Posts Tagged ‘Revolutionary War’
“It is the same in love as in war; a fortress that parleys is half taken”*…
Further to yesterday’s post on historic battlements, Zach Mortice on a modern fortress that’s become a go-to location for film and television thrillers…
When it was completed in Lower Manhattan in 1974, 33 Thomas Street, formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, was intended as the world’s largest facility for connecting long-distance telephone calls. Standing 532 feet — roughly equivalent to a 45-story building — it’s a mugshot for Brutalism, windowless and nearly featureless. Its only apertures are a series of ventilation hoods meant to hide microwave-satellite arrays, which communicate with ground-based relay stations and satellites in space. One of several long lines buildings designed by John Carl Warnecke for the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T, 33 Thomas Street is perhaps the most visually striking project in the architect’s long and influential career. Embodying postwar American economic and military hegemony, the tower broadcasts inscrutability and imperviousness. It was conceived, according to the architect, to be a “skyscraper inhabited by machines.”
“No windows or unprotected openings in its radiation-proof skin can be permitted,” reads a project brief prepared by Warnecke’s office; the building’s form and dimensions were shaped not by human needs for light and air, but by the logics of ventilation, cooling, and (not least) protection from atomic blast. “As such, the design project becomes the search for a 20th-century fortress, with spears and arrows replaced by protons and neutrons laying quiet siege to an army of machines within.” The purple prose of the project brief was perhaps inspired by the client. AT&T in the 1970s still held its telecom monopoly, and was an exuberant player in the Cold War military-industrial complex. Until 2009, 33 Thomas Street was a Verizon data center. And in 2016, The Intercept revealed that the building was functioning as a hub for the National Security Administration, which has bestowed upon it the Bond-film-esque moniker Titanpointe.
Computers at Titanpointe have monitored international phone calls, faxes and voice calls routed over the internet, and more, hoovering up data from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and U.S. allies including France, Germany, and Japan. 33 Thomas Street, it turns out, is exactly what it looks like: an apocalypse-proof above-ground bunker intended not only to symbolize but to guarantee national security. For those overseeing fortress operations at the time of construction, objects of fear were nuclear-armed Communists abroad and a restive youth population at home, who couldn’t be trusted to obey the diktats of a culture that had raised up some in previously inconceivable affluence; an affluence built on the exploitation and disenfranchisement of people near and far.
By the time the NSA took over, targets were likely to be insurgents rejecting liberal democracy and American hegemony, from Islamic fundamentalists to world-market competitors in China, alongside a smattering of Black Lives Matter activists. For those outside the fortress, in the Nixon era as in the present, the fearful issue was an entrenched and unaccountable fusion of corporate and governmental capability, a power that flipped the switches connecting the world. At the same time, popular culture had begun, in the 1970s, to register a paranoia that has only intensified — the fear that people no longer call the shots. In its monumental implacability, Titanpointe seems to herald a posthuman regime, run by algorithm for the sole purpose of perpetuating its own system.
It is, in other words, a building tailor made for spy movies.
John Carl Warnecke did not realize, of course, that he was storyboarding a movie set…
How (and why) a windowless telecommunications hub in New York City embodying an architecture of surveillance and paranoia became an ideal location for conspiracy thrillers: “Apocalypse-Proof,” from @zachmortice in @PlacesJournal. Fascinating.
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As we ponder impenetrability, we might recall that it was on this date in 1780, during the American Revolutionary War, that Benedict Arnold, commander of the American fort at West Point, passed plans of the bastion to the British.
“Without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive”*…
In the American Revolution, the number of privateers — estimated at more than 1,500 ships and tens of thousands of men — far exceeded the number of official navy ships– and were far more instrumental in the American victory…
While uncommon in the modern era, during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 the United States relied heavily on privateering, which was commonly referred to as “the militia of the sea.” In general, the term privateer refers to a privately-owned ship or sailor commissioned by a government to raid an enemy’s military and merchant shipping. Although controversial, there is a long history of privateering that dates back to the seventeenth century. The main difference between pirates and privateers is that privateers are commissioned by a specific government and can only attack ships that fly under an enemy flag, while pirates are not sanctioned by any government and can attack whomever they choose. While pirates keep the prizes themselves, privateers only receive a portion of the money generated from the sale of prizes, which is heavily taxed. Prizes refer to goods seized from a merchant or military ship. While both economically lucrative, privateers serve as a vehicle of war, pirates do not.
The Militia of the Sea
Many believed [during the American Revolution] and have believed since [then that] privateering was a sideshow in the war. Privateering has long been given short shrift in general histories of the conflict, where privateers are treated as a minor theme if they are mentioned at all. The coverage in maritime and naval histories of the Revolution is not much better, with privateering often overshadowed by the exploits of the Continental navy. As John Lehman, former secretary of the navy under President Ronald Reagan, observed, ‘From the beginning of the American Revolution until the end of the War of 1812, America’s real naval advantage lay in its privateers. It has been said that the battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, and independence was won at sea. For this we have the enormous success of American privateers to thank even more than the Continental Navy.’ Yet even in the face of plenty of readily available evidence, ‘the official canon of naval history in both Britain and the United States virtually ignores’ privateers…
An excerpt from Rebels at Sea by Eric Jay Dolin
Privateers and the Revolution, via @Battlefields and @delanceyplace; more at both links above.
* George Washington, in a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette
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As we seize the seas, we might recall that it was on this date in 1763 that final preparations were completed for the signing (the next day) of the Treaty of Paris. Marking the end of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), France surrendered all of its North American possessions east of the Mississippi to Britain. This ended a source of insecurity for the British colonists along the Atlantic Coast. But the costs of the war and maintaining an army led the British government to impose new taxes on its colonists, with world-shaking results– the American Revolution.
“The fog of war”*….
McKinley Valentine (in her wonderful newsletter, The Whippet) on a fierce battle “between” a single army…
The battle happened on the night of 21 September 1788, in what is now Romania. The Habsburg and Ottoman empires are Austria and Turkey (but bigger, because empires).
I’m just going to give you the bullet-point summary:
• The vanguard (part that goes ahead of the regular army) of the Austrian army crosses Timiș River to scout for Ottomans. They are ‘hussars’, light cavalry. The hussars don’t find any Ottomans, but they DO find some Romani people who sell them some barrels of schnapps.
• Some Austrian infantrymen cross the river, see the other soldiers getting drunk, and ask them to share.
• The (very drunk) hussars refuse, and set up makeshift fortifications around the schnapps barrels.
• The argument escalates until eventually shots are fired.
• Someone shouts “Turks! Turks!” Both groups think the Ottomans are attacking and try to run away – it’s enormously chaotic. An officer shouts “Halt! Halt!” to try and restore order, but the troops (who are from a bunch of different countries and don’t understand German) think they hear “Allah! Allah!” and the Ottomans are definitely attacking.
• The hussars flee on horseback back through the main army camp. The General of Artillery thinks it’s an Ottoman cavalry charge and orders the cannons to fire on them.
• Entire army camp wakes up and goes into a terrified panic.Holy Roman Emperor (head of the Habsburgs) orders the whole army to withdraw and get itself together.
• Ottomans turn up two days later, discover only some dead and wounded Austrians and no army, and easily capture the city of Karánsebes.
There are some who suggest that the account is apocryphal (e.g. here, source of the image at the top), But as Valentine observes…
Did this really happen? Some of it is a bit too neat, too story-like – esp the Halt/Allah thing – which ought to make you suspicious. But Wikipedia reckons there are a lot of contemporary accounts of it (I can’t read them because they’re in German, French and Italian), so at the very least it’s a story that sprang up at the time, rather than being internet-era misinfo. And certainly Karánsebes is a real city that the Turks captured in 1788 (you’d be amazed how many internet-era historical myths fall at 1-inch hurdles like that). My guess is: in broad strokes, yes; the specifics probably added for colour.
“The Battle of Karánsebes: possibly history’s dumbest skirmish,” from @mckinleaf.
* a paraphrase of Clausewitz (“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”)
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As we promote peace, we might recall that it was on this date in 1781 that that French Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of the Chesapeake (AKA the Battle of the Virginia Capes or simply the Battle of the Capes). The French victory kept supply lanes open for the Franco-American army, providing them siege artillery and French reinforcements which were decisive in the Siege of Yorktown, which in turn effectively secured victory in the American Revolution and independence for the Thirteen Colonies.
“Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack”*…
Over the course of 2020, Elon Musk’s wealth skyrocketed from $27.7 billion to $147 billion. Musk even overtook Bill Gates, to become the second richest person in the world. This was a tremendous jump in fortune: Musk was only at 36th place in January 2020. Musk’s enrichment was mainly due to Tesla’s rising stock price (TSLA:US), which surged from $86 in January to $650 in December. Tesla is currently one of the ten most valuable companies in the US stock market.
In an already record-breaking year, Tesla’s largest and most rapid increase in valuation came in November, due to its announced inclusion into the S&P 500 index, now scheduled for 21 December 2020. Within a week of this announcement, Tesla’s share price rose by 33%, as passive funds now have to invest more than $70 billion. This was a remarkable boost for stock of a company that many analysts say is already obviously overvalued.
Just a few weeks earlier, on 21 September 2020, Yinghang ‘James’ Yang was arrested for insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yang was an employee at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), sitting on an index committee that decided about which companies were to be included and excluded from S&P DJI indices. Yang had used this insider knowledge, to trade options on these companies through a friend’s account, making almost $1 million in the process. The case is currently being investigated by US authorities.
While these seem like unrelated incidents, both these episodes in index committee decision making are part of a tectonic shift that has fundamentally transformed capital markets globally. That is, the move towards passive index investing — and the concomitantly growing power of index providers...
A wonderfully-clear exploration of the history of index funds and consideration of their implications: “It’s the index, stupid! Our New Not-So-Neutral Financial Market Arbiters.”
* John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the index fund
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As we watch the watchmen, we might recall that it was on this date in 1773 that a group of colonists known as the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded three British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea (worth $18,000– over half a million dollars in today’s currency) into Boston harbor. The provocation was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts— which American Patriots strongly opposed as a violation of their rights. Colonists objected to the Tea Act because they believed that it violated their rights as Englishmen to “no taxation without representation.”
The Boston Tea Party was, of course, a triggering event in the gestation of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Intolerable Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed Boston’s commerce. Colonists up and down the Thirteen Colonies in turn replied with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts– and probably more impactfully, coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito”*…
A month after the opening salvos of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the newly appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army, George Washington, had a request for his political masters in the Continental Congress. He urged them to buy up as much cinchona bark and quinine powder as possible. Given the dire financial pressures of the squabbling colonial government, and the dearth of pretty much everything needed to fight a war, his total allotment was a paltry 300 pounds. General Washington was a frequent visitor to the quinine chest as he suffered from recurrent bouts (and reinfection) of malaria since first contracting the disease in 1749 at the age of seventeen.
Luckily for the Americans, the British were also drastically short of Peruvian Spanish-supplied quinine throughout the war. In 1778, shortly before they entered the fray in support of the American cause, the Spanish cut off this supply completely. Any available stores were sent to British troops in India and the Caribbean. At the same time, the mosquito’s merciless, unrelenting strikes on unseasoned British troops lacking quinine during the final British southern campaign — launched in 1780 with the capture of Charleston, the strategic port city and mosquito sanctuary — determined the fate of the United States of America.
As J. R. McNeill colorfully contours, ‘The argument here is straightforward: In the American Revolution the British southern campaigns ultimately led to defeat at Yorktown in October 1781 in part because their forces were much more susceptible to malaria than were the American. . . . [T]he balance tipped because Britain’s grand strategy committed a larger proportion of the army to malarial (and yellow fever) zones.’ A full 70% of the British Army that marched into this southern mosquito maelstrom in 1780 was recruited from the poorer, famished regions of Scotland and the northern counties of England, outside the malaria belt of Pip’s Fenland marshes. Those who had already served some time in the colonies had done so in the northern zone of infection and had not yet been seasoned to American malaria.
General Washington and the Continental Congress, on the other hand, had the advantage of commanding acclimated, malaria-seasoned colonial troops. American militiamen had been hardened to their surroundings during the Seven Years’ War and the turbulent decades heading toward open hostilities against their king. Washington personally recognized, albeit short of scientific affirmation or medical endorsement, that with his recurrent malarial seasonings, ‘I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation.’ While they did not know it at the time, this might well have been the Americans’ only advantage over the British when, after twelve years of seething resentment and discontent since the passing of the Royal Proclamation [of 1763 that prohibited land sales to colonists], war suddenly and unexpectedly came.
The Americans’ secret weapon– an excerpt from Timothy C. Winegard’s Mosquito: A Human History of of our Deadliest Predator: “George Washington, Mosquitoes, and the American Revolution.”
[via the ever-illuminating Delanceyplace.com]
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As we douse ourselves in DEET, we might recall that it was on this date in 1781– before the fall of Yorktown, but after a decisive week of fighting– that General George Washington wrote to the President of the Continental Congress to give an account of the recent action. Three days later the Siege of Yorktown (as it became known) ended with the surrender of British forces under General Cornwallis. It was the final major land battle of the Revolutionary War; the capture of Cornwallis and his army prompted the British government to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, by John Trumbull
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