RUL

SUMER AND AKKAD

A HISTORY

OF

SUMER AND AKKAD

 

 

 

 

BABYLONIA FROM PREHISTORIC

TIMES TO THE FOUNDATION OF

THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY

 

 The Neolithic period in the Aegean area, in the region of the Mediterranean, and in the Nile Valley—Scarcity of Neolithic remains in Babylonia due largely to character of the country—Problems raised by excavations in Persia and Russian Turkestan—Comparison of the earliest cultural remains in Egypt and Babylonia—The earliest known inhabitants of South Babylonian sites—The "Sumerian Controversy" and a shifting of the problem at issue—Early relations of Sumerians and Semites—The lands of Sumer and Akkad—Natural boundaries—Influence of geological structure—Effect of river deposits—Euphrates

 Of the original home of the Sumerians, from which they came to the fertile plains of Southern Babylonia, . The fact that they settled at the mouths of the great rivers has led to the suggestion that they arrived by sea, and this has been connected with the story in Berossus of Oannes and the other fish-men, who came up from the Erythraean Sea and brought religion and culture with them. But the legend need not bear this interpretation; it merely points to the Sea-country on the shores of the Gulf as the earliest centre of Sumerian culture in the land. Others have argued that they came from a mountain-home, and have cited in support of their view[Pg 54] the institution of the ziggurat or temple-tower, built "like a mountain," and the employment of the same ideogram for "mountain" and for "land." But the massive temple-tower appears to date from the period of Gudea and the earlier kings of Ur, and, with the single exception of Nippur, was probably not a characteristic feature of the earlier temples; and it is now known that the ideogram for "land" and "mountain" was employed in the earlier periods for foreign lands, in contradistinction to that of the Sumerians themselves.[57] But, in spite of the unsoundness of these arguments, it is most probable that the Sumerians did descend on Babylonia from the mountains on the east. Their entrance into the country would thus have been the first of several immigrations from that quarter, due to climatic and physical changes in Central Asia

 

 

 

 The name of the city is expressed by the signs shir-pur-la (-ki), which are rendered in a bilingual incantation-text as Lagash

 

 

 

 SHIPURLA CITY OF SUMERIA

 ancient cities  Shirpurla and Lagash

 

 (Shuruppak)—ancient Sumerian dwelling-houses and circular buildings of unknown use—Sarcophagus

 

 

THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN SUMER; THE DAWN OF HISTORY AND THE RISE OF LAGASH
Origin of the great cities——The earliest Sumerian settlements—Development of the Lunar and solar cults—Gradual growth of a city illustrated by the early history of Nippur and its shrine—Buildings of the earliest Sumerian period at Tello—Store-houses and washing-places of a primitive agricultural community—The inhabitants of the country as portrayed in archaic sculpture—Earliest written records and the prehistoric system of land tenure—

The first rulers of Shuruppak and their office—

 




UR NINA


Ur-Ninâ the founder of a dynasty in Lagash—His reign and policy—His sons and household



 
AKURGAL, KING OF  LAGASH
 
 city of Lagash






MESILIM, KING  OF KISH


city of Kish
 
 city of Umma
Kings and patesis of early city-states—The dawn of history in Lagash and Kish—Rivalry of Lagash and Umma and the Treaty of Mesilim—The rôle of the  Kish for supremacy—Connotation of royal titles in the early Sumerian period—Ur-Ninâ the founder of a dynasty in Lagash—His reign and policy—His sons and household—The position of Sumerian women in social and official life—The status of Lagash under Akurgal—

 

  =============================================

 

 

Ennatum 

 

 

war between  Umma and Lagash

 

WARS OF THE CITY-STATES; EANNATUM AND THE STELE OF THE VULTURES
Condition of Sumer on the accession of Eannatum—Outbreak of war between Umma and Lagash—Raid of Ningirsu's territory and Eannatum's vision—The defeat of Ush, patesi of Umma, and the terms of peace imposed on his successor—The frontier-ditch and the stelæ of delimitation—Ratification of the treaty at the frontier-shrines—Oath-formulæ upon the Stele of the Vultures—Original form of the Stele and the fragments that have been recovered—Reconstitution of the scenes upon it—Ningirsu and his net—Eannatum in battle and on the march—Weapons of the Sumerians and their method of fighting in close phalanx—Shield-bearers and lance-bearers—Subsidiary use of the battle-axe—The royal arms and body-guard—The burial of the dead after battle—Order of Eannatum's conquests—Relations of Kish and Umma—The defeat of Kish, Opis and Mari, and Eannatum's suzerainty in the north—Date of his southern conquests and evidence of his authority in Sumer—His relations with Elam, and the other groups of his campaigns—Position of Lagash under Eannatum—His system of irrigation—Estimate of his reign—

 

 

 

  THE FALL OF LASGASH

THE CLOSE OF UR-NINÂ'S DYNASTY, THE REFORMS OF URUKAGINA, AND THE FALL OF LAGASH
Cause of break in the direct succession at Lagash—Umma and Lagash in the reign of Enannatum I.—Urlumma's successful raid—His defeat by Entemena and the annexation of his city—Entemena's cone and its summary of historical events—Extent of Entemena's dominion—Sources for history of the period between Enannatum II. and Urukagina—The relative order of Enetarzi, Enlitarzi and Lugal-anda—Period of unrest in Lagash—Secular authority of the chief priests and weakening of the patesiate—Struggles for the succession—The sealings of Lugal-anda and his wife—Break in traditions inaugurated by Urukagina—Causes of an increase in officialdom and oppression—The privileges of the city-god usurped by the patesi and his palace—Tax-gatherers and inspectors "down to the sea"—Misappropriation of sacred lands and temple-property, and corruption of the priesthood—The reforms of Urukagina—Abolition of unnecessary posts and stamping out of abuses—Revision of burial fees—Penalties for theft and protection for the poorer classes—Abolition of diviner's fees and regulation of divorce—The laws of Urukagina and the Sumerian origin of Hammurabi's Code—Urukagina's relations to other cities—Effect of his reforms on the stability of the state—The fall of Lagash—

 

 

EARLY RULERS OF SUMER AND KINGS OF 

 
KISH THE NEW POWERFUL CITY
Close of an epoch in Sumerian history—Increase in the power of Umma and transference of the capital to Erech—Extent of Lugal-zaggisi's empire, and his expedition to the Mediterranean coast—Period of Lugal-kigub-nidudu and Lugal-kisalsi—The dual kingdom of Erech and Ur—Eushagkushanna of Sumer and his struggle with Kish—Confederation of Kish and Opis—Enbi-Ishtar of Kish and a temporary check to Semitic expansion southwards—The later kingdom of Kish—Date of Urumush and extent of his empire—Economic conditions in Akkad as revealed by the Obelisk of Manishtusu—Period of Manishtusu's reign and his military expeditions—His statues from Susa—Elam and the earlier Semites—A period of transition—New light on the foundations of the Akkadian Empire—




 GANNI CALLED SARGON



CITY OF AKKAD


CITY OF UR



CITY OF LARSA 



THE ANCIENT BABYLON
  THE RISE OF BABYLON Continuity of the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad and the racial character of the kings of Isin—The Elamite invasion which put an end to the Dynasty of Ur—Native rulers of Elam represented by the dynasties of Khutran-tepti and Ebarti—Evidence that a change in titles did not reflect a revolution in the political condition of Elam—No period of Elamite control in Babylonia followed the fall of Ur—Sources for the history of the Dynasty of Isin—The family of Ishbi-Ura and the cause of a break in the succession—Rise of an independent kingdom in Larsa and Ur, and the possibility of a second Elamite invasion—The family of Ur-Ninib followed by a period of unrest in Isin—Relation of the Dynasty of Isin to that of Babylon—The suggested Amorite invasion in the time of Libit-Ishtar disproved—The capture of Isin in Sin-muballit's reign an episode in the war of Babylon with Larsa—The last kings of Isin and the foundation of the Babylonian Monarchy—Position of Babylon in the later historical periods, and the close of the independent political career of the Sumerians as a race—The survival of their cultural influence—
 
AKKAD
 

GANNI CALLED SARGON, KING OF AKKAD
THE EMPIRE OF AKKAD AND ITS RELATION TO KISH
Sargon of Agade and his significance—Early recognition of his place in history—The later traditions of Sargon and the contemporary records of Shar-Gani-sharri's reign—Discovery at Susa of a monument of "Sharru-Gi, the King"—Probability that he was Manishtusu's father and the founder of the kingdom of Kish—Who, then, was Sargon?—Indications that only names and not facts have been confused in the tradition—The debt of Akkad to Kish in art and politics—Expansion of Semitic authority westward under Shar-Gani-sharri—The alleged conquest of Cyprus—Commercial intercourse at the period and the disappearance of the city-state—Evidence of a policy of deportation—The conquest of Narâm-Sin and the "Kingdom of the Four Quarters"—His Stele of Victory and his relations with Elam—Narâm-Sin at the upper reaches of the Tigris, and the history of the Pir Hussein Stele—Narâm-Sin's successors—Representations of Semitic battle-scenes—The Lagash Stele of Victory, probably commemorating the original conquest of Kish by Akkad—Independent Semitic principalities beyond the limits of Sumer and Akkad—The reason of Akkadian pre-eminence and the deification of Semitic kings—
LATER RULERS OF LAGASH 
Sumerian reaction tempered by Semitic influence—Length of the intervening period between the Sargonic era and that of Ur—Evidence from Lagash of a sequence of rulers in that city who bridge the gap—Archaeological and epigraphic data—Political condition of Sumer and the semi-independent position enjoyed by Lagash—Ur-Bau representative of the earlier patesis of this epoch—Increase in the authority of Lagash under Gudea—His conquest of Anshan—His relations with Syria, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf—His influence of a commercial rather than of a political character—Development in the art of building which marked the later Sumerian[Pg xvii] period—Evolution of the Babylonian brick and evidence of new architectural ideas—The rebuilding of E-ninnû and the elaborate character of Sumerian ritual—The art of Gudea's period—His reign the golden age of Lagash—Gudea's posthumous deification and his cult—The relations of his son, Ur-Ningirsu, to the Dynasty of Ur—




INFLUENCE OF SUMER IN EGYPT, ASIA AND THE WEST

 In this respect the climate and soil of Babylonia present a striking contrast to those of ancient Egypt. In the latter country the shallow graves of Neolithic man, covered by but a few inches of soil, have remained intact and undisturbed at the foot of the desert hills; while in the upper plateaus along the Nile valley the flints of Palaeolithic man have lain upon the surface of the sand from Palaeolithic times until the present day. But what has happened in so rainless a country as Egypt could never have taken place in Mesopotamia. It is true that a few palaeoliths have been found on the surface of the Syrian desert, but in the alluvial plains of Southern Chaldaea, as in the Egyptian Delta itself, few certain traces of prehistoric man have[Pg 3] been forthcoming. Even in the early mat-burials and sarcophagi at Fâra numerous copper objects[1] and some cylinder-seals have been found, while other cylinders, sealings, and even inscribed tablets, discovered in the same and neighbouring strata, prove that their owners were of the same race as the Sumerians of history, though probably of a rather earlier date.

 the earliest Sumerian settlements in Southern Babylonia are to be set back in a comparatively remote period, the race by which they were founded appears at that time to have already attained to a high level of culture. We find them building houses for themselves and temples for their gods of burnt and unburnt brick. They are rich in sheep and cattle, and they have increased the natural fertility of their country by means of a regular system of canals and irrigation-channels. It is true that at this time their sculpture shared the rude character of their pottery, but their main achievement, the invention of a system of writing by means of lines and wedges, is in itself sufficient indication of their comparatively advanced state of civilization. Derived originally from picture-characters, the signs themselves, even in the earliest and most primitive inscriptions as yet recovered, have already lost to a great extent their pictorial character, while we find them employed not only as ideograms to express ideas

 Between the lands of Sumer and Akkad there was no natural division such as marks them off from the regions of Assyria and Mesopotamia in the north. While the north-eastern half of the country bore the name of Akkad, and the south-eastern portion at the head of the Persian Gulf was known as Sumer, the same alluvial plain stretches southward from one to the other without any change in its general character. Thus some difference of opinion has previously existed, as to the precise boundary which separated the two lands, and additional confusion has been introduced by the rather vague use of the name Akkad during the later Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. Thus Ashur-bani-pal, when referring to the capture of Nanâ's statue by the Elamites, puts E-anna, the temple of Nanâ in Erech, among the temples of the land of Akkad, a statement which has led to the view that Akkad extended as far south as Erech

 During the course of early history the most persistent rival of Lagash was the neighbouring city of Umma,




 
ancient city of nob of aegyptus

 Relations of Sumer and Akkad with other lands—Cultural influences, carried by the great trade-routes, often independent of political contact—The prehistoric relationship of Sumerian culture to that of Egypt—Alleged traces of strong cultural influence—The hypothesis of a Semitic invasion of Upper Egypt in the light of more recent excavations—Character of the Neolithic and early dynastic cultures of Egypt, as deduced from a study of the early graves and their contents—Changes which may be traced to improvements in technical skill—Confirmation from a study of the skulls—Native origin of the Egyptian system of writing and absence of Babylonian influence—Misleading character of other cultural comparisons—Problem of the bulbous mace-head and the stone cylindrical seal—Prehistoric migrations of the cylinder—Semitic elements in Egyptian civilization—Syria a link in the historic period between the Euphrates and the Nile—Relations of Elam and Sumer—Evidence of early Semitic influence in Elamite culture and proof of its persistence—Elam prior to the Semitic conquest—The Proto-Elamite script of independent development—Its disappearance paralleled by that of the Hittite hieroglyphs—Character of the earlier strata of the mounds at Susa and presence of Neolithic remains—The prehistoric pottery of Susa and Mussian—Improbability of suggested connections between the cultures of Elam and of predynastic Egypt—More convincing parallels in Asia Minor and Russian Turkestan—Relation of the prehistoric peoples of Elam to the Elamites of history—The Neolithic settlement at Nineveh and the prehistoric cultures of Western Asia—Importance of Syria in the spread of Babylonian culture westward—The extent of early Babylonian influence in Cyprus, Crete, and the area of Aegean civilization—





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RUL

Wars of the City States of Sumer and Akkad

Wars of the City States of Sumer and Akkad

 

 

 

 ennatum, king of Lagash  led his men to a war against Umma

 

WAR BETWEEN  LAGASH AND UMMA 

 

 

city of lagash 

 
city of Kish 
 
city of Nippur 



city of Ur 
When the historical narrative begins Akkad included the cities of Babylon, Cutha, Kish, Akkad, and Sippar, and north of Babylonia proper is Semitic Opis. Among the cities of Sumer were Eridu, Ur, Lagash, Larsa, Erech, Shuruppak, and probably Nippur, which was situated on the "border". On the north Assyria was yet "in the making", and shrouded in obscurity. A vague but vast area above Hit on the Euphrates, and extending to the Syrian coast, was known as the "land of the Amorites". The fish-shaped Babylonian valley lying between the rivers, where walled towns were surrounded by green fields and numerous canals flashed in the sunshine, was bounded on the west by the bleak wastes of the Arabian desert, where during the dry season "the rocks branded the body" and occasional sandstorms swept in blinding folds towards the "plain of Shinar" (Sumer) like demon hosts who sought to destroy the world. To the east the skyline was fretted by the Persian Highlands, and amidst the southern mountains dwelt the fierce Elamites, the hereditary enemies of the Sumerians, although a people apparently of the same origin. Like the Nubians and the Libyans, who kept watchful eyes on Egypt, the Elamites seemed ever to be hovering on the eastern frontier of Sumeria, longing for an opportunity to raid and plunder.

 Lagash made the argument that the borders were already set in place and Enlil was in favor of them retaining control over Guedena, our attractive fertile field. Umma saw things differently. A mediator, therefore, was needed to settle the dispute. That mediator would be none other than Mesalim, king of Kish,




ENNATUM





Eannatum was the King of Lagash, a fertile town nestled between the Tigris and the Euphrates. While his domain was prosperous, Eannatum wanted more.
 This ambitious king, upon receiving his power, understood that Lagash’s security relied on its water supply from the Shatt al-Gharraf. Unfortunately his neighbor, the city-state of Umma, also bordered this very important channel on the western bank. The chief cause of hostility between these important cities is unknown according to some historians, and while we can never be certain, it seems obvious to us that the conflict was over water.

 
city of umma 
 Umma held this one strategic advantage over Lagash. Cutting the water supply to the city would hinder its domestic produce and trade via waterway, effectively crippling commerce in Lagash and sending prices upward on all commodities.
 Knowing all this then, it might not be surprising that conflict between Lagash and Umma was common. We even have primary sources citing the fact. Enmetena, son of Eannatum II and nephew of the famed conqueror Eannatum I, recorded the history of the battles on a large rock known as the “Enmetena Cone.” The engraving describes the first war between the two powers, fighting for possession for the fertile fields of Guedena, located between the two great city-states.




MESALIM , king of Kish

 “Enlil, king of all the lands, by his righteous command, for Ningirsu and Shara, demarcated the (border) ground. Mesalim, king of Kish, by the command of Ishtaran, laid the measuring line upon it, and on that place he erected a stele.”






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ASSYRIA

Before the dawn of the historical period Ancient Babylonia was divided into a number of independent city states similar to those which existed in pre-Dynastic Egypt. Ultimately these were


 


 grouped into loose confederacies. The northern cities were embraced in the territory known as Akkad, and the southern in the land of Sumer, or Shumer. This division had a racial as well as a geographical significance. The Akkadians were "late comers" who had achieved political ascendency in the north when the area they occupied was called Uri, or Kiuri, and Sumer was known as Kengi. They were a people of Semitic speech with pronounced Semitic affinities. From the earliest times the sculptors depicted them with abundant locks, long full beards, and the prominent distinctive noses and full lips, which we usually associate with the characteristic Jewish type, and also attired in long, flounced robes, suspended from their left shoulders, and reaching down to their ankles. In contrast, the Sumerians had clean-shaven faces and scalps, and noses of Egyptian and Grecian rather than Semitic type, while they wore short, pleated kilts, and went about with the upper part of their bodies quite bare like the Egyptian noblemen of the Old Kingdom period. They spoke a non-Semitic language, and were the oldest inhabitants of Babylonia of whom we have any knowledge. Sumerian civilization was rooted in the agricultural mode of life, and appears to have been well developed before the Semites became numerous and influential in the land. Cities had been built chiefly of sun-dried and fire-baked bricks; distinctive pottery was manufactured with much skill; the people were governed by humanitarian laws, which formed the nucleus of the Hammurabi code, and had in use a system of cuneiform writing which was still in process of development from earlier pictorial characters. The distinctive feature of their agricultural methods was the engineering skill which was displayed in extending the cultivatable area by the construction of irrigating canals and ditches. There are also indications that they possessed some knowledge of navigation and traded on the Persian Gulf. According to one of their own traditions Eridu, originally a seaport, was their racial cradle. The Semitic Akkadians adopted the distinctive culture of these Sumerians after settlement, and exercised an influence on its subsequent growth.


 The Sumerians, however, ultimately achieved an intellectual conquest of their conquerors. Although the leaders of invasion may have formed military aristocracies in the cities which they occupied, it was necessary for the great majority of the nomads to engage their activities in new directions after settlement. The Semitic Akkadians, therefore, adopted Sumerian habits of life which were best suited for the needs of the country, and they consequently came under the spell of Sumerian modes of thought. This is shown by the fact that the native speech of ancient Sumer continued long after the dawn of history to be the language of Babylonian religion and culture, like Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages. For centuries the mingling peoples must have been bilingual, as are many of the inhabitants of Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands in the present age, but ultimately the language of the Semites became the prevailing speech in Sumer and Akkad. This change was the direct result of the conquests and the political supremacy achieved by the northern people. A considerable period elapsed, however, ere this consummation was reached and Ancient Babylonia became completely Semitized. No doubt its brilliant historical civilization owed much of its vigour and stability to the organizing genius of the Semites, but the basis on which it was established had been laid by the ingenious and imaginative Sumerians who first made the desert to blossom like the rose.

 The culture of Sumer was a product of the Late Stone Age, which should not be regarded as necessarily an age of barbarism. During its vast periods there were great discoveries and great inventions in various parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Neoliths made pottery and bricks; we know that they invented the art of spinning, for spindle-whorls are found even in the Gezer caves to which we have referred, while in Egypt the pre-Dynastic dead were sometimes wrapped in finely woven linen: their deftly chipped flint implements are eloquent of artistic and mechanical skill, and undoubted mathematical ability must be credited to the makers of smoothly polished stone hammers which are so perfectly balanced that they revolve on a centre of gravity. In Egypt and Babylonia the soil was tilled and its fertility increased by irrigation. Wherever man waged a struggle with Nature he made rapid progress, and consequently we find that the earliest great civilizations were rooted in the little fields of the Neolithic farmers. Their mode of life necessitated a knowledge of Nature's laws; they had to take note of the seasons and measure time. So Egypt gave us the Calendar, and Babylonia the system of dividing the week into seven days, and the day into twelve double hours

 The Ancient Sumerians, on the other hand, like the Mediterranean peoples of Egypt and Crete, reverenced and exalted motherhood in social and religious life. Women were accorded a legal status and marriage laws were promulgated by the State. Wives could possess private property in their own right, as did the Babylonian Sarah, wife of Abraham, who owned the Egyptian slave Hagar.[26] A woman received from her parents a marriage dowry, and in the event of separation from her husband she could claim its full value. Some spinsters, or wives, were accustomed to enter into business partnerships with men or members of their own sex, and could sue and be sued in courts of law. Brothers and sisters were joint heirs of the family estate. Daughters might possess property over which their fathers exercised no control: they could also enter into legal agreements with their parents in business matters, when they had attained to years of discretion. Young women who took vows of celibacy and lived in religious institutions could yet make business investments, as surviving records show. There is only one instance of a Sumerian woman ascending the throne, like Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. Women, therefore, were not rigidly excluded from official life. Dungi II, an early Sumerian king, appointed two of his daughters as rulers of conquered cities in Syria and Elam. Similarly Shishak, the Egyptian Pharaoh, handed over the city of Gezer, which he had subdued, to his daughter, Solomon's wife.[27] In the religious life of ancient Sumeria the female population exercised an undoubted influence, and in certain temples there were priestesses. The oldest hymns give indication of the respect shown to women by making reference to mixed assemblies as "females and males", just as present-day orators address themselves to "ladies and gentlemen". In the later Semitic adaptations of these productions, it is significant to note, this conventional reference was altered to "male and female". If influences, however, were at work to restrict the position of women they did not meet with much success, because when Hammurabi codified existing laws, the ancient rights of women received marked recognition.

 Ancient Babylonia was for over four thousand years the garden of Western Asia. In the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, when it had come under the sway of the younger civilization of Assyria on the north, it was "a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey[28]". Herodotus found it still flourishing and extremely fertile. "This territory", he wrote, "is of all that we know the best by far for producing grain; it is so good that it returns as much as two hundredfold for the average, and, when it bears at its best, it produces three hundredfold. The blades of the wheat and barley there grow to be full four fingers broad; and from millet and sesame seed, how large a tree grows, I know myself, but shall not record, being well aware that even what has already been said relating to the crops produced has been enough to cause disbelief in those who have not visited Babylonia[29]." To-day great tracts of undulating moorland, which aforetime yielded two and three crops a year, are in summer partly barren wastes and partly jungle and reedy swamp. Bedouins camp beside sandy heaps which were once populous and thriving cities, and here and there the shrunken remnants of a people once great and influential eke out precarious livings under the oppression of Turkish tax-gatherers who are scarcely less considerate than the plundering nomads of the desert

 This historic country is bounded on the east by Persia and on the west by the Arabian desert. In shape somewhat resembling a fish, it lies between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, 100 miles wide at its broadest part, and narrowing to 35 miles towards the "tail" in the latitude of Baghdad; the "head" converges to a point above Basra, where the rivers meet and form the Shatt-el-Arab, which pours into the Persian Gulf after meeting the Karun and drawing away the main volume of that double-mouthed river. The distance from Baghdad to Basra is about 300 miles, and the area traversed by the Shatt-el-Arab is slowly extending at the rate of a mile every thirty years or so, as a result of the steady accumulation of silt and mud carried down by the Tigris and Euphrates. When Sumeria was beginning to flourish, these two rivers had separate outlets, and Eridu, the seat of the cult of the sea god Ea, which now lies 125 miles inland, was a seaport at the head of the Persian Gulf. A day's journey separated the river mouths when Alexander the Great broke the power of the Persian Empire.


In the days of Babylonia's prosperity the Euphrates was hailed as "the soul of the land" and the Tigris as "the bestower of blessings". Skilful engineers had solved the problem of water distribution by irrigating sun-parched areas and preventing the excessive flooding of those districts which are now rendered impassable swamps when the rivers overflow. A network of canals was constructed throughout the country, which restricted the destructive tendencies of the Tigris and Euphrates and developed to a high degree their potentialities as fertilizing agencies. The greatest of these canals appear to have been anciently river beds. One, which is called Shatt en Nil to the north, and Shatt el Kar to the south, curved eastward from Babylon, and sweeping past Nippur, flowed like the letter S towards Larsa and then rejoined the river. It is believed to mark the course followed in the early Sumerian period by the Euphrates river, which has moved steadily westward many miles beyond the sites of ancient cities that were erected on its banks. Another important canal, the Shatt el Hai, crossed the plain from the Tigris to its sister river, which lies lower at this point, and does not run so fast. Where the artificial canals were constructed on higher levels than the streams which fed them, the water was raised by contrivances known as "shaddufs"; the buckets or skin bags were roped to a weighted beam, with the aid of which they were swung up by workmen and emptied into the canals. It is possible that this toilsome mode of irrigation was substituted in favourable parts by the primitive water wheels which are used in our own day by the inhabitants of the country who cultivate strips of land along the river banks.

Ishtar enters through the various gates she is stripped of her ornaments and clothing. At the first gate her crown was taken off, at the second her ear-rings, at the third her necklace of precious stones, at the fourth the ornaments of her breast, at the fifth her gemmed waist-girdle,[122] at the sixth the bracelets of her hands and feet, and at the seventh the covering robe of her body. Ishtar asks at each gate why she is thus dealt with, and the porter answers, "Such is the command of Allatu."
shtar in the process of time overshadowed all the other female deities of Babylonia, as did Isis in Egypt. Her name, indeed, which is Semitic, became in the plural, Ishtaráte, a designation for goddesses in general. But although she was referred to as the daughter of the sky, Anu, or the daughter of the moon, Sin or Nannar, she still retained traces of her ancient character. Originally she was a great mother goddess, who was worshipped by those who believed that life and the universe had a female origin in contrast to those who believed in the theory of male origin. Ishtar is identical with Nina, the fish goddess, a creature who gave her name to the Sumerian city of Nina and the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Other forms of the Creatrix included Mama, or Mami, or Ama, "mother", Aruru, Bau, Gula, and Zerpanitum. These were all "Preservers" and healers. At the same time they were "Destroyers", like Nin-sun and the Queen of Hades, Eresh-ki-gal or Allatu. They were accompanied by shadowy male forms ere they became wives of strongly individualized gods, or by child gods, their sons, who might be regarded as "brothers" or "husbands of their mothers", to use the paradoxical Egyptian term. Similarly Great Father deities had vaguely defined wives. The "Semitic" Baal, "the lord", was accompanied by a female reflection of himself--Beltu, "the lady". Shamash, , had for wife the shadowy Aa.







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COMPENDIUM

http://www.cgca.net/coglinks/wcglit/hoehcompendium/hhc1toc.htm

COMPENDIUM OF WORLD HISTORY

VOLUME 1

A Dissertation

Presented to

The Faculty of the Ambassador College

Graduate School of Theology

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Theology

by Herman L. Hoeh

1962

(1963-1965, 1967 Edition)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One ..... The Modern Interpretation of History A Radical New View How History Is Written Not Without Bias A Case History "Anything but Historical Truth" History Involves Interpretation The Truth about the "Historical Method" Evidence of God Rejected as "Myth" History Cut from Its Moorings
Chapter Two ..... 6000 Years of History It Is Never Safe to Assume No "Prehistory" of Man Cultures, Not "Ages" Origin of the Study of History Historians Follow the Higher Critics Framework of History Founded on Egypt Is Egyptian History Correct? Distorting History
Chapter Three ..... History Begins at Babel History Corroborates the Bible On To Egypt The Chronology of Dynasty I Shem in Egypt Dynasty II of Thinis Joseph and the Seven Years' Famine The Exodus Pharaoh of the Exodus Dynasty IV -- The Pyramid Builders
Chapter Four ..... The Missing Half of Egypt's History The Story Unfolds Moses the General History of Upper Egypt The Great Theban Dynasty XII Who Was Rameses?
Chapter Five ..... Egypt After the Exodus Who Were the Invaders? The Great Shepherds Hyksos in Book of Sothis Amalekites after 1076
Chapter Six ..... The Revival of Egypt Dynasty XVIII The Biblical Parallel Shishak Captures Jerusalem Who Was Zerah the Ethiopian? Dynasty XVIII in Manetho The Book of Sothis
Chapter Seven ..... The Era of Confusion Egypt As It Really Was The Later Eighteenth Dynasty Manetho's Evidence The El-Amarna Letters Are the "Habiru" Hebrews? After El-Amarna
Chapter Eight ..... Egypt to the Persian Conquest The "Israel" Inscription The "Thirteen Fatal Years" Nebuchadnezzar and Ramesses the Great Catching Up Loose Ends Dynasty XXV, the Ethiopians Dynasty XXVI of Sais Manetho's Account of Dynasty XXVI Book of Sothis and Dynasty XXVI Another Look at the Book of Sothis Appearance of Dynasty XXIV of Sais Who Was Usimare Piankhi? Dynasty XXIII of Tanis Dynasty XXII of Bubastis So-called Dynasty XXII Dynasty XXI of Tanis What Eratosthenes Revealed
Chapter Nine ..... The Eclipse of Egypt Answer in Ezekiel Persian Kings of Egypt Egypt Rebels And Now Dynasty XX of Thebes
Chapter Ten ..... It Began at Babel Mesopotamia Rediscovered What Archaeologists Learned Analyzing the Sumerian King List History Continues at Erech
Chapter Eleven ..... Berossus and Babylonian History Another Account of Earliest Dynasties First Dynasty of Ur and Successors Now Sargon of Akkad Dynasties IV and V of Erech The Guti Dynasty Three Other Dynasties Dynasty III of Ur Dynasty of Isin Dynasty IV of Kish and the "400 Years" Dynasty of Akshak Dates of Queen Ku-Baba
Chapter Twelve ..... Hammurabi to the Fall of Babylon Why Hammurabi Dated Early The Dynasty of Larsa When Did Hammurabi Reign Damiq-ilishu Reappears' Nebuchadnezzar the First Era of Nabonassar Three Succeeding Dynasties
Chapter Thirteen ..... History of Assyria Later Assyrian Kings Who Was Shalmaneser? Predecessors of Shalmaneser III King Pul and the Bible Tiglath-pileser I and Thutmose III
Chapter Fourteen ..... History of Assyria Concluded The Kassite Dynasty The Earliest Kassites The First 1000 Years of Assyrian History Analyzing the King List
Chapter Fifteen ..... Media, India, Japan and China The Revolts of the Medes History of Early India Early Indian Kings of Magadha Scythia and the History of Japan History of China
Chapter Sixteen ..... Asia Minor and the West Modern Mythology Beginnings of History The Proof of Language The Proof of Race The Kingdom of Mitanni and the Hurrians Who Were the Hurrians? Phrygians and Hatti
Chapter Seventeen ..... How Greek History Was Corrupted Greeks Admit Homer Was Demented The Plot Centers on Troy Homer and the Lydian Kings Restoring Greek History Kings of Corinth The History of Athens The History of Sicyon Enter Sparta Who Were the Heraclidae? The History of Argos Genealogy of Danaus Sea Powers of Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean The History of Italy
Chapter Eighteen ..... The History of Ireland How Confusion Arose in Irish History The First 1000 Years The Coming of the Milesians Did David Visit Ireland? Jerimiah Goes to Ireland The Milesian Kings The Throne in Scotland
Chapter Nineteen ..... Early Britain and Western Europe The Enigma Solved Early Europe The Heraclidae Kings The Trojans and Western Europe The Testimony of Archaeology
Chapter Twenty ..... The Proof of Archaeology Archaeology in the Aegean World Palestine, Syria and Archaeology The Coming of Israel into Palestine Mesopotamian Archaeology Northern Mesopotamia Egypt in Parallel
Bibliography
Volume 2
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RUL

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RUL

THE GREAT WAR IN EUROPE

THE ROADS OF FRANCE

ONE of the joys of France to-day, as indeed it ever has been, is travel by road. The rail has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages, whereas the most luxurious traveller by road, even if he be snugly tucked away in a sixty-horse royal Mercédes, is nothing more than an itinerant vagabond, and France is the land above all others for the sport.
As an industry to be developed and fostered, France early recognized the automobile as a new world-force, and the powers that be were convinced that the way should be smoothed for those who would, with the poet Henley, sing the song of speed.
With their inheritance of magnificent roadways, this was not difficult; for the French and mine host—or his French counterpart, who is really a more up-to-date individual than he is usually given the credit of being—rose gallantly to the occasion as soon as they saw the return of that trade which had grown beautifully less since the passing of the malle-poste and the diligence.
The paternalism of the French government is a won 
With their inheritance of magnificent roadways, this was not difficult; for the French and mine host—or his French counterpart, who is really a more up-to-date individual than he is usually given the credit of being—rose gallantly to the occasion as soon as they saw the return of that trade which had grown beautifully less since the passing of the malle-poste and the diligence.
The paternalism of the French government is a wonderful thing. It not only stands sponsor for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments,—great churches, châteaux, and the like,—but takes a genial interest in automobilism as well.


Hills have been levelled and dangerous corners straightened, level crossings abolished or better guarded; and, where possible, the dread caniveaux—or water-gullies—which cross the roadway here and there have been filled up. More than all else, the execrable paved road, for which France has been noted, is fast being done away with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the chief magistrate himself is not an automobilist; which places him in practically a unique position among the rulers of Europe.
At Bayeux, at Caen, at Lisieux, and at Evreux, in Normandy, one is on that great national roadway which runs from Paris to Cherbourg through the heart of the old province. This great roadway is numbered XIII. by the government, which considers its highways a national property, and is typical of all others of its class throughout France.
The military roads of France are famous, and automobilists and some others know their real value as a factor in the prosperity of a nation.
It is not as it was in 1689, when Madame de Sévigné wrote that it took three days to travel from Paris to Rouen. Now one does it, in an automobile, in three hours.
From Pont Audemer she wrote a few days later to Madame de Grignan: “We slept yesterday at Rouen, a dozen leagues away.” Continuing, she said: “I have seen the most beautiful country in all the world; I have seen all the charms of the beautiful Seine, and the most agreeable prairies in the world.... I had known nothing of Normandy before.... I was too young to appreciate.”

Certainly this is quite true of Normandy, now as then, and to travel by road will demonstrate it beyond doubt.
The roads in France were, for several centuries after the decline and fall of the Roman power, in a very dilapidated state, as the result of simple neglect. Louis XIV., in the latter part of the seventeenth century, made some good roads in the vicinity of Paris; but it was not until the end of the eighteenth century (1775) that the real work of road-making throughout the country began. It was in the time of Napoleon I. that most of the great national roads, which run through the country in various directions, were constructed. These roads were made largely for military purposes, and connect the chief towns and the French frontiers with Paris.

HE FORESTS OF FRANCE

THE forests of France are a source of never-ending interest and pride to the Frenchman, of whatever station in life.
They are admirably preserved and cared for, and a paternal ministerial department guards them as jealously as a fond mother guards her children.
No cutting of trees is allowed, except according to a prescribed plan; and, when a new road is cut through,—and those superlative roadways of France run straight as the crow flies through many of the finest forest tracts,—as likely as not an old one is replanted.
The process of replanting goes on from day to day, and one sees no depleted forests of a former time, which are to-day a graveyard of bare stumps.
If there is any regulation as to tree-planting in these great forests, it would seem, to a casual observer, to be that where one tree has grown before two are to be made grow in its place.
There is a popular regard among all travellers in France for Fontainebleau, Versailles, and perhaps Chantilly, but there are other tree-grown areas, quite as charming, little known to the general traveller: Rambouillet, for instance, and Villers-Cotterets, of which Dumas writes so graphically in “The Wolf Leader.”
Normandy has more than its share of these splendid forests, some of them of great extent and charm. Indeed, the forest domain of Lyons, in Upper Normandy, one of the most extensive in all France, is literally covered with great beeches and oaks, surrounding small towns and hamlets, and an occasional ruined château or abbey, which makes a sojourn within its confines most enjoyable to all lovers of outdoor life.
Surrounding the old Norman capital of Rouen are five great tracts which serve the inhabitants of that now great commercial city as a summer playground greatly appreciated.
Game of various sorts still exists; deer in plenty, apparently, together with smaller kinds; and now and then one will hear tales of bears, which are, however, almost unbelievable.
In some regions—the forests of Louviers, for instance—the wild boar still exists. The chase for the wild boar, with the huntsmen following somewhat after the old custom (with a horn-blower, who is most theatrical in his get-up, and his followers, armed with lances and pikes in quite old-time fashion), is, as may be imagined, a most novel sight.
The forests of Roumare and Mauny, occupying the two peninsulas formed by the winding Seine just below Rouen, are remarkable, and are like nothing else except the other forests in France.
There are fine roadways crossing and recrossing in all directions, beautifully graded, with overhanging oaks and beeches, and as well kept as a city boulevard.
Deer are still abundant, and the whole impression which one receives is that of a genuine wildwood, and not an artificial preserve.
In the picturesque forest of Roumare is hidden away the tiny village of Genetey, which has for an attraction, besides its own delightful situation, an ancient Maison de Templiers of the thirteenth century, a well of great depth, and a chapel to St. Gargon, of the sixteenth century, built in wood, with some fine sculptures and paintings, which was at one time a favourite place for pious pilgrims from Rouen.
Not far away is Henouville, with a sixteenth-century church, lighted by five great windows of extraordinary proportions. The choir encloses the remains of Legendre, the almoner of Louis XIII., who was curé of Henouville, and whose fame as a horticulturist was as great as that brought him by his official position.
The near-by Château du Belley and its domain is now turned into a farm.
La Fontaine, a hamlet situated directly on the Seine bank, is overshadowed by a series of high rocks of most fantastic form, known as the chair, or pulpit, of Gargantua.
The forest of La Londe, of 2,154 hectares, on the opposite bank of the Seine from Rouen, is a remarkable tract of woodland, its oaks and beeches quite reminiscent of Fontainebleau. The trees as a whole are the most ancient and grand of those of any of the forests of Normandy. Two which have been given names are known respectively as Bel-Arsène, a magnificent beech of eleven great branches, planted in 1773, and the Chêne de la Côte Rôtie, supposed to have the ripe old age of 450 years; and it looks its age.
The forest of Londe is what the French geographer would describe as pittoresque et accidentée. It is all this would lead one to infer; and, together with the forest of the Rouvray, exceeds any other in Normandy, except the forest domain of Lyons.
At the crossing of the Grésil road is the Chêne-à-la-Bosse, having a circumference of three and a half metres; and, near by, one sees the Hêtre-à-l’Image, a great beech of fantastic form.
Amid a savage and entirely unspoiled grandeur is a series of caves and grottoes, of themselves of no great interest, but delightfully environed.
Near Elbeuf, on the edge of the forest of Londe, are the Roches d’Orival, a series of rock-cut grottoes and caverns,—a little known spot to the majority of travellers in the Seine valley. Practically the formation begins at Elbeuf itself, onward toward Rouen, by the route which follows the highroad to the Norman capital via Grand Couronne. At Port du Gravier, on the bank of the Seine, is a sixteenth-century chapel cut in the rock, like its brethren or sisters at St. Adrien on the opposite bank, and at Haute Isle, just above Vernon.
At Roche-Foulon are numerous rock-caverns still inhabited, and at the Roche du Pignon begins a series of curiously weathered and crumbled rocks, most weird and bizarre.
On a neighbouring hill are the ruins of Château Fouet, another of those many riverside fortresses attributed to Richard Cœur de Lion.
The forest domain of Lyons is the finest beech-wood in all France, and its 10,614 hectares (rather more than thirty thousand acres) was in the middle ages the favourite hunting-ground of the Dukes of Normandy. It is the most ample of all the forests of Normandy.
There are at least three trips which forest-lovers should take if they come to the charming little woodland village of Lyons-le-Forêt. It will take quite two days to cover them, and the general tourist may not have sufficient time to spare. Still, if he is so inclined, and wants to know what a really magnificent French forest is like to-day, before it has become spoiled and overrun (as is Fontainebleau), this is the place to enjoy it to the full.
The old Château of Lyons, and the tiny hamlets of Taisniers, Hogues, Héron, and the feudal ruins of Malvoisine, are a great source of pleasure to those who have become jaded with the rush of cities and towns.
The château of the Marquis de Pommereu d’Aligré, in the valley of the Héron, can be seen and visited, or rather the park may be (the park and château together are only thrown open to the public on the fête patronale—the first Sunday of September). Croissy-sur-Andelle is another forest village, and the Val St. Pierre, a sort of dry river-bed carpeted with a thick undergrowth, is quite as fine as anything of the kind at Fontainebleau.
At Petit Val is a magnificent beech five and a half metres in circumference, and supposed to be four hundred years old.
At Le Tronquay there is a great school, over whose entrance doorway one reads on a plaque that it is—
“Commemorative de la délivrance des paroissiens du Tronquay admis à porter la fierté de St. Romain de Rouen, le 5 mai, jour de l’ascencion, de l’anne 1644.”
At the end of a double row of great firs, lie the ruins of the Château de Richbourg, built by Charles IX.
La Fenille is a small market-town, quite within the forest, where one may get luncheon for the modest price of two francs, cider and coffee included, if he wanders so far from Lyons-le-Forêt as this.






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RUSSIAN REVOLUTION DURING THE GREAT WAR

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THE CZAR

 It is hardly necessary to prove that the enormous majority of the Commanding Officers were thoroughly loyal to the Monarchist idea and to the Czar himself. The subsequent behaviour of the higher Commanding Officers who had been Monarchists was due partly to motives of self-seeking, partly to pusillanimity and to the desire to conceal their real feelings in order to remain in power and to carry out their own plans. Cases in which a change of front was the result of the collapse of ideals, of a new outlook, or was prompted by motives of practical statesmanship, were rare. For example, it would have been childish to have believed General Brussilov when he asserted that from the days of his youth he had been “a Socialist and a Republican.” He was bred in the traditions of the Old Guards, was closely connected with circles of the Court, and permeated with their outlook. His habits, tastes, sympathies and surroundings were those of a barin.[1] No man can be a lifelong liar to himself and to others.[Pg 17] The majority of the officers of the Regular Russian Army had Monarchist principles and were undoubtedly loyal. After the Japanese war, as a result of the first Revolution, the Officers’ Corps was, nevertheless, placed, for reasons which are not sufficiently clear, under the special supervision of the Police Department, and regimental Commanding Officers received from time to time “black lists.” The tragedy of it was that it was almost useless to argue against the verdict of “unreliability,” while, at the same time, it was forbidden to conduct one’s own investigation, even in secret. This system of spying introduced an unwholesome spirit into the army. Not content with this system, the War Minister, General Sukhomlinov, introduced his own branch of counter-spies, which was headed unofficially by Colonel Miassoyedov, who was afterwards shot as a German spy. At every military District Headquarters an organ was instituted, headed by an officer of the Gendarmerie dressed up in G.H.Q. uniform. Officially, he was supposed to deal with foreign espionage, but General Dukhonin (who was killed by the Bolsheviks), when Chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Kiev G.H.Q. before the War, bitterly complained to me of the painful atmosphere created by this new organ, which was officially subordinate to the Quartermaster-General, but in reality looked on him with suspicion, and was spying not only upon the Staff, but upon its own chiefs.
 Life itself seemed to induce the officers to utter some kind of protest against the existing order. Of all the classes that served the State, there had been for a long time no element so downtrodden and forlorn or so ill-provided for as the officers of the Regular Russian Army. They lived in abject poverty. Their rights and their self-esteem were constantly ignored by the Senior Officers. The utmost the rank and file could hope for as the crowning of their career was the rank of Colonel and an old age spent in sickness and semi-starvation. From the middle of the nineteenth century the Officers’ Corps had completely lost its character as a class and a caste. Since universal compulsory service was introduced and the nobility ceased to be prosperous the gates of military schools were opened wide to people of low extraction and to young men belonging to the lower strata of the people, but with a diploma from the civil schools. They formed a majority in the Army. Mobilisations, on the other hand, reinforced the Officers’ Corps by the infusion of a great many men of the liberal professions, who introduced new ideas and a new outlook. Finally, the tremendous losses suffered by the Regular Officers’ Corps compelled the High Command to relax to a certain extent[Pg 18] the regulations concerning military training and education, and to introduce on a broad scale promotions from the ranks for deeds of valour, and to give rankers a short training in elementary schools to fit them to be temporary officers.

Foundations of the Old Power: Faith, the Czar and the Mother Country.

The inevitable historical process which culminated in the Revolution of March, 1917, has resulted in the collapse of the Russian State. Philosophers, historians and sociologists, in studying the course of Russian life, may have foreseen the impending catastrophe. But nobody could foresee that the people, rising like a tidal wave, would so rapidly and so easily sweep away all the foundations of their existence: the Supreme Power and the Governing classes which disappeared without a struggle; the intelligencia, gifted but weak, isolated and lacking will-power, which at first, in the midst of a deadly struggle, had only words as a weapon, later submissively bent their necks under the knife of the victors; and last, but not least, an army of ten million, powerful and imbued with historic traditions. That army was destroyed in three or four months.
This last event—the collapse of the army—was not, however, quite unexpected, as the epilogue of the Manchurian war and the subsequent events in Moscow, Kronstadt and Sevastopol were a terrible warning. At the end of November, 1905, I lived for a fortnight in Harbin, and travelled on the Siberian Railway for thirty-one days in December, 1907, through a series of “republics” from Harbin to Petrograd. I thus gained a clear indication of what might be expected from a licentious mob of soldiers utterly devoid of restraining principles. All the meetings, resolutions, soviets—in a word, all the manifestations of a mutiny of the military—were repeated in 1917 with photographic accuracy, but with greater impetus and on a much larger scale.
It should be noted that the possibility of such a rapid psychological transformation was not characteristic of the Russian Army alone. There can be no doubt that war-weariness after[Pg 14] three years of bloodshed played an important part in these events, as the armies of the whole world were affected by it and were rendered more accessible to the disintegrating influences of extreme Socialist doctrines. In the autumn of 1918 the German Army Corps that occupied the region of the Don and Little Russia were demoralised in one week, and they repeated to a certain extent the process which we had already lived through of meetings, soviets, committees, of doing away with Commanding Officers, and in some units of the sale of military stores, horses and arms. It was not till then that the Germans understood the tragedy of the Russian officers. More than once our volunteers saw the German officers, formerly so haughty and so frigid, weeping bitterly over their degradation.

 

These circumstances, characteristic of all armies formed from the masses, undoubtedly reduced the fighting capacity of the Officers’ Corps, and brought about a certain change in its political outlook, bringing it nearer to that of the average Russian intellectual and to democracy. This the leaders of the Revolutionary democracy did not, or, to be more accurate, would not, understand in the first days of the Revolution. In the course of my narrative I will differentiate between the “Revolutionary Democracy”—an agglomeration of socialist parties—and the true Russian Democracy, to which the middle-class intelligencia and the Civil Service elements undoubtedly belong

 In spite of the accepted view, the monarchical idea had no deep, mystic roots among the rank and file, and, of course, the semi-cultured masses entirely failed to realise the meaning of other forms of Government preached by Socialists of all shades of opinion. Owing to a certain innate Conservatism, to habits dating from time immemorial, and to the teaching of the Church,[Pg 19] the existing régime was considered as something quite natural and inevitable. In the mind and in the heart of the soldier the idea of a monarch was, if I may so express it, “in a potential state,” rising sometimes to a point of high exaltation when the monarch was personally approached (at reviews, parades and casual meetings), and sometimes falling to indifference. At any rate, the Army was in a disposition sufficiently favourable to the idea of a monarchy and to the dynasty, and that disposition could have easily been maintained. But a sticky cobweb of licentiousness and crime was being woven at Petrograd and Czarskoe Selo. The truth, intermingled with falsehood, penetrated into the remotest corners of the country and into the Army, and evoked painful regrets and sometimes malicious rejoicings. The members of the House of Romanov did not preserve the “idea” which the orthodox monarchists wished to surround with a halo of greatness, nobility and reverence. I recall the impression of a sitting of the Duma which I happened to attend. For the first time, Gutchkov uttered a word of warning from the Tribune of the Duma about Rasputin

“All is not well with our land.”
The House, which had been rather noisy, was silent, and every word, spoken in a low voice, was distinctly audible in remote corners. A mysterious cloud, pregnant with catastrophe, seemed to hang over the normal course of Russian history. I will not dwell on the corrupt influences prevailing in Ministerial dwellings and Imperial palaces to which the filthy and cynical impostor found access, who swayed ministers and rulers.
The Grand Duke Nicholas is supposed to have threatened to hang Rasputin should he venture to appear at G.H.Q. General Alexeiev also disapproved strongly of the man. That the influence of Rasputin did not spread to the old Army is due entirely to the attitude of the above-named generals. All sorts of stories about Rasputin’s influence was circulated at the front, and the Censor collected an enormous amount of material on the subject, even from soldiers’ letters from the front; but the gravest impression was produced by the word “TREASON” with reference to the Empress. In the Army, openly and everywhere, conversations were heard about the Empress’ persistent demands for a separate peace and of her treachery towards Lord Kitchener, of whose journey she was supposed to have informed the Germans. As I recall the past, and the impression produced in the Army by the rumour of the Empress’ treason, I consider that this circumstance had a very great influence upon the attitude of the Army towards the dynasty and the revolution. In the spring of 1917 I questioned[Pg 20] General Alexeiev on this painful subject. His answer, reluctantly given, was vague. He said: “When the Empress’ papers were examined she was found to be in possession of a map indicating in detail the disposition of the troops along the entire front. Only two copies were prepared of this map, one for the Emperor and one for myself. I was very painfully impressed. God knows who may have made use of this map.”
 

 The Grand Duke Nicholas distributes Crosses of St. George.
 In the winter of 1918, as Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, I received an offer from a group of German officers to join our army as volunteers in the ranks.
 The collapse of the army cannot be explained away as the psychological result of defeats and disasters. Even the victors experienced disturbances in the army. There was a certain amount of disaffection among the French troops occupying, in the beginning of 1918, the region of Odessa and Roumania, in the French fleet cruising in the Black Sea, among the British troops in the region of Constantinople and Transcaucasia. The troops did not always obey the orders of their Commanding Officers. Rapid demobilisation and the arrival of fresh, partly volunteer elements, altered the situation.
 What was the condition of the Russian Army at the outbreak of the Revolution? From time immemorial the entire ideology of our soldiers was contained in the well-known formula: “For God, for the Czar and for the Mother Country.” Generation after generation was born and bred on that formula. These ideas, however, did not penetrate deeply enough into the masses of the people and of the army. For many centuries the Russian people had been deeply religious, but their faith was somewhat shaken in the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The Russian people, as the Russian saying goes, was “the bearer of Christ”—a people inwardly disposed towards Universal Brotherhood, great in its simplicity, truthfulness, humility and forgiveness. That people, Christian in the fullest sense of the word, was gradually changing as it came under the influence of material interests, and learnt or was taught to see in the gratifying of those interests the sole[Pg 15] purpose of life. The link between the people and its spiritual leaders was gradually weakening as these leaders were detached from the people, entered into the service of the Governing powers, and shared the latter’s deficiencies. The development of this moral transformation of the Russian people is too deep and too complex to fall within the scope of these memoirs. It is undeniable that the youngsters who joined the ranks treated questions of the Faith and of the Church with indifference. In barracks they lost the habits of their homes, and were forcibly removed from a more wholesome and settled atmosphere, with all its creeds and superstitions. They received no spiritual or moral education, which in barracks was considered a matter of minor importance, completely overshadowed by practical and material cares and requirements. A proper spirit could not be created in barracks, where Christian morals, religious discourses, and even the rites of the Church bore an official and sometimes even compulsory character. Commanding Officers know how difficult it was to find a solution of the vexed question of attendance at Church services.

In the winter of 1918, as Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, I received an offer from a group of German officers to join our army as volunteers in the ranks.
The collapse of the army cannot be explained away as the psychological result of defeats and disasters. Even the victors experienced disturbances in the army. There was a certain amount of disaffection among the French troops occupying, in the beginning of 1918, the region of Odessa and Roumania, in the French fleet cruising in the Black Sea, among the British troops in the region of Constantinople and Transcaucasia. The troops did not always obey the orders of their Commanding Officers. Rapid demobilisation and the arrival of fresh, partly volunteer elements, altered the situation

 War introduced two new elements into the spiritual life of the army. On the one hand, there was a certain moral coarseness and cruelty; on the other, it seemed as if faith had been deepened by constant danger. I do not wish to accuse the orthodox military clergy as a body. Many of its representatives proved their high valour, courage and self-sacrifice. It must, however, be admitted that the clergy failed to produce a religious revival among the troops. It is not their fault, because the world-war into which Russia was drawn was due to intricate political and economic causes, and there was no room for religious fervour. The clergy, however, likewise failed to establish closer connection with the troops. After the outbreak of the Revolution the officers continued for a long time to struggle to keep their waning power and authority, but the voice of the priests was silenced almost at once, and they ceased to play any part whatsoever in the life of the troops. I recall an episode typical of the mental attitude of military circles in those days. One of the regiments of the Fourth Rifle Division had built a camp Church quite close to its lines, and had built it with great care and very artistically. The Revolution came. A demagogue captain decided that his company had inadequate quarters and that a Church was a superstition. On his own authority he converted the Church into quarters for his company, and dug a hole where the altar stood for purposes which it is better not to mention. I am not surprised that such a scoundrel was found in the regiment or that[Pg 16] the Higher Command was terrorised and silent. But why did two or three thousand orthodox Russians, bred in the mystic rites of their faith, remain indifferent to such a sacrilege? Be that as it may, there can hardly be any doubt that religion ceased to be one of the moral impulses which upheld the spirit of the Russian Army and prompted it to deeds of valour or protected it later from the development of bestial instincts. The orthodox clergy, generally speaking, was thrown overboard during the storm. Some of the high dignitaries of the Church—the Metropolitans—Pitirim and Makarius—the Archbishop Varnava and others, unfortunately were closely connected with the Governing bureaucracy of the Rasputin period of Petrograd history. The lower grades of the clergy, on the other hand, were in close touch with the Russian intellectuals

 

 

 

LENIN

 

THE BOLSHEVIST REVOLUTION

On November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviki took their first violent action. An armed naval detachment, under orders from the military revolutionary committee of the Soviet, which had established itself in the Smolny Institute building, occupied the offices of the official Petrograd Telegraph Agency and the Central Telegraph Office, the State Bank and the Marie Palace, where the Preliminary Assembly was holding its sessions. In a communication to the Municipal Duma, Trotzky stated that it was not the intention of the Soviet to seize full power, but only to assume control of the city.

Kerensky immediately took measures to oppose these overt acts, but within the next twenty-four hours it became obvious that he had little support among the soldiers in the capital. By next morning he had disappeared, fleeing, as was presently to develop, to the military forces at the front, which he believed might be loyal to the Government.
Meanwhile Trotzky declared the Preliminary Assembly dissolved and issued a proclamation that it was the intention of the new government, when established and in control, to open negotiations with the Germans for a "general democratic peace."
As yet the Bolsheviki had not met with any serious opposition. Orders issued by the Kerensky Government for the opening of the spans of the bridge across the Neva were not carried out. Bolshevist patrols paraded the streets and maintained order. A number of outbursts on the part of the criminal elements, having as their object robbery and looting, were severely suppressed and the ringleaders shot.









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