You’ve Got Red On You

‘Santa vs Zombies’ by Victor Negreiro

(Nothing to do with my title, which is a ‘Shaun of the Dead’ reference)

Why is Santa Claus’ tunic red? Because of Coca-Cola? S’Nope! To conceal the wounds he sustains in battle, of course! OK, perhaps not. But that explanation really has been offered on many an occasion to explain why the British ‘redcoat’ was so clad, especially in the US. A seamless seasonal link there, I think you’ll agree. The implication being that the British army that fought the American Revolution comprised thousands of scared impressed conscripts who would rout at the drop of a hat, were it not for the tyrannical discipline of their officers. Even the British have made this claim, probably because until relatively recently, soldiers were very much looked down upon in British society, such that a slight against their courage wouldn’t necessarily be a slight against the army or the Empire. Francis Grose, in his  ‘Military Antiquities’, states (though I can’t find the original source he cites online);

‘Julius Ferretus, a writer of the middle of the 16th century, in his Treatife on the Military Science, fays, that foldiers commonly wore a fhort red fagum, or frock, which colour was chofen that they might not be difcouraged by the fight of the blood from their wounds.’
-Grose, Military Antiquities, 1788 (p.6)

So this idea was a contemporary one. Nevertheless, it’s pretty dubious. Military uniforms were bold solid colours because for line infantry (riflemen and light infantry being a special case) there was no tactical need for anything that would blend in. It was also a bonus for officers and general staff to be able to see where their men were on the black powder-filled battlefield, and for the men themselves to be able to tell each other apart in close quarters. More significantly, in an age before chemical dyes, there was also quite a limited colour palette to choose from. Hiding your sucking chest wound had nothing to do with it. A fellow WordPress blogger has a good summary of why this claim is bogus. It points out that blood is in fact quite visible against red fabric, something I can vouch for having seen period uniform still bearing obvious blood stains. But I’m just as interested in where these things come from as debunking them. So where does this red herring originate? Well, it’s actually pretty ancient – 1st Century A.D. ancient, in fact:

‘They used to wear red tunics in battle to disguise and hide the blood from their wounds, not that the sight of the wounds would terrify them, but it might make the enemy a little more confident.’
-Valerius Maximus on the Spartans

Of course we have no way of knowing whether the Spartans really did this, but as another practical warfighting race, like the British later on, it seems pretty unlikely. The claim was recycled five hundred years later by an ecclesiastical scholar of the ancient world;

‘The reddened (russata) garment, which the Greeks call Phoenician and we call scarlet, was invented by the Lacedaemonians so as to conceal the blood with a similar color whenever someone was wounded in battle, lest their opponents’ spirits rise at the sight.’
-Isidore of Seville, Origines XIX, xxii, 10

Intriguingly, Isidore also says that Roman soldiers were known as russati because of the similarly red tunics that they wore; a direct foreshadowing of the British ‘redcoats’. I suspect our missing link here is a later writer, perhaps at the height of the British Empire in the Victorian period, deliberately drawing an analogy between the armies of the two empires, just as Valerius had by referencing the Spartans. The russati/redcoat connection would have reinforced this Britain=Rome meme, and might even have inspired the appropriation of the old Spartan/Roman myth. Now, this could be used by both proponents and enemies of a given country/empire, depending how it’s spun. Valerius and Isidore give a positive angle, but perhaps more logical is the negative version in currency by the 19th century, and presumably earlier:

‘English children are, perhaps, still taught that French soldiers wear red trousers in order that the sight of blood may not frighten them in war-time ; and doubtless French children imbibe a similar theory regarding the English red coats.’
-J.A. Farrer in ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’, 1885**

Farrer’s summary is actually very comprehensive, although I couldn’t find the original source for this claim of his; ‘Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver…chose it, according to Xenophon, because red is most easily taken by cloth and most lasting;’ Which is a shame, because it would predate even Valerius (Xenophon being active c300 BC) Nevertheless, it’s still far closer to the truth than the blood thing, for which there is no evidence and no plausibility. After all, I can’t see this chap being overly worried about a spot of blood on his cloak, can you?

 

 

Expanded references; *Wardle, D. Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Deeds and Sayings: Book 1. Oxford University Press (Clarendon Ancient History Series): Oxford and New York, 1998, p57, Ch.6 para.2. **Farrer, J.A. Curiosities of Military Discipline, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol.258-259,1885, p.133.

Devil Dogs

In my post about the apocryphal ‘ladies from hell’ a few years back, I mentioned the US Marine Corps nickname ‘Devil Dog’ in the same breath as being an invention of the press adopted by the fighting men themselves. They form part of a larger trend of applying names to your own military units that you imagine your (hopefully) fearful enemy might choose. I’ve just picked up on this piece from 2011  that deals specifically with that very nickname, and agrees with my own findings. I found it via this more recent article, which although missing the point that it’s an invented term, seems to suggest that its veracity is becoming a moot point, with ’Devil Dog’ has actually fallen out of favour, and is only really used ironically, even to the point of being a term of abuse during training. That’s really interesting – some sayings and terms persist, some change their meaning, and others disappear entirely.

If anyone’s come across any other terms like this that they suspect might be similarly invented, post a comment below and I’ll look into them. I have some other items to write up and post soon on other subject, as I’m aware I haven’t been very active online lately.

Going the Whole Nine Yards?

 

By this logic, firing a whole sub-machine gun magazine would be ‘giving them the whole eight inches’…

Snopes have recently updated their entry for the origin of ‘The Whole Nine Yards‘, and as they rightly point out, it’s pretty much the case that whatever you think it comes from, it doesn’t. I do have a few comments though. Firstly, there’s one other reason why the machine-gun belt explanation can’t be true that isn’t covered; that there is no standard-length belt of that measurement for any machine-gun, air or land service. Despite this and the other good reasons given by Snopes and others (notably a total lack of references for it anywhere), it remains one of the most popular explanations. Even the Smithsonian have repeated it as fact.

The other, more important thing has to do with their suggested real origin for the saying – a lewd ‘joke’ about a Scotsman’s penis…I mean kilt. Having discounted the idea that it arises from the kilt per se, they end the article by referring to said joke/story. As an apparently American joke, featuring a Scottish stereotype and not rooted in historical reality, it would overcome the problem of all the early written references being American in origin. It also doesn’t require that a kilt actually be a standard nine yards in length (it isn’t).

However, I have a couple of issues with this. Snopes state that the story is ‘of uncertain age’, yet the version they give is in very modern English, and must have come from somewhere traceable. Yet they give no date whatever – nor any source for the version they reproduce.

Their source would appear to be the claim here (recounted version of the story here) by US Navy Captain Richard Stratton, who remembers first hearing it in 1955, just a few years before the phrase as we know it appeared in print (1962 according to Snopes, or perhaps slightly earlier). However, aside from this, I can’t find any evidence that it’s a traditional story at all. In fact it seems to be an original song with a known writer and a copyright date of 1991 (and a performance date of 1990). Now, it’s possible that this is a version of an existing folktale of some sort as Stratton’s memories suggest, but if so it’s pretty poor form to claim words penned by ‘Traditional’ or ‘Anon’ set of words as your own. More discussion on the song/story question here. More likely is that it is based on an off-colour joke of relatively recent vintage that was current in Stratton’s day. He may well be correct in remembering both this and the contemporary use of the phrase, but have wrongly assumed that the two are related. The phrase as ‘punchline’  not only seems like an afterthought, but a total non-sequitur. At least the song version sort of makes sense, though it doesn’t specify ‘nine yards’ and isn’t itself claimed to have anything to do with the phrase. I just don’t think that this claim is any more convincing as an origin for the phrase than any of the others that Snopes list. I’m not alone.

Finally, I might actually have a contribution to make here, though it does admittedly run counter to the presumed American origin of the phrase. The U.S. is, however, a nation of immigrants with a language (and a good deal of folklore) in common, and I think the gap in written sources not insurmountable. It’s also quite possible that, as the story was preserved as an oral tradition in Scottish Gaelic, it could have made the jump straight to American English without ever passing into British English. But I’m starting to speculate here.

I came across the following during past research on this same subject. It’s a Scottish (funnily enough, though kilts don’t factor) folk-tale entitled ‘The Stupid Boy‘, collected by a Miss Dempster in 1888. Its opening subject is a nine yard length of cloth, the successful selling of all nine yards being key to the story;

‘There lived once on a time in Sutherland a widow, who had one son, and he was a very stupid boy ; so stupid that he could not be trusted out of sight, and that he had no idea how to buy or sell. One day his mother had nine yards of home-spun to sell ; and there was a market within a few miles of her, at which she wished to show it for sale ; but she could not go herself, and had no one to send but her son, and she thought a great deal how she was to prevent him doing something stupid with it, and being cheated. At last she thought that as the fair lasted three days she might send him every day with three yards, and that he could not go far wrong in getting a price for so small a quantity.’

Dempster, 1888. ‘The Folk-Lore of Sutherland-Shire’, The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1888), pp. 149-189

It would have been particularly neat had the boy’s magical revenge taken place after he’d sold the ‘whole nine yards’ rather than just six out of the nine, but you can’t have everything. I’m not suggesting this as definitive, mainly because there is such a huge gap between this story being written down (and no doubt it is far older than 1888) and the first written appearance of the saying proper. We’d expect some sort of ‘missing link’, particularly as with the latter we are talking about a different country. Nonetheless, it’s by far the earliest relevant instance of the idea, if not the actual phrase. Even if Stratton’s origin is accurate, ‘The Stupid Boy’ still pre-dates the kilt story/song as a specific reference to the idea that a total of nine yards of something is somehow significant, and is not in itself incompatible with Stratton. As with everyone else who’s ever speculated on this question, I doubt we’ll ever know if it’s actually significant, but it’s interesting if nothing else.

So, what’s the real answer to the question? It’s another ‘we don’t know’, I’m afraid. Whatever quibbles I have with the Snopes article, we certainly agree on that.

Hitler’s Antarctic Base: the Myth and the Reality

I just had to share this…

I can’t express how much I love academic styled articles on weird subjects!

The Angle of Mons

I’ve so far refrained from commenting on the ‘Angel of Mons’ story, mostly because this Fortean Times article absolutely nails it, and though I’ve yet to read it, I’m sure the full book on the subject (also by Dr David Clarke) thoroughly pokes its dead husk with a stick.

There is also an earlier and more extensive article by Clarke in Folklore journal, reproduced here, a Skeptoid podcast, and just to give some balance, one of the original sources for the claim of ghostly and/or angelic warriors helping British soldiers at the Battle of Mons is online at archive.org. This includes ‘eyewitness’ testimony all apparently based upon an original work of fiction by author Arthur Machen, and all investigated by Clarke and others over the years. The ‘Angel’ is about as open and shut case as it’s possible to get where eyewitness sources are concerned.

But I recently received a Google alert directing me to this blog, which scoffs at Clarke’s scepticism and asserts that;

“The issue in the 21st Century isn’t whether the event actually happened – It is whether such an event Could happen.”

Er, is it? I’m not sure how that follows, but even if angelic apparitions were documented and scientifically verified reality, there would still be reason to believe that this incident never happened. And contrary to another statement from the linked blog post, it isn’t because the ‘Angel’ was really;

“…collective hallucination arising from battle fatigue…”

…as the writer claims others claim. No-one today is seriously suggesting this, least of all Clarke, though he does detail this explanation as part of his research. The author of the blog piece clearly hasn’t properly read the article that he links to, as the consensus explanation for the ‘Angel’ is that it was a fictional story that grew legendary ‘legs’.

The invocation of ‘Ockham’s razor’ is also odd, given that even the most ardent believer must admit that the existence of angels is not scientifically evidenced, nor is it today a mainstream belief in the UK, where this commentator is based. But then, phrases like “paradox ridden fairytale” and ”meat grinding existentialism and…no hope materialism” being applied to science gives you an idea of the ‘angle’ the writer is taking here. It’s a licence not only to believe what one likes, which I certainly don’t challenge, but to claim it as falsifiable truth.

Well, sorry chum, but it doesn’t work that way. As for;

“why therefore go to all the trouble to dismiss and destroy the Mons story which is a manifestation of human spiritual hope amongst the dark meat grinder of holocausts such as a world war ?”

You said it yourself. Mythmaking under the pressures of one of the most horrific conflicts humanity has ever known is a fascinating and important area of study, whether or not you believe that the events described actually happened. But at the same time, a proper investigation into such stories will almost certainly have to tackle the question “did it really happen”? Some of us feel that it’s important to separate fact from fiction for the same reason that fictional literature, movies and video games are enjoyable and rewarding, but it wouldn’t be healthy to live our lives as though the events described in them were real – as appealing as that idea might sometimes be.

PS Yes, it’s a lame title. Deal with it.

Snopes: War Games

Snopes reports on an interesting load of old (as in period) nonsense from the Second World War. It’s a particularly desperate bit of numerology, complete with fudged Christian overtones (‘Il Duce’ instead of ‘Mussolini’, just to contrive the name ‘Christ’?). Can’t blame ‘em I suppose, with Western civilisation at stake, but I like to think that I would look for a more rational means to look forward to the end of a conflict. I wonder what the Email forwards of World War 3 might look like?

 

‘sup niggas?

Aaaaaah! Ghost dog!

I trust readers will recognise my title for what it is (an ironic Shaun of the Dead quote), and not go all drama-llama on me. That aside, I had to post about this pathetic piece of ‘news’

Ghost of the Dambusters dog: Picture ‘shows long-dead Labrador’ at memorial to WWII heroes

More in the form of a video from the Beeb (shame!) here.

If it’s a ‘long-dead’ dog, then why the blue blazes is one of the schoolgirls in the grainy photo touching the bloody thing? We don’t even get the usual photographic anomaly – what this ‘story’ boils down to is a real, flesh-and-blood dog wandering over to a group photo (‘appearing from nowhere’) and then wandering off again (disappearing, ‘never to be seen again’). Well, if that’s the photographer being quoted, who was only visiting RAF Scampton, why the hell would he see it again?? If he’s saying that no-one ever saw it again, how the heck does he/anyone know? Black labs are hardly rare, and tend to all look alike (racist black mark #2 against me I fear). I seriously doubt that none have ever visited since.

The idea that you can precisely measure a ‘dog-sized’ area of depressed temperature is hilarious.  I find it odd that despite claiming that the group’s aim is ‘to debunk rather than prove’, it seems that Mr Drake’s mind is made up in this case despite the flimsy evidence, when he’s quoted as saying;

‘There is definitely paranormal activity there.’

Not so much evidence of the paranormal. More evidence that school choirs make field trips and black labradors like people. Newsflash.

This may be great PR for Scampton and may help keep the memory of 617 Sqn alive as the quoted historian says (although the words ‘end’, ‘justifies’ and ‘means’ spring to mind), but let’s not forgot that it also generates more publicity for the ghost hunting group coming up with these claims.

Tis But a Scratch!

Have at you!

As I’m studiously ignoring ‘Deadliest Warrior’ for the time being (though I will say that I thought the Vampire vs Zombie was a much better use of the format) I’ll just comment briefly on a recent UK TV series entitled ‘Back From the Dead’. It’s part of a series on, essentially, Osteoarchaeology (aka bioarcheology), although they employ the services of a less specific Forensic Anthropologist instead.

They take a number of human remains from a given site and period, look at the evidence in the bones in terms of healed and unhealed injuries, as well as the apparent age, sex, status and likely occupation of the original owner. It’s a fascinating subject and does make for an interesting and entertaining – not to mention gory – TV documentary. I have only nitpicks with it, really, although the fight scenes from the ‘Samurai’ episode were pretty poor, with theatre-style hack and slash choreography (including the dreaded static edge-to-edge block move) and even wirework a la ‘Crouching Tiger’. Unnecessary. They’ve have been better going for the classic ‘gunfighter’ style duel, with the fight ended by a single sword stroke. This would still be an oversimplification, but closer to real history (and I need to apologise here for linking to Wikipedia with the phrase ‘real history’ – sorry Wikiers, but I’m still slightly bitter about the ‘original research’ thing!).

Anyway, one of my major nitpicks, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, had to do with the ‘Crusader’ episode (currently still available for UK viewers here). Whilst I enjoyed the ‘300‘ style wide-angle slowmo scenes interpreting the various battle wounds received by the skeletons/people in question (complete with severed limbs reminiscent of Monty Python’s Black Knight), I found one conclusion by the specialist featured to be particularly speculative.

There was a clear cut down through the joint of one humerus – a disabling wound and clearly produced by a sword blade. But as the cut didn’t extend very far into the bone, the conclusion was made that the man must have been wearing ‘chain mail’ that slowed down the blow and limited the damage, and therefore that he must have been a Templar Sergeant (informing the detailed recreation shown shortly afterward).

Firstly, I don’t regard the cut shown as being at all limited – particularly if this man was a warrior and had considerable muscle mass around that joint. If the man was, as seems likely, moving when the blow was struck, this will limit the penetration of the blade. For example, if he had simply stepped back, only the tip of the sword/scimitar would have connected, explaining the wound. The other thing is that the wound from an edged weapon is dependent upon cutting angle and the force applied – if all the attacker’s strength and technique is not brought to bear, the cut will not be as severe. But really, I think a 6″ (or so) cut down through an upper arm bone is quite severe enough for a sword wound!

Had he been wearing mail, there would not be a cut! Or at least, not a clean partition as shown. Period riveted mail armour (NOT ‘chain mail’ please, Channel 4) is quite simply proof against cuts (or thrusts, for that matter) from the swords of the period in question. Have a look at this video. I don’t know whether this was something that the bone specialist had been pressed on, or whether the claim appears in the original research (perhaps someone with access to the article can let me know at bs.historian@yahoo.com), but it should not have been made without reference to an expert in arms and armour. The man in question could not have been wearing armour, and so the conclusion that he was a senior Templar soldier is invalid.

As ever, the subject is (or should be) interesting enough without resorting to making stuff up.

No News is Not Good News

I’m getting a little tired of supposed ‘news’ articles that are effectively just press releases for a new book. Take today’s Daily Telegraph article;

‘Revealed: sex hormone plan to feminise Hitler‘

The story is perfectly accurate – there was such a plan, and supposedly an actual attempt to carry it out, unlike other apparently crackpot wartime schemes. However, it has not been ‘revealed’ by this new book. It was actually, for reals, really revealed by the chap who actually did it – Stanley Lovell in his ‘Of Spies & Strategems‘ (1963); nearly fifty bleedin’ years ago.

It’s hardly long-buried either, having appeared many times since in ‘The Search for the Manchurian Candidate‘ (p.16, 1979), ‘HEISENBERG’S WAR: The Secret History of the German Bomb‘ (1993), ‘The Book Of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information‘ (2009), and even earlier this very year in ‘The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage‘ (2011). There’s even an article in the same damn newspaper that mentions it in 2006. These are just the examples I could find in 20mins worth of Googling; something that a journalist ought to be used to.

The headline should actually read;

‘Mentioned in new book – long-known plan to feminise Hitler’.

Needless to say, this wouldn’t sell as many books – or newspapers. I have no bone to pick with the author here – he’s done his job by writing what I’m sure is a very interesting book, and his  publisher is simply doing theirs – to market it. It’s the journalists who need to stop presenting every fact in the world as shiny and new.

No Nazi sex dolls please, we’re British.

Sex dolls are just so much less hassle…

‘Nazi sex dolls - Hitler’s blow-up ‘girls’ for disease-ridden troops‘

What a cracking headline. Almost too good to be true, in fact. I think you know what’s coming. It took me all of 30 seconds on Google to find good reason to doubt the story, and another two or so to find some even more conclusive evidence from there. This is the original hoax site that started it all back in 2003.

So this is an entirely made up story. How did it end up in the news having already been discredited at its point of origin – the internet? Well, as some stories make clearer than others, this is a promotional story for a new book by this chap.

His new Osprey title is called ‘Mussolini’s Barber’ – another in a series of coffee-table books full of amusing military anecdotes. I have another of his on my shelf. It’s something you’d buy for your Dad’s Christmas present, not academic research – nor is it really presented as such. Yet the newspaper articles talk about how Donald;

‘…uncovered Hitler’s secretive “Borghild Project” while researching the history of Barbie.’

To me, this implies a level of research beyond a superficial furtle on the internet, which is all he seems to have done in this case at least. I imagine things went rather like this: Osprey wishes to promote one of its new books, so contacts The Sun (or possibly issues a press release, though I can’t find one if so) with some of the more outrageous claims made in the book. The Sun, home of family-friendly smut, can’t resist the self-parody opportunity presented by a ‘Nazi Sex Doll’ headline, and runs with it as though it’s a new piece of research, rather than a recycled internet hoax.

Donald’s other claim that Barbie is herself based upon a German sex doll is also nonsense. ‘Bild Lilli‘, an 11″ doll based on a vaguely off-colour German comic strip (more here), could hardly be described as a ‘sex doll’. Not unless you have an extremely small penis, at any rate.

I rather think that there are enough genuine reasons to poke fun at the Nazis without resorting to this bullshit. Charlie Chaplin is rolling in his grave.