tyranny forever and He will reign as a glorious king. At that time, peace will reign all over the earth. Look at verse 7, “All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing.” This peace brings indescribable joy. I believe that the joy of that peace is directly proportioned to the power of the tyrant and to his viciousness. The more powerful and vicious the tyrant, the greater the joy when he’s thrown off. You have, on the cover of your bulletin, a picture of VE Day. I think those are British people gathering together in Trafalgar Square on March 8, 1945. They’ve heard that Hitler is dead. He put a bullet through his brain in a Berlin bunker before the Russians could get him. They are celebrating. It’s a wild celebration. From what I heard, it was incredible. I wasn’t there, too young for that, but I heard it was just amazing. Total strangers were dancing, hugging, and kissing each other. They never see each other again. There is just amazing joy and celebration because the tyranny has finally come to an end. I think in our lifetime, perhaps we saw it with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1987. That November, finally East and West Berlin came together as one city, and communism was exposed as the economic and social fraud that it is. Finally, it came to an end there. What joy there was and what celebration! Everybody wanted to get a hammer and go bang on that wall a little bit and pull it down. Destruction of the Earth Has Ended The destruction of the earth will end. Look at verse 8, “Even the pine trees and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you and say, ‘Now that you have been laid low, no woodsman comes to cut us down.’” One of the things about tyrants is that they think the earth is theirs to plunder. They can do anything they want with the natural resources of the earth. Gold, silver, oil, iron, and anything coming out of the earth, they strip mine. They do whatever it takes to fuel the engines of industry, to keep it going. It says in Deuteronomy 20:19, speaking to the Jews, “When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?” It’s an interesting passage, Deuteronomy 20:19. Don’t do it. Don’t tear down all the trees. The earth was given to us as a stewardship. We are to care for it. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God put Adam in the Garden to serve it and protect it.” That’s my translation of those two Hebrew words. I think it’s a fair one. To serve the Garden and enable it to be everything it could be, to come to full fruition and protect it from harm. Not to pillage it and rape it and plunder it. It says in Revelation 11:18, “The time has come… for destroying those who destroy the earth.” These tyrants, they do it better than anyone. No Tyrant Stronger Than Death Powerful Tyrant Weak in the Face of Death We’ve seen the wickedness of the tyrants. We’ve seen their great power. But one thing we’ve noted throughout history: there is no tyrant stronger than death. There is no tyrant stronger than death. Look at verses 9 through 11. We see here the powerful tyrant, weak at last in the face of death. Verses 9 through 11 say, “The grave below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you – all those who are leader in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones – all those who were kings over the nations. They will all respond, they will say to you, ‘You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.’ All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you.” This is a remarkable passage of prophecy here. Here the dead kings, as if in some nether region, notice that this powerful tyrant king has come down and they’re almost acting surprised. But there’s a bit of mockery here. They are saying, “Oh look, I guess you weren’t any stronger than we were. Here we are dead and here you are dead.” Now this is just poetical. I don’t think we should take a theology of the afterlife from this passage, any more than we should imagine that trees will be able to speak from verse 8. Rather, this is poetical language saying that even the most powerful tyrant can’t stand firm in the face of death. It is God’s judgment on the human race. There’s nothing they can do to stop it. The grave is personified here and the mighty potentate has his power stripped forever. Death has stripped him of it. The Final Fate of the King of Babylon… Moldering, Dead in the Street (vs 18-21) Picture, then, a Babylonian king, drunk, lying in his bed. The Medes are running through the palace looking for him. They find him and they kill him that very night, Daniel chapter 5. Or picture a Roman Caesar coming out after a good time in the Coliseum, surrounded by his usually faithful Praetorian Guards. But there’s a plot afoot. He doesn’t know it. One of them plunges a dagger between his ribs and he dies. His cousin becomes the new Emperor of Rome. Or picture a Russian Tsar wheezing and gasping as he chokes out his last few breaths and dies of consumption. Or a Chinese communist dictator, whose legacy is still with us, lying helpless in his bed, stricken with a heart attack. He rises up a little, tries to speak, and can’t do it. He gurgles something and slumps back down on the bead. Then he’s dead. Where’s your power now? Where has it all gone to? They are the very picture of weakness now. That’s what’s going on here in Isaiah 14. His pompous luxury is stripped as well. Not that you’d want to, but go look at him in two or three weeks. There will be maggots and worms, just like everybody. You can’t take it with you. You can’t take the noise of the harps. You can’t take the luxurious, purple silk robes. It’s all gone. It’s all going down into the grave. So the final fall of the king of Babylon is that he will molder, dead in the streets. Look at verses 18 through 21, “All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again. Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.” Ordinarily, kings are honored in death. Presidents lie in state in the rotunda. People pass by. It’s a solemn time, a time of reverence and honor. Ordinarily, that’s what happens. But this king doesn’t get that. He doesn’t get a state burial. He’s thrown out like refuse in the streets. Like a branch stripped from the tree and lying on the ground, his body is trampled underfoot. I get the picture of Ahas, whose blood was licked up by dogs. And of course, Jezebel, you couldn’t even find a piece left of her. Something like that. Or like Hitler’s body, which I think was doused with gasoline and then burned, lest the Russians should desecrate it. But even worse than what happens to this king’s body, this king would have no legacy. His offspring, it says, would be cut off entirely. All memory of his name effaced forever. His kingdom is over. It’s ended forever. He’s got no legacy. He’s done. He’s thrown out. And why? Verse 20 says, “For you have destroyed your land and killed your people.” It’s interesting, that’s what he does to his own people. You have to wonder what the Germans thought of Hitler in June of 1945, when the whole country was a pile of rubble from one side to the other. Did they love him then? Did they honor him then? He was the one who did that to their country, ultimately, because of his policies and his leadership. Some have said, I think somewhat wisely, that people get the leadership they deserve. That’s meant negatively. It’s not like a good people get a good king, something like that. But, if a nation will tolerate a leader, then that could be the outcome. Here, it is turned around because of what he did to his people, because the people were destroyed, the people he should have protected and cared for and served, like any good leader. Because of that, he’s judged. The Final Fall of Babylon (vs 22-23) And so we also have the final fall of Babylon in verses 22-23. Here again, as we saw in chapter 13, God is doing all of this. None of this is an accident. It’s not just happened. This is something God has done to judge this man. “’I will rise up against them,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ‘I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” We’ve already seen in Isaiah 13 that Babylon will never be inhabited again. The Reason for Judgment: Pride What is God’s motivation in all of this? What’s the reason for the judgment? Well, it comes down to one word, pride. God hates human pride. He hates it with a passion. God opposes the proud. This is a chapter of God opposing the proud. This is how much He hates pride. The pride is right there in these famous verses right in the middle, verses 12-15. “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly; on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.” It’s all about ambition. It’s about soaring ambition. The king of Babylon looks at himself and sees more there than he realized, up to this point. He’s got potential. God has put him in a bounded place. There are boundaries around him like there are around all of us. God sets those boundary lines up. David says, in Psalm 16:6, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” God sets those boundaries up. But this tyrant, he’s not satisfied with it, just like Satan wasn’t satisfied with his boundaries. So he starts to move out, to expand his boundaries, to jump across borders and boundaries, and to make an empire for himself. Ultimately, it’s going to include, in his own heart, raising his throne above the stars of God and sitting enthroned on the mount of the assembly where God sits. Yes, he’s going to want to be worshipped. How many human kings has this been true of? In the book of Acts, King Herod stands before the people with shining, radiant robes, and he gives a little speech. The people say, “This is the voice of a god and not of a man.” And he actually likes it. He’s like, “Well, finally, you see it!” The voice of a god and not of a man. Immediately, he was stuck down by worms, just like here in Isaiah 14, and died. The Roman Caesars also saw themselves as deities. The root of it all is Satan’s soaring ambition, which we’ll see next week. It’s really Satan that’s feeding this pride, putting logs on the fire. He’s feeding it until both are destroyed together forever. Because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Application Understand the Future Fate of All Godless Dictators Next week, we’re going to talk more about Satan’s activities, Satan’s ambitions. As we come to the end of the human section in understanding this, what application can we take? Well, first, understand the future fate of all tyrants. Isaiah 14 stands over all tyrants, and we have some today. There actually is a website, parade.com, which lists the top 15 tyrants on earth today. It’s really amazing to read thumbnail sketches of each of these folks. For example, Omar al-Bashir, of the Sudan. He’s the worst dictator on earth, so this website says, because of his ongoing deadly human rights abuses in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Over the last four years, at least 200,000 people have been killed by his forces nationwide. 5.3 million have been driven from their homes, and more than 700,000 have fled from the country. There’s Kim Jong-il of North Korea, who has isolated his nation from the rest of the nations on earth. His record of human rights abuses is every bit as bad. Recently, we have been following Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, an unbelievable tyrant. He’s not as powerful as some of the others, but he has ruined his country. The inflation rate there was 1,281% last month. 1,281% inflation rate. In 2002, he permitted an election. But in the middle of the election, the guy who was running against him was arrested for treason. So when there was an election earlier this year, the guy who was running against him decided to drop out of the race. You may think that’s probably a wise decision. That’s Robert Mugabe. He’s a tyrant. It goes on and on. It’s not just those three. There are many, many others. All of these dictators will suffer the same fate. They will all be judged, as in Isaiah 14, unless they repent and come to faith in Christ. And let me speak about that for just a moment. Pray for Rulers to be Saved Should we pray for a tyrant to be saved? Is it possible that the grace of God can reach into the megalomania of a tyrant like this and actually save him? That’s why I mentioned Nebuchadnezzar. I think He can. I think that Nebuchadnezzar and Saul of Tarsus stand as trophies of God’s grace, of what God can do to anyone, anytime, if He moves out with His grace. The Apostle Paul puts it very, very plainly in 1 Timothy 1:15-16. “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was show mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.” You may have come in here today thinking you’re the worst of sinners. That’s what Saul of Tarsus thought about himself. “I’m the worst. Nobody could ever forgive me for what I’ve done to the Christians. God couldn’t forgive me.” But God did forgive him! Such is the grace of God. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. There is no human tyrant whose sin is so great that the grace of Christ cannot cover it. Paul goes on in 1 Timothy 2:1-2 to advise us to pray for rulers and leaders. This is what he says, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests for prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God, our savior.” The first reason is so that the people of God can have peace and security in their lifetimes and do the work of the Kingdom. But there’s a second reason. “This is good and pleases God, our savior, who wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” Can God save an Osama Bin Laden? Can He save an 82-year-old Robert Mugabe at the end of his life? Can He do that? We’re commanded to pray for it. I think there’s not going to be many of them saved. But that there’s one at all shows that they can be. We’re commanded here to pray. Come to Christ For you individually, as you’ve come here today, perhaps you feel guilty. Perhaps you feel alienated from God. You don’t know what you can do about your guilt. The cross of Jesus Christ is an ocean of grace. It can cleanse any stain. Come to Christ. Trust in Him, look to Him who shed His blood for you. His grace is the story of history, not these tyrants, bloodshed and tyranny. It’s Christ’s grace. Hate Pride and Humble Yourself Finally, for myself, I think it’s safest to see similarities between myself and the tyrant here. Now, I’m not this kind of man, but I have pride like this. My pride is the worst enemy of my soul. It makes me think I don’t need to listen to a sermon like this. It makes me think I don’t need to be rebuked or convicted about this or that and beyond that. It makes me think I don’t need Jesus as much as I really do. My pride makes me angry towards people that I love, that are close to me, or towards total strangers who cross me and take something I wanted. My pride is my worst enemy. To see it described here, whether it’s Satan or the king of Babylon, I feel a similar elevation in my heart, saying, “Do you know who I am?” All of us have that. It’s part of the human race, part of our sin condition. Flee from it. Ask God to humble you. Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand. In due time, He will lift you up. Join with me in prayer.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. On 1st March 1881, the Russian Tsar, Alexander II, was travelling through the snow to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. An armed Cossack sat with the coach driver, another six Cossacks followed on horseback and behind them came a group of police officers in sledges. It was the day that the Tsar, known for his liberal reforms, had signed a document granting the first ever constitution to the Russian people.But his journey was being watched by a group of radicals called 'Narodnaya Volya' or 'The People's Will'. On a street corner near the Catherine Canal, they hurled the first of their bombs to halt the Tsar's iron-clad coach. When Alexander ignored advice and ventured out onto the snow to comfort his dying Cossacks, he was killed by another bomber who took his own life in the blast.Why did they kill the reforming Tsar? What was the political climate that inspired such extreme acts? And could this have been the moment that the Russian state started an inexorable march towards revolution?With Orlando Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London; Dominic Lieven, Professor of Russian Government, London School of Economics; Catriona Kelly, Professor of Russian, Oxford University.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. On 1st March 1881, the Russian Tsar, Alexander II, was travelling through the snow to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. An armed Cossack sat with the coach driver, another six Cossacks followed on horseback and behind them came a group of police officers in sledges. It was the day that the Tsar, known for his liberal reforms, had signed a document granting the first ever constitution to the Russian people.But his journey was being watched by a group of radicals called 'Narodnaya Volya' or 'The People's Will'. On a street corner near the Catherine Canal, they hurled the first of their bombs to halt the Tsar's iron-clad coach. When Alexander ignored advice and ventured out onto the snow to comfort his dying Cossacks, he was killed by another bomber who took his own life in the blast.Why did they kill the reforming Tsar? What was the political climate that inspired such extreme acts? And could this have been the moment that the Russian state started an inexorable march towards revolution?With Orlando Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London; Dominic Lieven, Professor of Russian Government, London School of Economics; Catriona Kelly, Professor of Russian, Oxford University.

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