If it Ain’t Broke…

    I am neither an architect nor an Engineer by trade.  I am a natural tinkerer and have spent most of my life breaking my toys, so I have an appreciation for how things are made and what it takes to make them.  As such, I spend a lot of time noticing differences in construction: things like the pathetic stitching on the snaps of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe camouflage fatigues the last year they were made.  Incidentally, I still have a set of those cammies from their first year of production.  Bombproof!

    This is all a way of saying that newer isn’t necessarily better.  Last week I was watching a re-run of a World War Two documentary in which Germany invaded France by running around the Maginot line.  While discussing river crossings and their importance to military operations, historic film reels were played showing a German tank crossing a makeshift bridge; one hastily constructed from little more than timbers laid across numerous small boats.  This bridge struck me as familiar and I began to sift through my library for references to this construction as it seemed out of place in this German war footage.

Screenshot of bridge by author

   I worked backwards in time and was consulting J. Caesar’s The Gallic War without finding my bridge, so I looked further back in time.  Finally, I found it.  The description went something like this:  

    

Many boats (654) were placed side-by-side and facing into the current while cables were used to secure them to the shore and the individual bows were anchored up and down stream to keep the boats in line relative to each other and adding more stability.  Boards were then placed between the boats and over the cables to connect them while brushwood and soil were placed over the boards to create a walkway and a more even surface after which a handrail was placed on either side to keep soldiers and beasts of burden from falling in. 

Author's image of a bridge in Afghanistan taken from The Histories

    This resource that listed my bridge was actually Herodotus when his Histories were describing how the Persian Empire invaded Greece.  Xerxes used this bridge type to cross the Hellespont in 482BC (circa).  This narrows is approximately 1240 metres (1350 yards) of the most difficult waters in the world.  This successful iteration was actually the second effort.  The first had ended badly for all: the engineering supervisors were beheaded and the waters of the Hellespont were flogged with 300 lashes while being subjected to verbal abuse for being disobedient.  

Author's image of a sketch from The Histories  

So, in 2019 I saw a film from 1939 which spoke about how technologically advanced the German Army was and how incorporating this technology gave the Germans a battlefield advantage.  Yet in this film, our twentieth century technological genius’ used a bridging technique from 2,421 years earlier.  Perhaps part of their genius was their ability to recognise when something works well.

Greek Fire

    Since the dawn of time man has been competitive.  Perhaps that is what has set him apart from the rest of the animal kingdom: Faster, farther, better - regardless of the endeavour.  This is especially true in warfare.  More efficient means of vanquishing the opponent has always found an audience: and so it was with Greek Fire.

    In the early days of the Greek city states and of the Roman Empire, the use of incendiaries in combat was rampant and the unpredictable nature of Greek Fire made it as hazardous to the employer as it was to the intended victim.  Yet, the ability to throw fire from one point to another in a focused and directed manner was very desirable, so pyro-masters kept refining the process through trial and error.  Finally, in about 668AD, a Greek refugee from Syria arrived at Constantinople with a proven recipe.  By 672, Kallinikos, as our Greek was called, had perfected his delivery technique and was using it to defend the Eastern Roman Empire against invaders.  Legend has it that this version could set water on fire and actually burn underwater.  

Image of a 12th century manuscript (Author's collection)

    All mythology and nonsense, right?  Except that napalm and white phosphorous fit these descriptions and were used to great effect during the wars of the twentieth century.  Throughout time there were other munitions that created races to develop and acquire regardless of the cost in dollars or humanity.  The atomic bomb is an excellent example of today’s Greek Fire as the centre of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, Japan reached five thousand degrees centigrade.  Add to that the fact that the second bomb (made of plutonium, not uranium) was so unstable that it had to be tested in the New Mexico desert prior to being dropped on Nagasaki and due to the arms race (both before and after) created by its introduction we see many parallels with Greek Fire. 

    Even today, the search for the proper recipe continues.  In early August 2019, there was an explosion west of Archangel, Russia and, subsequently, the town of Nenoksa was evacuated and all this was conducted under a veil of mis-information and retracted statements by the Russian Government.  What ever their cover-story may be, the most likely happenstance is this: The Russian military was testing a Skyfall missile (a nuclear missile powered by a nuclear reactor) that went awry.  The best bet is that its portable nuclear power station melted down in a smaller version of the Chernobyl, Ukraine tragedy.  Most certainly, the power station was one of a new offering by the Russian firm Rosatom.  Rosatom stated last year that they envisioned their new portable reactors being used in a fleet of nuclear-powered ice-breaking ships in support of Russia’s efforts to open (then dominate) the Northern Sea Route: thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Artic.

    Keep in mind that through all of this, Russia has no overt enemies and the only international enmity directed towards them is because of their meddling in external, sovereign affairs.

Close-up of the above manuscript (Author's collection)

Is this the fallout from today’s Greek Fire?

From the Ashes of Empire

"To the Strongest"

    With these last words, in response to the question, who will rule your kingdom, the empire of Alexander the Great began to crumble.  Despite all his hard work, he failed to plan for the earthly immortality of his actions and ensured that the fractious and internecine nature of Macedonian politics would continue.  His kingdom was quickly divided into four sections: the two most famous being the Seleucid Empire (Mesopotamia and Persia) and the Ptolemaic Dynasty (Egypt and Palestine).  

    

Modern day view of Hydaspes Battlefield, Pakistan (Author's collection, copyright 2019)

    Of these two, the Ptolemaic lasted until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC whereupon it was absorbed into the Roman Empire.  Cleopatra committed suicide with a viper (as the story goes) and her palace was eventually overtaken by a rising sea and lost to time.

    In 1996 Archaeologist Franck Goddio discovered the palace five metres underwater in Alexandria's East Harbour and this set off a frenzy of activity in the region, the repercussions of which we are still feeling today.

Greek Coins (circa 330BC) on display Lahore Museam (Author's collection, copyright 2019)

    Perhaps the greatest lesson in all of this is the employment of proper preparation.  Egypt's Alexandria became an immortal city through Ptolemy's hard work after Alexander's death, yet he was only in charge of Alexandria because Alexander failed to plan.  The details of ancient Alexandria have been lost to time because of the destruction of its library.  This library where all the knowledge of the ancient world was centralised for the ease of access and distribution.  Yet a single, unplanned event wiped it out and the tumultuous subsequent historical events (including a sea that rose about eight metres) ensured that we today aren't sure about much of anything with regard to ancient Alexandria.

    Some might say, "That could never happen to us, we have the internet and all information is distributed and accessible worldwide." That sounds great as long as there is electrical power and the servers aren't compromised.   A recent nuclear explosion near Russia's White Sea was an unplanned event that is depriving inhabitants of electricity for the foreseeable future and I'm sure a nuclear explosion is harmful to servers.  

    To take a lesson from a long series of mistakes.  Let's not put all our eggs in one basket.

The respite being too short

    Please excuse my inability to time manage.  The past week has flown by in a blur of unpacking and image processing.  I was unable to research anything worthwhile this week as I was bitten by the travel bug again and began looking towards a destination that is new only to me...

Egyptian Diety, Marathon, Greece (Author's collection, copyright 2009)