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Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varus Disaster or Varian Disaster (Clades Variana) by Roman historians, was a major battle between Germanic tribes and the Roman Empire that took place somewhere near modern Kalkriese from September 8–11, 9 AD, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus and their auxiliaries. The alliance was led by Arminius, a Germanic officer of Varus's auxilia. Arminius had acquired Roman citizenship and had received a Roman military education, which enabled him to deceive the Roman commander methodically and anticipate the Roman army's tactical responses.

Teutoburg Forest is commonly seen as one of the most important defeats in Roman history, bringing the triumphant period of expansion under Augustus to an abrupt end. The outcome of this battle dissuaded the Romans from their ambition of conquering Germania, and is thus considered one of the most important events in European history.

The provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior, sometimes collectively referred to as Roman Germania, were subsequently established in northeast Roman Gaul, while territories beyond the Rhine remained independent of Roman control. Retaliatory campaigns were commanded by Tiberius and Germanicus and would enjoy success, but the Rhine would eventually become the border between the Roman Empire and the rest of Germania. The Roman Empire would launch no other major incursion into Germania until Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180) during the Marcomannic Wars.

Some of the descendants of the vassal kingdoms, like the Suebi (by suzerainty), that Augustus tried to create in Germania to expand the romanitas and the Empire would be the ones that invaded Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Geopolitical situation

The Roman Republic had expanded rapidly in the first century BC, most notably under Julius Caesar, who had conquered most of western Europe and parts of the British Isles in the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC). The Gallic Wars mostly saw fighting against the Gauls, but had also included fighting against various Germanic tribes. Caesar had twice crossed the Rhine river to fight Germanic tribes, but the engagements were tactically inconclusive. Caesar's conquering spree was forced to an early end as Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC) drew near.

Continental Europe was mostly forgotten about for the next two decades after the Gallic Wars as power struggles wracked the Republic. Troops which had previously garrisoned Gallic lands were pulled out in 31 BC for the climactic showdown between Octavian and Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium. The Gauls needed no further urging, and promptly rebelled. Roman control was not regained until 28 BC.

27 BC saw drastic change for both Gaul and Rome as a whole. The Roman Republic was reorganized into the Roman Empire, with Octavian declared as the first emperor. Octavian, now styled as Augustus, aimed to consolidate the control of Gaul, and divided the region into three smaller provinces. The reorganization emphasized the strategic importance of the Rhine valley. Troops were kept stationed near the Rhine, but Augustus's policy towards the Germanic lands remains unclear. Two main theories exist: The first holds that Augustus sought to cement the Rhine as the Northern border of the Empire. The second holds that the border was far more fluid, and that the troops were more focused on maintaining order in the Empire, rather than preventing Germanic intrusion. At any rate, the Germans operated with seeming impunity, exemplified by the crushing defeat in the Clades Lolliana in 16 BC.

The defeat of Roman forces in the Lollian disaster prompted reorganization of the Legions in Gaul, which was finished by 12 BC. Augustus now sought to tame the Germanic tribes, and began planning a Germanic campaign. He assigned his stepson Drusus I as the governor of Gaul. Drusus campaigned against the Germans from 11–9 BC, earning a continuous series of victories despite considerable obstacles. Drusus's untimely death due to a riding accident in 9 BC again stopped expansion into the Germanic tribes. His elder brother, and future emperor Tiberius was given command of Germany in 8 BC. Tiberius continued his brother's campaign against the Sugambri, extending de facto, if not de jure Roman rule, but he fell out of favor and chose voluntary exile in 6 BC. He was succeeded by Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had been consul in 16 BC. Ahenobarbus subjugated a number of local uprisings, and crossed the Elbe river, the first and last Roman general to do so. As the turn of the century approached, the Romans were lulled into a false sense of security about the Germanic lands, reassured by thriving cross border trade with the Germans, and relative peace.

In early AD 6, Legatus Gaius Sentius Saturninus and Consul Legatus Marcus Aemilius Lepidus led a massive army of 13 legions and their entourage, totaling around 100,000 men (65,000 heavy infantry legionaries, 10,000–20,000 cavalrymen, archers, and 10,000–20,000 civilians) against Maroboduus,  the king of the Marcomanni, who were a tribe of the Suebi.

Tiberius was then forced to turn his attention to the Bellum Batonianum, also known as the Great Illyrian Revolt, which broke out in the Balkan province of Illyricum. Led by Bato the Daesitiate, Bato the Breucian, Pinnes of Pannonia, and elements of the Marcomanni, it lasted nearly four years. Tiberius was forced to stop his campaign against Maroboduus and recognise him as king so that he could then send his eight legions (VIII Augusta, XV Apollinaris, XX Valeria Victrix, XXI Rapax, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XVI Gallica and an unknown unit) to crush the rebellion in the Balkans.

After his return from Rome, Arminius became a trusted advisor to Varus, but in secret he forged an alliance of Germanic peoples that had traditionally been enemies. These probably included the Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, and Bructeri. These were some of the fifty Germanic tribes at the time. Using the collective outrage over Varus' tyrannous insolence and wanton cruelty to the conquered, Arminius was able to unite the disorganized groups who had submitted in sullen hatred to the Roman dominion, and maintain the alliance until the most opportune moment to strike. Following the transfer of eight of eleven legions present in Germania to the Balkans, only three legions faced the Germanic tribesmen. This represented the perfect opportunity for Arminius to defeat Varus. While Varus was on his way from his summer camp west of the River Weser to winter headquarters near the Rhine, he heard reports of a local rebellion, reports which had been fabricated by Arminius. Edward Shepherd Creasy writes that "This was represented to Varus as an occasion which required his prompt attendance on the spot; but he was kept in studied ignorance of its being part of a concerted national rising; and he still looked on Arminius as his submissive vassal".

Publius Quinctilius Varus
The Varian disaster owes its name to Publius Quinctilius Varus, the ill-fated Roman commander. Varus was a promising leader: Emperor Augustus appointed him as quaestor in 22 BC as a young man even though the office usually required one to be at least 30. He went on to command the XIX legion in 15 BC, and was elected junior consul. He was appointed governor of Africa in 8 BC, and of Syria in 7 BC. The Syrian posting was considered prestigious and was a very difficult job due to the political struggles in the Eastern Empire and its border nations. Varus proved himself a capable governor, acting to solve the succession crisis after the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC. His ultimate performance as governor is disputed by contemporary sources. Josephus (writing some decades after the fact) gives a positive view of Varus, whereas Velleius Paterculus implicitly accuses Varus of corruption in office. At any rate, Varus married the Emperor's great-niece after his term as governor ended, ensuring him a spot in the Emperor's inner circle. Varus likely remained with the Emperor in Rome until his appointment to the command in Germania in 7 AD. Historian McNally assesses that Varus was not assigned to Germania for his military abilities, but rather his political acumen; his skill as a politician was likely sought out by the Emperor in order to deal with the factionalism that plagued the Germanic tribes.

Varus's name and deeds were well known beyond the empire because of his ruthlessness and crucifixion of insurgents. While he was feared by the people, he was highly respected by the Roman Senate. On the Rhine, he was in command of the XVII, XVIII, and XIX legions. These had previously been led by General Gaius Sentius Saturninus, who had been sent back to Rome after being awarded the ornamenta triumphalia. The other two legions in the winter-quarters of the army at castrum Moguntiacum were led by Varus' nephew, Lucius Nonius Asprenas, and perhaps Lucius Arruntius.

Varus initially commanded five legions plus auxiliaries in Germania. In the early imperial period each legion at full strength had 4,800 men supported by 120 light escort/scouting cavalry. Combined usually with a group of engineers and officers, a legion was roughly 5,000 fighting men. This did not include the 1,200 non-combatant servants that were integrated into the legion. Varus's initial command of about 25,000 (not counting auxiliaries) represented some 20% of the Roman frontline army. But it is unclear how many men were truly under his command at the battle of the Teutoburg Forest; estimates generally range from 20,000 to 30,000. Of his five starting legions, only three were under his command at the battle (~15,000 men), supported by nine small auxiliary units (~4,500 men). Winter attrition due to casualties, illness, and other causes would have sapped the legions' strength. The Roman historian Cassius Dio assumed that a large number of civilians were part of the camp following. But historian McNally finds this unlikely. Recent reforms had required that legionaries be unmarried, which meant that families were no longer part of the camp following. McNally puts the likely number of civilians at a few hundred, mostly merchants who would have followed the army knowing that their goods would be of considerable value during the long campaigning season. McNally, assuming 10% winter attrition, and an auxiliary force of about 4,000 after attrition, comes up 17,000 combatants, supported by roughly 3,800 servant non-combatants. Combined with the civilians, the army would have numbered about 21,000 at the start of campaigning, but was probably smaller by the time of the battle, as further attrition combined with the need to detach garrisons along the way would have sapped the army's strength.

The main Roman army was highly professional and outfitted by the state. They were given standardized weapons and armor, consisting of a gladius (shortsword), a large shield, a pilum (javelin), a helmet, a mail shirt, and some segmented armor. The auxiliary units were not outfitted by the Romans, and instead would have represented the equipment and fighting styles of their homelands, which put them much on par with the Germanic troops.

Arminius
The Germanic coalition was led by Arminius, of the Cherusci tribe. Arminius was in a strong position to understand Roman tactics and strategy: though he was born in Germania, he was taken hostage by the Romans after Drusus defeated the tribe in combat in 8 BC, when Arminius would have been about 10 years old. He received an aristocratic education in Rome, as he was the son of a nobleman, even if he was a hostage. When he came of age, he joined the ordo equester (the Roman cavalry), which would later lead to his appointment as a commander of Roman auxiliaries. By 4 AD he was serving in Pannonia (in the northwestern Balkan states). Soon after, he returned to his homeland in Germania, still nominally loyal to Rome.

Historian McNally suggests that two important events shaped Arminius's view of the Romans: an ambush in 11 BC led by the Cherusci against Drusus, and Drusus' victory over the Cherusci in 8 BC. In the ambush in 11 BC, the Cherusci had trapped Drusus' army in unfavorable terrain, and the Romans escaped only with great difficulty. Drusus' victory in 8 BC would have been unforgettable to Arminius, who had been made a hostage because of it. From these events, McNally argues that Arminius surmised a key lesson: "the Romans could be defeated, but only in a situation where their tactical flexibility and discipline could not be brought to bear."

The size of Arminius's forces is a guessing game at best since no written records of the Germanic peoples survive. Estimates thus vary widely based on the starting assumptions. Historian Adrian Murdoch suggests a force of 25,000. Historian Peter Wells suggests that the army may have pulled from a large area, and gives a range of estimates between 17,000 and 100,000, but suggests that 18,000 were likely involved at the final stage of the battle when the Romans were routed. Historian McNally finds fault with Well's demographic calculation style, finding his upper estimate of 100,000 to be very unlikely. Historian Hans Delbrück suggested that each tribe involved probably had 6,000 to 8,000 fighting men, for a total in the 20,000 to 30,000 range.

Delbrück notes that these troops were not just mere farmers, they were experienced soldiers in their own right, even if not outfitted by the state as the Romans were. But the Germanic army was generally worse outfitted than the Romans. Most had no armor and would have been limited to a simple shield and a hunting spear or axe. There was a gradation in equipment quality according to the wealth and status of the fighter. Those fighters who would have held command roles, or been part of a chief's guard would have carried a heavy spear and a number of javelins, along with various other secondary weapons. Those fighters would also have had high quality shields. Still, armor was very rare and would had to have been acquired as spoils of war from defeated Romans, or perhaps from time serving as a Roman auxiliary.

A simple campaign
Ancient battles were constrained by the seasons and weather. Typically, the campaigning season began in March, and ended by October, at which point armies would return to winter camps. Over the winter of 8 to 9 AD, Varus planned a simple campaign for the coming year. The disparate elements of the army would meet at Vetera (modern day Xanten, Germany), cross the Rhine, march to Cherusci territory while resupplying garrisons on the way, and then set up a summer camp in nominally pacified Cherusci lands from which to base summer operations.

But unbeknownst to Varus, he had already been betrayed. The idea of setting up a summer camp in Cherusci lands was a ploy by Arminius, who was still Varus's trusted confidant. By being in the homeland of Arminius, the Cherusci could carefully observe the Romans during the summer, and the Romans would have to make a longer trek back to their winter headquarters. Then, while on the long march back, the Romans could be ambushed in terrain favorable to Arminius. It is unknown and probably unknowable as to when Arminius decided to turn against Rome; perhaps it occurred during his time as a hostage, or even as late as his service in Germania under Varus. Regardless, his mind was made up by early 9 AD when he began deceiving Varus and recruiting Germanic chieftains to his cause. It is doubtful that Arminius imagined he would strike a total victory against the Romans, and thus he had to build a coalition of tribes together in order to wage what could have been a protracted war.

Summer operations
The Roman army moved out of winter camps sometime in March, and followed Varus's plan. Logistical challenges beset the army, and security was lax. The location of the summer camp is unknown, but probably near or at what is now Minden, Germany. Historical sources suggest that Varus waged little to no military action that summer, and instead focused on holding court and dealing with the Germanic tribes in a political and legal sense. However, historian McNally finds the accounts to be unreliable on some points, noting that the only contemporary chronicler who describes the summer was Paterculus, and that Paterculus had reason to dislike Varus. Other accounts in turn relied on Paterculus's account, and thus had Paterculus's bias. At any rate, the summer was probably typical for the troops, whose time would have been spent drilling or engaging in civil engineering projects such as strengthening local roads and fortifications.

The summer proved to be crucial for Arminius, who along with his auxiliaries, was attached to the main Roman army. He bided his time during the early part of the summer, but the clock was running out, and he still needed to orchestrate an ambush. Thus in July, he ordered some of his allies to start raiding the Romans. Then, he counseled Varus to split off a detachment of troops to go put down unrest. Varus acceded, thereby splitting his own forces. Arminius further arranged for his own Cherusci auxiliaries to find Roman work parties, approach them as if nothing was unusual, and then betray the Romans while in their midst. Historian McNally chastises Varus for not improving security or otherwise realizing that a larger plan was afoot.

Arminius's carefully laid plans nearly unraveled when his father-in-law, Segestes, informed Varus of Arminius's treachery. But Varus disbelieved this report, perhaps because Segestes had not approved of the marriage of his daughter and thus bore a grudge against Arminius.

Varus's choice
As late summer arrived, escalating unrest became the chief concern. Other counselors to Varus advised that there was not enough time left in the season to put down unrest and also make it back to winter camp. That would have foiled Arminius's plans, as the Romans would not only leave before the Germanic troops could be marshalled, but the Romans would also retreat along the same well guarded path they had come in on. In a desperate gamble, Arminius suggested that instead of retracing the army's path, they could achieve both goals if they went on campaign against the Angrivarii. By going through Angrivarii territory, the route back would be shorter, and the Romans would also be able to put down the revolt. The otherwise boring summer may have increased Varus's willingness to engage in action, and he chose to follow Arminius's plan.

On the morning of September 7, 9 AD, the Roman army mustered to move out. The muster was combined with the third payday of the year, which resulted in large numbers of coins being distributed to the army. The high density of coins would, some two thousand years later, serve as an archeological marker of the battle site. The morale of the troops was boosted by word that high command authorized looting on the Angrivarii campaign, given that the army would be operating beyond supply lines.

That evening, Arminius told Varus that he would be breaking off to finish the muster of the Cheruscii auxiliaries, and would be back with the main army in two or three days. It was the men's final meeting. Arminius left behind a small number of Cheruscii, nominally to act as guides, but their true purpose was to act as spies. The loss of Arminius cut the size of the Roman army by a quarter and deeply curtailed its scouting abilities. Arminius himself hurriedly rode northward to gather the troops of the Angrivarii and Bructeri.

Battles

On the morning of September 8, the Roman army decamped and continued snaking its way through the area's thick forest, which slowed movement and strung the army out at an increasing distance. Arminius now only had to ensure that the Romans worked their way towards Kalkriese, where the Angrivarii lay in ambush. To that end, his Bructerii allies attacked the Roman army along its length in the late morning.

The line of march was now stretched out perilously long—between 15 and 20 km. It was in this state when it came under attack by Germanic warriors armed with swords, large lances and narrow-bladed short spears called fremae. The attackers surrounded the entire Roman army and rained down javelins on the intruders. It was a brief skirmish, aimed at tiring out the Roman troops and causing maximum damage to their supplies. The Bructerii withdrew quickly, likely taking the Cheruscii spies embedded in the Roman army with them.

The Romans' luck went from bad to worse as a torrential downpour began. Unable to advance, Varus ordered the army to make camp. A sturdy camp was erected, and Varus called a war council. Casualty reports indicated only light losses, but the baggage trains and scout cavalry were shown to be particularly vulnerable.

The Romans undertook a night march to escape, but marched into another trap that Arminius had set at the foot of Kalkriese Hill. There, a sandy, open strip on which the Romans could march was constricted by the hill, so that there was a gap of only about 100 m between the woods and the swampland at the edge of the Great Bog. The road was further blocked by a trench and, towards the forest, an earthen wall had been built along the roadside, permitting the Germanic alliance to attack the Romans from cover. The Romans made a desperate attempt to storm the wall, but failed, and the highest-ranking officer next to Varus, Legatus Numonius Vala, abandoned the troops by riding off with the cavalry. His retreat was in vain, however, as he was overtaken by the Germanic cavalry and killed shortly thereafter, according to Velleius Paterculus. The Germanic warriors then stormed the field and slaughtered the disintegrating Roman forces. Varus committed suicide, and Velleius reports that one commander, Praefectus Ceionius, surrendered, then later took his own life, while his colleague Praefectus Eggius died leading his doomed troops.

Roman casualties have been estimated at 15,000–20,000 dead, and many of the officers were said to have taken their own lives by falling on their swords in the approved manner. Tacitus wrote that many officers were sacrificed by the Germanic forces as part of their indigenous religious ceremonies, cooked in pots and their bones used for rituals. Others were ransomed and some common soldiers appear to have been enslaved.

All Roman accounts stress the completeness of the Roman defeat, and the finds at Kalkriese of 6,000 pieces of Roman equipment, but only a single item that is clearly Germanic (part of a spur), suggest few Germanic losses. However, the victors would most likely have removed the bodies of their fallen and their practice of burying their warriors' battle gear with them would have contributed to the lack of Germanic relics. Additionally, as many as several thousand Germanic soldiers were deserting militiamen and wore Roman armour, and thus would appear to be "Roman" in the archaeological digs. It is known, too, that the Germanic peoples wore perishable organic material, such as leather, and less metal than the Roman legionaries.

The victory was followed by a clean sweep of all Roman forts, garrisons and cities (of which there were at least two) east of the Rhine; the two Roman legions remaining in Germania, commanded by Varus' nephew Lucius Nonius Asprenas, simply tried to hold the Rhine. One fort, Aliso, most likely located in today's Haltern am See, fended off the Germanic alliance for many weeks, perhaps even a few months. After the situation became untenable, the garrison under Lucius Caedicius, accompanied by survivors of Teutoburg Forest, broke through the siege and reached the Rhine. They had resisted long enough for Nonius Asprenas to have organized the Roman defence on the Rhine with two legions and Tiberius to have arrived with a new army, together preventing Arminius from crossing the Rhine and invading Gaul.

Aftermath
Upon hearing of the defeat, the Emperor Augustus, according to the Roman historian Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, was so shaken that he stood butting his head against the walls of his palace, repeatedly shouting:

"Quintili Vare, legiones redde! (Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!)"

The legion numbers XVII, XVIII and XIX were not used again by the Romans. This was in contrast to other legions that were reestablished after suffering defeat.

The battle abruptly ended the period of triumphant Roman expansion that followed the end of the Civil Wars forty years earlier. Augustus' stepson Tiberius took effective control, and prepared for the continuation of the war. Legio II Augusta, XX Valeria Victrix and XIII Gemina were sent to the Rhine to replace the lost legions.

Arminius sent Varus's severed head to Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni, the other most powerful Germanic ruler, with the offer of an anti-Roman alliance. Maroboduus declined, sending the head to Rome for burial, and remained neutral throughout the ensuing war. Only thereafter did a brief, inconclusive war break out between the two Germanic leaders.

Germanicus' campaign against the Germanic coalition
Though the shock at the slaughter was enormous, the Romans immediately began a slow, systematic process of preparing for the reconquest of the country. In 14 AD, just after Augustus' death and the accession of his heir and stepson Tiberius, a massive raid was conducted by the new emperor's nephew Germanicus. He attacked the Marsi with the element of surprise. The Bructeri, Tubanti and Usipeti were roused by the attack and ambushed Germanicus on the way to his winter quarters, but were defeated with heavy losses.

The next year was marked by two major campaigns and several smaller battles with a large army estimated at 55,000–70,000 men, backed by naval forces. In spring 15 AD, Legatus Caecina Severus invaded the Marsi a second time with about 25,000–30,000 men, causing great havoc. Meanwhile, Germanicus' troops had built a fort on Mount Taunus from where he marched with about 30,000–35,000 men against the Chatti. Many of the men fled across a river and dispersed themselves in the forests. Germanicus next marched on Mattium ("caput gentis", capital city) and burned it to the ground. After initial successful skirmishes in summer 15 AD, including the capture of Arminius' wife Thusnelda, the army visited the site of the first battle. According to Tacitus, they found heaps of bleached bones and severed skulls nailed to trees, which they buried, "...looking on all as kinsfolk and of their own blood...". At a location Tacitus calls the pontes longi ("long causeways"), in boggy lowlands somewhere near the Ems, Arminius' troops attacked the Romans. Arminius initially caught Germanicus' cavalry in a trap, inflicting minor casualties, but the Roman infantry reinforced the rout and checked them. The fighting lasted for two days, with neither side achieving a decisive victory. Germanicus' forces withdrew and returned to the Rhine.

Under Germanicus, the Romans marched another army, along with allied Germanic auxiliaries, into Germania in 16 AD. He forced a crossing of the Weser near modern Minden, suffering losses to a Germanic skirmishing force, and forced Arminius' army to stand in open battle at Idistaviso in the Battle of the Weser River. Germanicus' legions inflicted huge casualties on the Germanic armies. A final battle was fought at the Angrivarian Wall west of modern Hanover, repeating the pattern of high Germanic fatalities, which forced them to flee beyond the Elbe. Germanicus, having defeated the forces between the Rhine and the Elbe, then ordered Caius Silius to march against the Chatti with a mixed force of three thousand cavalry and thirty thousand infantry and lay waste to their territory, while Germanicus, with a larger army, invaded the Marsi for the third time and devastated their land, encountering no resistance.

With his main objectives reached and winter approaching, Germanicus ordered his army back to their winter camps, with the fleet incurring some damage from a storm in the North Sea. Afterwards, a few more raids across the Rhine resulted in the recovery of two of the three legions' eagles lost in 9 AD: one Legion Eagle was recovered from the Marsi in 14 AD; the Legion XIX Eagle was recovered from the Bructeri in 15 AD by troops under Lucius Stertinius. Tiberius ordered the Roman forces to halt and withdraw across the Rhine. Germanicus was recalled to Rome and informed by Tiberius that he would be given a triumph and reassigned to a new command.

Germanicus' campaign had been taken to avenge the Teutoburg slaughter and also partially in reaction to indications of mutinous intent amongst his troops. Arminius, who had been considered a very real threat to stability by Rome, was now defeated. Once his Germanic coalition had been broken and honour avenged, the huge cost and risk of keeping the Roman army operating beyond the Rhine was not worth any likely benefit to be gained. Tacitus, with some bitterness, claims that Tiberius' decision to recall Germanicus was driven by his jealousy of the glory Germanicus had acquired, and that an additional campaign the next summer would have concluded the war and facilitated a Roman occupation of territories between the Rhine and the Elbe.

Later campaigns
The third legionary standard was recovered in 41 AD by Publius Gabinius from the Chauci during the reign of Claudius, brother of Germanicus. Possibly the recovered aquilae were placed within the Temple of Mars Ultor ("Mars the Avenger"), the ruins of which stand today in the Forum of Augustus by the Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome.

The last chapter was recounted by the historian Tacitus. Around 50 AD, bands of Chatti invaded Roman territory in Germania Superior, possibly an area in Hesse east of the Rhine that the Romans appear to have still held, and began to plunder. The Roman commander, Publius Pomponius Secundus, and a legionary force supported by Roman cavalry recruited auxiliaries from the Vangiones and Nemetes. They attacked the Chatti from both sides and defeated them, and joyfully found and liberated Roman prisoners, including some from Varus' legions who had been held for 40 years.

Arminius would continue to fight against the Romans, but the conflict remained a stalemate. He was poisoned by his fellow Germans in 21 AD, possibly by his own family, who feared his increasing autocracy.

Impact on Roman expansion
From the time of the rediscovery of Roman sources in the 15th century, the Battles of the Teutoburg Forest have been seen as a pivotal event resulting in the end of Roman expansion into northern Europe. This theory became prevalent in the 19th century, and formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism.

More recently some scholars questioned this interpretation, advancing a number of reasons why the Rhine was a practical boundary for the Roman Empire, and more suitable than any other river in Germania. Logistically, armies on the Rhine could be supplied from the Mediterranean via the Rhône, Saône and Mosel, with a brief stretch of portage. Armies on the Elbe, on the other hand, would have to be supplied either by extensive overland routes or ships travelling the hazardous Atlantic seas. Economically, the Rhine was already supporting towns and sizeable villages at the time of the Gallic conquest. Northern Germania was far less developed, possessed fewer villages, and had little food surplus and thus a far lesser capacity for tribute. Thus the Rhine was both significantly more accessible from Rome and better suited to supply sizeable garrisons than the regions beyond. There were also practical reasons to fall back from the limits of Augustus' expansionism in this region. The Romans were mostly interested in conquering areas that had a high degree of self-sufficiency which could provide a tax base for them to extract from. Most of Germania Magna did not have the higher level of urbanism at this time as in comparison with some Celtic Gallic settlements, which were in many ways already integrated into the Roman trade network in the case of southern Gaul. In a cost/benefit analysis, the prestige to be gained by conquering more territory was outweighed by the lack of financial benefits accorded to conquest.

The Teutoburg Forest myth is noteworthy in 19th century Germanic interpretations as to why the "march of the Roman Empire" was halted, but in reality Roman punitive campaigns into Germania continued and they were intended less for conquest or expansion than they were to force the Germanic alliance into some kind of political structure that would be compliant with Roman diplomatic efforts. The most famous of those incursions, led by the Roman emperor Maximinus Thrax, resulted in a Roman victory in 235 AD at the Battle at the Harzhorn Hill, which is located in the modern German state of Lower Saxony, east of the Weser river, between the towns of Kalefeld and Bad Gandersheim. After the Marcomannic Wars, the Romans even managed to occupy the provinces of Marcomannia and Sarmatia, corresponding to modern Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bavaria/Austria/Hungary north of Danube. Final plans to annex those territories were discarded by Commodus deeming the occupation of the region too expensive for the imperial treasury.

After Arminius was defeated and dead, having been murdered in 21 AD by opponents within his own tribe, Rome tried to control Germania beyond the Limes indirectly, by appointing client kings. Italicus, a nephew of Arminius, was appointed king of the Cherusci, Vangio and Sido became vassal princes of the powerful Suebi, and the Quadian client king Vannius was imposed as a ruler of the Marcomanni. Between 91 and 92 during the reign of emperor Domitian, the Romans sent a military detachment to assist their client Lugii against the Suebi in what is now Poland.

Roman controlled territory was limited to the modern states of Austria, Baden-Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse, Saarland and the Rhineland as Roman provinces of Noricum, Raetia and Germania. The Roman provinces in western Germany, Germania Inferior (with the capital situated at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, modern Cologne) and Germania Superior (with its capital at Mogontiacum, modern Mainz), were formally established in 85 AD, after a long period of military occupation beginning in the reign of the emperor Augustus. Nonetheless, the Severan-era historian Cassius Dio is emphatic that Varus had been conducting the latter stages of full colonization of a greater German province, which has been partially confirmed by recent archaeological discoveries such as the Varian-era Roman provincial settlement at Waldgirmes Forum.

Site of the battle

The theories about the location of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest have emerged in large numbers especially since the beginning of the 16th century, when Tacitus' works Germania and Annales were rediscovered. The assumptions about the possible place of the battle are based essentially on place names and river names, as well as on the description of the topography by the ancient writers, on investigations of the prehistoric road network, and on archaeological finds. Only a few assumptions are scientifically based theories.

The prehistorian and provincial archaeologist Harald Petrikovits combined the several hundred theories in 1966 into four units:
 * according to the northern theory on the northern edge of the Wiehen Hills and Weser Hills
 * according to Lippe theory in the eastern half of the Teutoburg Forest or between this and the Weser river
 * according to the Münsterland theory south of the Teutoburg Forest near Beckum or just to the east of it and
 * according to the southern theory in the hill country southeast of the Westphalian Lowland.

For almost 2,000 years, the site of the battle was unidentified. The main clue to its location was an allusion to the saltus Teutoburgiensis in section i.60–62 of Tacitus' Annals, an area "not far" from the land between the upper reaches of the Lippe and Ems rivers in central Westphalia. During the 19th century, theories as to the site abounded, and the followers of one theory successfully argued for a long wooded ridge called the Osning, near Bielefeld. This was then renamed the Teutoburg Forest.

Late 20th-century research and excavations were sparked by finds by a British amateur archaeologist, Major Tony Clunn, who was casually prospecting at Kalkriese Hill (52.44139°N, 8.14056°W) with a metal detector in the hope of finding "the odd Roman coin". He discovered coins from the reign of Augustus (and none later), and some ovoid leaden Roman sling bolts. Kalkriese is a village administratively part of the city of Bramsche, on the north slope fringes of the Wiehen, a ridge-like range of hills in Lower Saxony north of Osnabrück. This site, some 100 km north west of Osning, was first suggested by the 19th-century historian Theodor Mommsen, renowned for his fundamental work on Roman history.

Initial systematic excavations were carried out by the archaeological team of the Kulturhistorisches Museum Osnabrück under the direction of Professor Wolfgang Schlüter from 1987. Once the dimensions of the project had become apparent, a foundation was created to organise future excavations and to build and operate a museum on the site, and to centralise publicity and documentation. Since 1990 the excavations have been directed by Susanne Wilbers-Rost.

Excavations have revealed battle debris along a corridor almost 24 km from east to west and little more than 1 mi wide. A long zig-zagging wall of peat turves and packed sand had apparently been constructed beforehand: concentrations of battle debris in front of it and a dearth behind it testify to the Romans' inability to breach the Germanic tribes' strong defence. Human remains appear to corroborate Tacitus' account of the Roman legionaries' later burial. Coins minted with the countermark VAR, distributed by Varus, also support the identification of the site. As a result, Kalkriese is now perceived to be an event of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The Museum und Park Kalkriese includes a large outdoor area with trails leading to a re-creation of part of the earthen wall from the battle and other outdoor exhibits. An observation tower, which holds most of the indoor exhibits, allows visitors to get an overview of the battle site. A second building includes the ticket centre, museum store and a restaurant. The museum houses a large number of artefacts found at the site, including fragments of studded sandals legionaries lost, spearheads, and a Roman officer's ceremonial face-mask, which was originally silver-plated.

Music and Opera

 * The 1736 opera Arminio, by Handel, known as "possibly Handel's weakest opera", glorifies the German chief who routed the Romans at Teutoberg.

Literature

 * The 1792 historical novel Marcus Flaminius by Cornelia Knight follows a main character who is a survivor of the battle.
 * Die Hermannsschlacht is an 1808 drama by Heinrich von Kleist based on the events of the battle.
 * Robert Graves's 1934 novel I, Claudius recounts the battle, its effect on Augustus and the aftermath as Tiberius and Germanicus attempt to recapture the stolen eagles.
 * Harry Turtledove's 2009 novel Give Me Back My Legions! is a fictionalized retelling of the battle.
 * Ben Kane's 2015 historical novel Eagles At War is the first of a trilogy of novels and ends with the annihilation of Varus's legions.
 * Wolves of Rome is a 2016 historical novel by Valerio Massimo Manfredi. First published in Italian in 2016 as Teutoburgo, republished in English in 2018, it is a fictional recounting of the life of Armin (Hermann) and the events of Teutoburg Forest.

Television

 * Barbarians, a German original series detailing the Roman Imperial campaign through Germania in 9 AD, premiered on Netflix in October 2020.

Comics

 * Les Aigles de Rome (The Eagles of Rome), Enrico Marini (writer, artist), Dargaud, Paris 2007-2023 (The Eagles of Rome, Paris 2014, 2023)
 * Britannia: Lost Eagles of Rome. Peter Milligan (writer), Robert Gill (artist). Book 1-4, Valiant Entertainment, New York 2018

German nationalism
The legacy of the Germanic victory was resurrected with the recovery of the histories of Tacitus in the 15th century, when the figure of Arminius, now known as "Hermann" (a mistranslation of the name "Armin" which has often been incorrectly attributed to Martin Luther), became a nationalistic symbol of Pan-Germanism. From then, Teutoburg Forest has been seen as a pivotal clash that ended Roman expansion into northern Europe. This notion became especially prevalent in the 19th century, when it formed an integral part of the mythology of German nationalism.

The location of the site of the Battle bore unique political meaning to the German states during the 19th century. Historian Michael McNally notes that the French had found a hero of the Roman age in Vercingetorix, the commander of the Gallic grand coalition during Gallic Wars. In 1865, they had erected a monument to Vercingétorix at the site of his last stand. Because Julius Caesar had written extensively about the Gallic Wars, the location of the battles of the Gallic Wars were easily found. But Germany, in seeking a similar national hero, found that the site of the Varian Disaster was not so easily placed. A monument to the battle was begun in 1841, outside the town of Detmold, on the nearby summit of Tuetberg. Finished in 1875, the statue atop it looked west, to France, a reflection of the rivalry between the two nations.

As a symbol of unified Romantic nationalism, the Hermannsdenkmal, a monument to Hermann surmounted by a statue, was erected in a forested area near Detmold, believed at that time to be the site of the battle. Paid for largely out of private funds, the monument remained unfinished for decades and was not completed until 1875, after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 unified the country. The completed monument was then a symbol of conservative German nationalism.

According to journalist David Crossland, "The old nationalism has been replaced by an easy-going patriotism that mainly manifests itself at sporting events like the soccer World Cup."

Ancient sources

 * Ovid, Tristia (Sorrows), poetic verses written in 10 and 11 AD
 * Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, a poem written early in the first century AD
 * Strabo, Geographia 7:1.4, geographically themed history, written around 18 AD
 * Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2:117–120, written in 30 AD
 * Tacitus, Annals 1.3, 1.10, 1.43, 1.55–71, 2.7, 2.41, 2.45, 2.88, a history written in 109 AD
 * Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars: Augustus 23, Tiberius 17–18, biographies written in 121 AD
 * Florus, Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo 2:30, history/panegyric, written in the early second century AD
 * Dio Cassius, Roman History 56:18–24, written in the first half of the third century AD
 * Seneca the Younger, "Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium," referenced in Letter 47, Section 10

20th century

 * Gesa von Essen, Hermannsschlachten. Germanen- und Römerbilder in der Literatur des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-89244-312-2 (Hermann Battles. Images of Teutons and Romans in the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries.)
 * Wolfgang Schlüter (Ed.), Römer im Osnabrücker Land. Die archäologischen Untersuchungen in der Kalkrieser-Niewedder Senke. Rasch, Bramsche 1991, ISBN 3-922469-57-4 (Romans in the Osnabrück District. The archaeological excavations in the Kalkriese-Niewedde depression.)
 * Edward Shepherd Creasy, Germans under Arminius Revolt Against Rome in The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2, compilation of historical essays published in 1905

21st century

 * Ancient Warfare special "The Varian Disaster", June 2009 (essays by various authors, including Clunn and Murdoch)
 * Fergus M. Bordewich, "The ambush that changed history" in Smithsonian Magazine, September 2005, pp. 74–81.
 * Wilm Brepohl, Neue Überlegungen zur Varusschlacht. Aschendorff, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-402-03502-2 (Reconsidering the Varus Battle.)
 * Tony Clunn, The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions, Savas Beatie LLC, 2005, 372 pp. ISBN 978-1-932714-70-8. The late author discovered the battlefield. This book is a combination of the account of his discovery, the artifacts he found, and his theory about the course of the battle, with that portion recounted in fictional style built around the history.
 * Boris Dreyer, Arminius und der Untergang des Varus. Warum die Germanen keine Römer wurden. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94510-2 (Arminius and the downfall of Varus. Why the Teutons did not become Romans.)
 * Joachim Harnecker, Arminius, Varus und das Schlachtfeld von Kalkriese. Eine Einführung in die archäologischen Arbeiten und ihre Ergebnisse. 2nd ed. Rasch, Bramsche 2002 ISBN 3-934005-40-3 (Arminius, Varus and the battlefield of Kalkriese. An introduction to the archaeological work and its results.)
 * Ralf Günter Jahn, Der Römisch-Germanische Krieg (9–16 n. Chr.). Dissertation, Bonn 2001 (The Roman-Germanic war (9–16 AD).)
 * Johann-Sebastian Kühlborn, "Auf dem Marsch in die Germania Magna. Roms Krieg gegen die Germanen". In: Martin Müller, Hans-Joahim Schalles und Norbert Zieling (Eds.), Colonia Ulpia Traiana. Xanten und sein Umland in römischer Zeit. Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3953-7, S. 67–91. ("On the march into Germania Magna. Rome's war against the Germanic tribes".)
 * Fabian Link, Die Zeitdetektive. Die Falle im Teutoburger Wald: Ein Krimi aus der Römerzeit. Ravensburger, 2010, ISBN 978-3-473-34535-9.  (The time detectives. The events in the Teutoburg Forest: a crime story of Roman times.) (youth fiction)
 * Ralf-Peter Märtin, Die Varusschlacht. Rom und die Germanen. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-10-050612-2 (The Varus Battle. Rome and the Germanic tribes.)
 * Günther Moosbauer, Die Varusschlacht. Beck'sche Reihe, Verlag C. H. Beck Wissen, München 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-56257-0 (The Varus Battle.)
 * Paweł Rochala, Las Teutoburski 9 rok n.e. Bellona, Warszawa, 2005.
 * Michael Sommer, Die Arminiusschlacht. Spurensuche im Teutoburger Wald. Stuttgart 2009 (The Arminius Battle. Search for traces in the Teutoburg Forest.)
 * Dieter Timpe, Römisch-germanische Begegnung in der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit. Voraussetzungen – Konfrontationen – Wirkungen. Gesammelte Studien. Saur, München & Leipzig, 2006, ISBN 3-598-77845-7 (Roman-Germanic encounter in the late Republic and early Empire. Conditions – Confrontations – Effects. Collected Studies.)
 * Strong on archaeology; "Florus"-based theory.
 * Peter Oppitz, Das Geheimnis der Varusschlacht. Zadara-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-00-019973-X (The mystery of the Varus Battle.) Paderborn would have been the site of the battle.
 * Rainer Wiegels (ed.), Die Varusschlacht. Wendepunkt der Geschichte? Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1760-5 (The Varus Battle. Turning point of history?)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Römer in Germanien. 5th ed. Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2006, ISBN 3-406-44736-8 (The Romans in Germania.)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald. Arminius, Varus und das römische Germanien. München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57674-4 (The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius, Varus and Roman Germania.)
 * Paweł Rochala, Las Teutoburski 9 rok n.e. Bellona, Warszawa, 2005.
 * Michael Sommer, Die Arminiusschlacht. Spurensuche im Teutoburger Wald. Stuttgart 2009 (The Arminius Battle. Search for traces in the Teutoburg Forest.)
 * Dieter Timpe, Römisch-germanische Begegnung in der späten Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit. Voraussetzungen – Konfrontationen – Wirkungen. Gesammelte Studien. Saur, München & Leipzig, 2006, ISBN 3-598-77845-7 (Roman-Germanic encounter in the late Republic and early Empire. Conditions – Confrontations – Effects. Collected Studies.)
 * Strong on archaeology; "Florus"-based theory.
 * Peter Oppitz, Das Geheimnis der Varusschlacht. Zadara-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-00-019973-X (The mystery of the Varus Battle.) Paderborn would have been the site of the battle.
 * Rainer Wiegels (ed.), Die Varusschlacht. Wendepunkt der Geschichte? Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1760-5 (The Varus Battle. Turning point of history?)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Römer in Germanien. 5th ed. Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2006, ISBN 3-406-44736-8 (The Romans in Germania.)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald. Arminius, Varus und das römische Germanien. München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57674-4 (The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius, Varus and Roman Germania.)
 * Rainer Wiegels (ed.), Die Varusschlacht. Wendepunkt der Geschichte? Theiss, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1760-5 (The Varus Battle. Turning point of history?)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Römer in Germanien. 5th ed. Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2006, ISBN 3-406-44736-8 (The Romans in Germania.)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald. Arminius, Varus und das römische Germanien. München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57674-4 (The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius, Varus and Roman Germania.)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Römer in Germanien. 5th ed. Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2006, ISBN 3-406-44736-8 (The Romans in Germania.)
 * Reinhard Wolters, Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald. Arminius, Varus und das römische Germanien. München 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57674-4 (The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius, Varus and Roman Germania.)

title: Battle of the Teutoburg Forest


text:
User:MLPachali

Martina Luise Pachali is a network administrator who can't write code to save her life; so, she is very glad to have finally found an Open Source project where she can contribute, as her interests (above and beyond instilling nameless terror into her network users) are extremely diverse, not to say decidedly odd. She can be reached at mlpachali@areion.org

Contributed to following articles:

 * Alan Rickman
 * Chlysty
 * Dmitri_Pavlovitch_Romanov
 * Eamon de Valera
 * Glasnevin Cemetery

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:MLPachali


text:
Howard K. Smith

Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 – February 15, 2002) was an American journalist, radio reporter, television anchorman, political commentator, and film actor. He was one of the original members of the team of war correspondents known as the Murrow Boys.

Early life
Smith was born in Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana near Natchez, Mississippi.

World War II
Upon graduating, Smith worked for the New Orleans Item, with United Press in London, and with The New York Times. In January 1940, Smith was sent to Berlin, where he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System under Edward R. Murrow. He visited Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden and interviewed many leading Nazis, including Hitler himself, Schutzstaffel or "SS" leader Heinrich Himmler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

He was one of the last American reporters to leave Berlin before Germany and the United States went to war. His 1942 book, Last Train from Berlin: An Eye-Witness Account of Germany at War describes his observations from Berlin in the year after the departure of Berlin Diary author William L. Shirer. Last Train from Berlin became an American best-seller and was reprinted in 2001, shortly before Smith's death.

Smith became a significant member of the "Murrow Boys" that made CBS the dominant broadcast news organization of the era. In May 1945, he returned to Berlin to recap the German surrender.

Post-war
In 1946, Smith went to London for CBS with the title of chief European correspondent. In 1947, he made a long broadcasting tour of most of the nations of Europe, including behind the Iron Curtain. In 1949, Knopf published his The State of Europe, a 408-page country-by-country survey of Europe that drew on these experiences and that argued "both the American and the Russian policies are mistaken"; he advocated more "social reform" for Western Europe and more "political liberty" for Eastern Europe.

Despite these criticisms of Soviet policies, Smith was one of 151 alleged Communist sympathizers named in the Red Channels report issued in June 1950 at the beginning of the Red Scare, effectively placing him on the Hollywood blacklist.

Beginning on January 11, 1959, Smith moderated Behind the News with Howard K. Smith, a CBS-TV program "analying news events and the significance of issues in the news". The sustaining program was broadcast on Sundays from 6 to 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Civil Rights reporting: Who Speaks for Birmingham?
Reporting on civil-rights riots in Birmingham in the early 1960s, Smith revealed the conspiracy that existed between police commissioner Bull Connor and the KKK to beat up black people and Freedom Riders. He planned to end his report "Who Speaks for Birmingham?" (broadcast date: May 18, 1961 with a quote from Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," but the CBS lawyers intervened. Nonetheless, the documentary caused a stir (leading CBS to be sued and its Birmingham TV station to disaffiliate), and because his contract with CBS forbade editorializing, Smith was suspended and subsequently fired by CBS President William S. Paley.

ABC, 1962–1979
On June 5, 1968, Smith and fellow newsman Bill Lawrence were anchoring coverage of the California presidential primary that had stretched to 3 am. New York time. As the closing credits for the special were airing, word came that United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York had been shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. ABC simply showed a wide shot of the chaotic newsroom for several minutes until Smith was able to confirm the initial story and go back on the air with a special report. He and Lawrence remained at their anchor desks for several more hours for reports of Kennedy's condition.

In the summer of 1968, Smith moderated a series of debates on ABC between conservative journalist William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal author Gore Vidal.

In 1969, the veteran reporter became the co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, first with Frank Reynolds, then the following year with another CBS alumnus, Harry Reasoner. He began making increasingly conservative commentaries, in particular a hard-line stance in support of the Vietnam War. He contrasted United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's decisive stance in Vietnam with the international failure to take preemptive action against Hitler. During this period, his son, future ABC newsman, Jack Smith (April 25, 1945 – April 7, 2004), was serving with the U.S. Army 7th Cavalry Regiment in South Vietnam and fought at the Battle of Ia Drang. These commentaries endeared him to President Nixon, who rewarded him with a rare, hour-long, one-on-one interview in 1971, at the height of the administration's animus against major newspapers, CBS, and NBC, despite Smith's having broadcast his "political obituary" only nine years earlier.

During the 1972 presidential campaign, a letter was published that Smith had written to Democratic United States Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, indicating Smith's full support for Muskie. The endorsement was written on stationery with ABC's letterhead. Nothing ever came of this controversy, however, and Smith kept his job. Notwithstanding his past temporary friendly relations with Nixon (who defeated U.S. Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota for re-election), Smith became the first national television commentator to call for Nixon's resignation over Watergate.

Smith remained as co-anchor at ABC until 1975, after which Reasoner anchored solo until Barbara Walters joined the broadcast a year later. Smith continued as an analyst until 1979; he left the network nearing full retirement, and as the Roone Arledge era was beginning at ABC News. Sources say that Smith was embittered over the reduction in time allowed for his commentaries and hence resigned after he criticized the revamped World News Tonight format as a "Punch and Judy show."

Awards and film roles
Among honors which Smith received over the years were DuPont Awards in 1955 and 1963, a Sigma Delta Chi Award for radio journalism in 1957, and an award from the American Jewish Congress in 1960. In 1962 he received the Paul White Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association.

Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself; The Best Man (1964), The Candidate (1972), The President's Plane Is Missing (1973, a made-for-television production of the Robert J. Serling novel of the same name), Nashville (1975), Network (1976), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), "The Odd Candidate" (1974) episode of the television series The Odd Couple (playing himself), the "Kill Oscar" episode (1976) of The Bionic Woman (playing himself anchoring an ABC newscast), and both V (1983) and the subsequent 1984 television series. He appeared as the Narrator in the 1987 film Escape from Sobibor.

Along with Last Train from Berlin, he wrote three other books, The Population Explosion (1960), the children's book Washington, D.C.: The Story of our Nation's Capital (1967), and a memoir Events Leading Up to My Death: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Reporter (1996).

Personal life
Smith met his future wife, Danish news reporter Benedicte Traberg, while working in Nazi Germany in 1941. Because she was only 20 at the time, she had to return to Denmark for parental approval, but the couple re-united three months later in Berne, Switzerland. The couple were married until Smith's death in 2002. Benedicte died in 2008. Their son Jack was an ABC correspondent who received Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of technology. Having left journalism for a job in Silicon Valley, Jack died at age 58 in 2004 of pancreatic cancer in Marin County, California.

title: Howard K. Smith


text:
Cockney

Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle-class roots. The term Cockney is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End,  or, traditionally, born within earshot of Bow Bells.

Estuary English is an intermediate accent between Cockney and Received Pronunciation, also widely spoken in and around London, as well as in wider South Eastern England. In multicultural areas of London, the Cockney dialect is, to an extent, being replaced by Multicultural London English—a new form of speech with significant Cockney influence.

Etymology of Cockney
The earliest recorded use of the term is 1362 in passus VI of William Langland's Piers Plowman, where it is used to mean "a small, misshapen egg", from Middle English coken + ey ("a cock's egg"). Concurrently, the mythical land of luxury Cockaigne (attested from 1305) appeared under a variety of spellings, including Cockayne, Cocknay, and Cockney, and became humorously associated with the English capital London.

The current meaning of Cockney comes from its use among rural Englishmen (attested in 1520) as a pejorative term for effeminate town-dwellers, from an earlier general sense (encountered in "The Reeve's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales c. 1386) of a "cokenay" as "a child tenderly brought up" and, by extension, "an effeminate fellow" or "a ". This may have developed from the sources above or separately, alongside such terms as "" and "" which both have the sense of "to make a ... or the darling of", "to indulge or pamper". By 1600, this meaning of cockney was being particularly associated with the Bow Bells area. In 1617, the travel writer Fynes Moryson stated in his Itinerary that "Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bells, are in reproach called Cockneys." The same year, John Minsheu included the term in this newly restricted sense in his dictionary Ductor in Linguas.

Other terms

 * Cockney sparrow: Refers to the archetype of a cheerful, talkative Cockney.
 * Cockney diaspora: The term Cockney diaspora refers to the migration of Cockney speakers to places outside London, especially new towns. It also refers to the descendants of those people, in areas where there was enough migration for identification with London to persist in subsequent generations.
 * Mockney: Refers to a fake Cockney accent, though the term is sometimes also used as a self-deprecatory moniker by second, third, and subsequent generations of the Cockney diaspora.

Region
Initially, when London consisted of little more than the walled City, the term applied to all Londoners, and this lingered into the 19th century. As the city grew, the definitions shifted to alternatives based on dialect or more specific areas; the East End and the area within earshot of Bow Bells.

The East End of London and the vicinity of Bow bells are often used interchangeably, representing the identity of the East End. The region within the audible range of the bells varies depending on the direction of the wind, but there is a correlation between the two geographic definitions under the typical prevailing wind conditions. The term can apply to East Londoners who do not speak the dialect and those who do.

London's East End
The traditional core districts of the East End include Middlesex towns of Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Stepney, Wapping, Limehouse, Poplar, Haggerston, Aldgate, Shoreditch, the Isle of Dogs, Hackney, Hoxton, Bow and Mile End. The informal definition of the East End gradually expanded to include towns in south-west Essex such as Forest Gate, East Ham, Leyton, Plaistow, Stratford, Walthamstow and West Ham as these formed part of London's growing conurbation.

Bow Bells' audible range
The church of St Mary-le-Bow is one of the oldest, largest, and historically most important churches in the City of London. The definition based on being born within earshot of the bells, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, reflects the early definition of the term as relating to all of London.

The audible range of the Bells is dependent on geography and wind conditions. The east is mostly low lying, a factor which combines with the strength and regularity of the prevailing wind, blowing from west-south-west for nearly three-quarters of the year, to carry the sound further to the east, and more often. A 2012 study showed that in the 19th century, and under typical conditions, the sound of the bells would carry as far as Clapton, Bow and Stratford in the east but only as far as Southwark to the south and Holborn in the west. An earlier study suggested the sound would have carried even further. The 2012 study showed that in the modern era, noise pollution means that the bells can only be heard as far as Shoreditch. According to legend, Dick Whittington heard the bells 4.5 miles away at Highgate Hill, in what is now north London. The studies mean that it is credible that Whittington might have heard them on one of the infrequent days that the wind blows from the south.

The church of St Mary-le-Bow was destroyed in 1666 by the Great Fire of London and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. Although the bells were destroyed again in 1941 in the Blitz, they had fallen silent on 13 June 1940 as part of the British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. Before they were replaced in 1961, there was a period when, by the "within earshot" definition, no "Bow Bell" Cockneys could be born. The use of such a literal definition produces other problems since the area around the church is no longer residential, and the noise pollution means few are born within earshot.

Dialect
Cockney speakers have distinctive accents and dialects and occasionally use rhyming slang. The Survey of English Dialects took a recording from a long-time resident of Hackney in the 1950s, and the BBC made another recording in 1999 which showed how the accent had changed. One of the characteristic pronunciations of Cockney is th-fronting.

The early development of Cockney vocabulary is obscure, but appears to have been heavily influenced by Essex and related eastern dialects, while borrowings from Yiddish, including kosher (originally Hebrew, via Yiddish, meaning legitimate) and shtum ( originally German, via Yiddish, meaning mute), as well as Romani, for example wonga (meaning money, from the Romani "wanga" meaning coal), and cushty (Kushty) (from the Romani kushtipen, meaning good) reflect the influence of those groups on the development of the speech. John Camden Hotten, in his Slang Dictionary of 1859, refers to "their use of a peculiar slang language" when describing the costermongers of London's East End.

Migration and evolution
A dialectological study of Leytonstone in 1964 found that the area's dialect was very similar to that recorded in Bethnal Green by Eva Sivertsen, but there were still some features that distinguished Leytonstone speech from Cockney.

Linguistic research conducted in the early 2010s suggests that today, some aspects of the Cockney accent are declining in usage within multicultural areas, where some traditional features of Cockney have been displaced by Multicultural London English, a multiethnolect particularly common amongst young people from diverse backgrounds. Nevertheless, the glottal stop, double negatives, and the vocalisation of the dark L (and other features of Cockney speech) are among the Cockney influences on Multicultural London English, and some rhyming slang terms are still in common usage.

An influential July 2010 report by Paul Kerswill, professor of sociolinguistics at Lancaster University, Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition, and diffusion of a new variety, predicted that the Cockney accent would disappear from London's streets within 30 years. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, said that the accent, which has been around for more than 500 years, is being replaced in London by a new hybrid language. "Cockney in the East End is now transforming itself into Multicultural London English, a new, melting-pot mixture of all those people living here who learned English as a second language", Kerswill said.

A series of new and expanded towns have often had a strong influence on local speech. Many areas beyond the capital have become Cockney-speaking to a greater or lesser degree, including the new towns of Hemel Hempstead, Basildon, and Harlow, and expanded towns such as Grays, Chelmsford and Southend. However, this is, except where least mixed, difficult to discern because of common features: linguistic historian and researcher of early dialects Alexander John Ellis in 1890 stated that Cockney developed owing to the influence of Essex dialect on London speech.

Writing in 1981, the dialectologist Peter Wright identified the building of the Becontree estate in Dagenham as influential in the spread of the Cockney dialect. This vast estate was built by the Corporation of London to house poor East Enders in a previously rural area of Essex. The residents typically kept their Cockney dialect rather than adopt an Essex dialect. Wright also reports that the Cockney dialect spread along the main railway routes to towns in the surrounding counties as early as 1923, spreading further after World War II when many refugees left London owing to the bombing, and continuing to speak Cockney in their new homes.

A more distant example where the accent stands out is Thetford in Norfolk, which tripled in size from 1957 in a deliberate attempt to attract Londoners by providing social housing funded by the London County Council.

Typical features
As with many accents of the United Kingdom, Cockney is non-rhotic. A final -er is pronounced or lowered  in broad Cockney. As with all or nearly all non-rhotic accents, the paired lexical sets COMM A and LETT ER, PALM/BATH and START , THOUGHT and NORTH/FORCE , are merged. Thus, the last syllable of words such as cheetah can be pronounced as well in broad Cockney.

A broad is used in words such as bath, path, demand. This originated in London in the 16th–17th centuries and is also part of Received Pronunciation (RP).

The accent features T-glottalisation, with use of the glottal stop as an allophone of in various positions, including after a stressed syllable. Glottal stops also occur, albeit less frequently for and, and occasionally for mid-word consonants. For example, Richard Whiteing spelled "Hyde Park" as Hy' Par'. Like and light can be homophones. "Clapham" can be said as Cla'am (i.e., ). may also be flapped intervocalically, e.g. utter. London are often aspirated in intervocalic and final environments, e.g., upper, utter , rocker , up , out , rock , where RP is traditionally described as having the unaspirated variants. Also, in broad Cockney at least, the degree of aspiration is typically greater than in RP, and may often also involve some degree of affrication. Affricatives may be encountered in initial, intervocalic, and final position. This feature results in Cockney being often mentioned in textbooks about Semitic languages while explaining how to pronounce the glottal stop.

Cockney also demonstrates:
 * Th-fronting:
 * can become in any environment.  "thin",  "maths".
 * can become in any environment except word-initially when it can be .  "they",  "bother".
 * Yod-coalescence, in words such as tune or reduce  (compare traditional RP ).
 * The alveolar stops, are often omitted in informal Cockney, in non-prevocalic environments, including some that cannot be omitted in Received Pronunciation. Examples include  Dad's gonna and  turn left.
 * H-dropping. Sivertsen considers that is to some extent a stylistic marker of emphasis in Cockney.

Phonemic correspondence

 * correspond to the RP sounds (though and  are most commonly written with ⟨ɜː⟩ and ⟨əʊ⟩, respectively).  can be considered to be a positional variant of  (with both corresponding to RP ), whereas  can be considered to have a positional variant  (with both corresponding to RP ) - see below.
 * corresponds to RP.
 * corresponds to RP.
 * correspond to the centering diphthongs in traditional RP.  is often missing from Cockney, being replaced with  or a disyllabic.
 * corresponds to RP.
 * and correspond to relatively less diphthongal  and  in traditional RP.
 * correspond to in RP.

Phonetic realization
The diphthong offsets are only fully close in and :. In all other cases, they are more similar to or. According to Beaken, and  typically glide towards :,  towards : ,  and the wide allophone of  towards : , whereas  and  both towards :. According to Mott, do not occur at all as glides:  (he does not show  on his charts). Furthermore, Wells remarks on the laxness of the unrounded offset of, which is a kind of a centralized :.

In the rest of the article, this is treated as a simple allophonic rule and only ⟨j⟩ and ⟨w⟩ are used for the diphthong offsets. In narrow phonetic transcription, their rounded and unrounded counterparts are written with ⟨ɥ⟩ and ⟨ɰ⟩ (phonetically and  in fully narrow transcription). Only the central offglides and  are transcribed as non-syllabic vowels due to the lack of appropriate glide symbols.

Diphthong alterations in Cockney are:
 * is realized as : "beet"
 * is realized as : "bait"
 * is realized as or even  in "vigorous, dialectal" Cockney. The second element may be reduced or absent (with compensatory lengthening of the first element), so that there are variants such as . This means that pairs such as laugh-life, Barton-biting may become homophones:, . But this neutralisation is an optional, recoverable one:  "bite"
 * is realized as : "choice"
 * is realized as or a monophthongal, perhaps with little lip rounding,  or :  "boot"
 * typically starts in the area of, . The endpoint glides towards , but more commonly, it is completely unrounded, i.e. . Thus, the most common variants are and , with  and  also being possible. The broadest Cockney variant approaches . There is also a variant that is used only by women, namely . In addition, there are two monophthongal pronunciations,  as in 'no, nah' and , which is used in non-prominent variants.  "coat"
 * may all feature centering glides . Alternatively, may be realized as a closing diphthong . Wells states that "no rigid rules can be given for the distribution of monophthongal and diphthongal variants, though the tendency seems to be for the monophthongal variants to be commonest within the utterance, but the diphthongal realizations in utterance-final position, or where the syllable in question is otherwise prominent." Furthermore, the main difference between  and  is length, with the quality being secondary. The contrast appears only in the word-internal position, exactly where the monophthongal variants of  are the most common. Thus, word pairs such as his  – here's, merry  – Mary , at  – out  and Polly  – poorly  contrast mainly by length, though  may be slightly higher than.
 * Disyllabic realizations of  are also possible, and at least  are regarded as very strongly Cockney. Among these, the triphthongal realization of  occurs most commonly. There is not a complete agreement about the distribution of these; according to, they "occur in sentence-final position", whereas according to , these are "most common in final position".
 * When diphthongal, and  have higher starting points than in RP: . However, Beaken considers the former to be unshifted in comparison with traditional RP:.

Other vowel differences include
 * may be or, with the latter occurring before voiced consonants, particularly before :  "back",  "bad"
 * may be, , or before certain voiced consonants, particularly before :  "bed"
 * According to Wells, may be somewhat less open than RP, that is . Beaken, on the other hand, considers variants no more open than  to be the norm:  "cot"
 * has a fully back variant, qualitatively equivalent to cardinal 5, which Beaken (1971) claims characterizes "vigorous, informal" Cockney.
 * is on occasion somewhat fronted and lightly rounded, giving Cockney variants such as,.
 * is realized as or a quality like that of cardinal 4, :  "jumped up"
 * is realized as or a closing diphthong of the type  when in non-final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad Cockney:  "sauce"-"source",  "laud"-"lord",  "water."
 * is realized as or a centering diphthong/triphthong of the type  when in final position, with the latter variants being more common in broad Cockney; thus  "saw"-"sore"-"soar",  "law"-"lore",  "war"-"wore". The diphthong is retained before inflectional endings, so that board  and pause  contrast with bored  and paws .  has a somewhat tenser onset than the cardinal, that is.
 * becomes something around or even  in broad Cockney before dark l. These variants are retained when the addition of a suffix turns the dark l clear. Thus a phonemic split has occurred in London English, exemplified by the minimal pair wholly  vs. holy . The development of L-vocalisation (see next section) leads to further pairs such as sole-soul  vs. so-sew, bowl  vs. Bow , shoulder  vs. odour , while associated vowel neutralisations may make doll a homophone of dole, compare dough . All this reinforces the phonemic nature of the opposition and increases its functional load. It is now well-established in all kinds of London-flavoured accents, from broad Cockney to near-RP.
 * in some words (particularly good) is central . In other cases, it is near-close near-back, as in traditional RP.

The dialect uses the vocalisation of dark L, hence for Millwall. The actual realization of a vocalized is influenced by surrounding vowels, and it may be realized as, ,  or. It is also transcribed as a semivowel by some linguists, e.g., Coggle and Rosewarne. However, according to, the vocalized dark l is sometimes an unoccluded lateral approximant, which differs from the RP only by the lack of the alveolar contact. Relatedly, there are many possible vowel neutralisations and absorptions in the context of a following dark L or its vocalized version; these include:
 * In broad Cockney, and to some extent in general popular London speech, a vocalized is entirely absorbed by a preceding : e.g., salt and sort become homophones (although the contemporary pronunciation of salt  would prevent this from happening), and likewise fault-fought-fort, pause-Paul's, Morden-Malden, water-Walter. Sometimes such pairs are kept apart, in a more deliberate speech at least, by a kind of length difference:  Morden vs.  Malden.
 * A preceding is also fully absorbed into vocalised . The reflexes of earlier  and earlier  are thus phonetically similar or identical; speakers are usually ready to treat them as the same phoneme. Thus awful can best be regarded as containing two occurrences of the same vowel, . The difference between musical and music-hall, in an H-dropping broad Cockney, is thus nothing more than a matter of stress and perhaps syllable boundaries.
 * With the remaining vowels, a vocalized is not absorbed but remains phonetically present as a back vocoid in such a way that  and  are kept distinct.
 * The clearest and best-established neutralisations are those of and . Thus rill, reel and real fall together in Cockney as ; while full and fool are  and may rhyme with cruel . Before clear (i.e., prevocalic)  the neutralisations do not usually apply, thus  silly but  ceiling-sealing,  fully but  fooling.
 * In some broader types of Cockney, the neutralisation of before non-prevocalic  may also involve, so that fall becomes homophonous with full and fool.
 * The other pre- neutralisation which all investigators agree on is that of . Thus, Sal and sale can be merged as, fail and fowl as , and Val, vale-veil and vowel as . The typical pronunciation of railway is.
 * According to Siversten, and  can also join in this neutralisation. They may, on the one hand, neutralize concerning one another so that snarl and smile rhyme, both ending, and Child's Hill is in danger of being mistaken for Charles Hill; or they may go further into a fivefold neutralization with the one just mentioned, so that pal, pale, foul, snarl and pile all end in . But these developments are restricted to broad Cockney, not being found in London speech in general.
 * A neutralization discussed by Beaken (1971) and Bowyer (1973), but ignored by Siversten (1960), is that of . It leads to the possibility of doll, dole and dull becoming homophonous as or . Wells' impression is that the doll-dole neutralization is rather widespread in London, but that involving dull less so.
 * One further possible neutralization in the environment of a following non-prevocalic is that of  and, so that well and whirl become homophonous as.

Cockney has been occasionally described as replacing with. For example, thwee (or fwee) instead of three, fwasty instead of frosty. Peter Wright, a Survey of English Dialects fieldworker, concluded that this was not a universal feature of Cockneys but that it was more common to hear this in the London area than elsewhere in Britain. This description may also be a result of mishearing the labiodental R as, when it is still a distinct phoneme in Cockney.

An unstressed final -ow may be pronounced. In broad Cockney, this can be lowered to. This is common to most traditional, Southern English dialects except for those in the West Country.

Regarding grammar, Cockney uses me instead of my, for example, "At's me book you got 'ere". (where 'ere' means 'there'). It cannot be used when "my" is emphasized; e.g., "At's my book you got 'ere". It also uses the term ain't, as well as double negatives, for example, "I didn't see nuffink".

By the 1980s and 1990s, most of the features mentioned above had partly spread into more general south-eastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds.

Perception
The Cockney accent has long been regarded as an indicator of low status. For example, in 1909 the Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the London County Council, stating that "the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire". Others defended the language variety: "The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old Kentish tongue [...] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech". Since then, the Cockney accent has been more accepted as an alternative form of the English language rather than a lesser one, though the low status mark remains. In the 1950s, the only accent to be heard on the BBC (except in entertainment programs such as The Sooty Show) was the RP of Standard English, whereas nowadays many different accents, including Cockney or accents heavily influenced by it, can be heard on the BBC. In a survey of 2,000 people conducted by Coolbrands in the autumn of 2008, Cockney was voted equal fourth coolest accent in Britain with 7% of the votes, while The Queen's English was considered the coolest, with 20% of the votes. Brummie was voted least popular, receiving just 2%. The Cockney accent often featured in films produced by Ealing Studios and was frequently portrayed as the typical British accent of the lower classes in movies by Walt Disney, though this was only so in London.

Spread
Studies have indicated that the heavy use of South East England accents on television and radio may have caused the spread of Cockney English since the 1960s. Cockney is more and more influential and some claim that in the future many features of the accent may become standard.

Scotland
Studies have indicated that working-class adolescents in areas such as Glasgow have begun to use certain aspects of Cockney and other Anglicisms in their speech. infiltrating the traditional Glasgow patter. For example, TH-fronting is commonly found, and typical Scottish features such as the postvocalic are reduced. Research suggests the use of English speech characteristics is likely to be a result of the influence of London and South East England accents featuring heavily on television, such as the popular BBC One soap opera EastEnders. However, such claims have been criticized.

England
Certain features of Cockney – Th-fronting, L-vocalisation, T-glottalisation, and the fronting of the GOAT and GOOSE vowels – have spread across the south-east of England and, to a lesser extent, to other areas of Britain. However, Clive Upton has noted that these features have occurred independently in some other dialects, such as TH-fronting in Yorkshire and L-vocalisation in parts of Scotland.

The term Estuary English has been used to describe London pronunciations slightly closer to RP than Cockney. The variety first came to public prominence in an article by David Rosewarne in the Times Educational Supplement in October 1984. Rosewarne argued that it may eventually replace Received Pronunciation in the south-east. The phonetician John C. Wells collected media references to Estuary English on a website. Writing in April 2013, Wells argued that research by Joanna Przedlacka "demolished the claim that EE was a single entity sweeping the southeast. Rather, we have various sound changes emanating from working-class London speech, each spreading independently".

Pearly tradition
The Pearly Kings and Queens are famous as an East End institution, but that perception is not wholly correct as they are found in other places across London, including Peckham and Penge in south London.

Notable Cockneys

 * Adele, musician, from Tottenham
 * Danny Baker, broadcaster, born in Deptford
 * Michael Barrymore, actor, comedian, and television presenter, born in Bermondsey
 * Alfie Bass, actor, from Bethnal Green
 * David Beckham, footballer, born in Leytonstone, raised in Chingford
 * Rob Beckett, comedian, from Lewisham
 * Roger Bisby, DIY expert, television presenter, and journalist, born in the City of London
 * Russell Brand, comedian, actor, television presenter, YouTuber, author, activist, from Grays
 * Jay Blades, furniture restorer and television presenter, from Hackney
 * Jamie Borthwick, actor, born in Barking
 * Billy Bragg, musician, from Barking
 * Eric Bristow, darts champion, born in Hackney, nicknamed the "Crafty Cockney"
 * James Buckley, actor and comedian known for playing Jay in The Inbetweeners, born in Croydon, raised in Dagenham
 * Jimmy Bullard, footballer and television personality, born in East Ham
 * Garry Bushell, journalist and rock musician, from Woolwich
 * Michael Caine, actor, born in Rotherhithe, raised in Southwark and Elephant and Castle
 * Harry Champion, music hall singer and comedian, born in Bethnal Green
 * Charlie Chaplin, comic actor, filmmaker, and composer, 16 April 1889, born in Walworth, raised in Kennington
 * Lorraine Chase, actress and model, from Deptford
 * Albert Chevalier, Victorian music hall singer, born in Royal Crescent
 * Rylan Clark, television personality, presenter, and singer, born in Stepney
 * Cockney Rejects, credited with creating a sub-genre of punk rock called Oi!, which gained its name from the use of Cockney dialect
 * Joe Cole, footballer, born in Paddington, raised in Somers Town
 * Gemma Collins, media personality and businesswoman, born in Romford
 * Roisin Conaty, comedian and actress, from Camden
 * Brian Conley, comedian, television presenter, and actor, born in Paddington
 * Henry Cooper, boxer, born in Lambeth
 * Tony Cottee, footballer and commentator, born in Forest Gate, raised in East Ham
 * Dave Courtney, author and former gangster, born in Bermondsey
 * Phil Daniels, actor from Islington
 * Dapper Laughs, comedian from Kingston upon Thames
 * Jack Dash, political activist, born in Southwark
 * Jim Davidson, comedian and television presenter, from Kidbrooke
 * Steve Davis, former snooker world champion, from Plumstead
 * Peter Dean, actor, born in Hoxton
 * Devlin, rapper, born in Bermondsey, raised in Dagenham
 * Chris Difford, musician from Greenwich
 * Louis Dunford, musician from Islington
 * Ian Dury, musician, born in Harrow, raised in Cranham
 * Dani Dyer, actress and television personality, from Newham
 * Danny Dyer, actor and TV presenter, from Custom House
 * Joey Essex, television personality, born in Southwark
 * Craig Fairbrass, actor, born in Mile End
 * Perry Fenwick, actor, from Canning Town
 * Johnny Fisher, boxer from Romford known as the Romford Bull
 * Micky Flanagan, comedian, born in Whitechapel, raised in Bethnal Green
 * Alan Ford, actor, born in Walworth
 * Jamie Foreman, actor, born in Bermondsey
 * "Mad" Frankie Fraser, gangster, born in Waterloo and raised in Elephant and Castle
 * Dean Gaffney, actor, born in Hammersmith
 * Bill Gardner, former football hooligan, born in Hornchurch
 * Bobby George, darts player and television presenter, born in Manor Park
 * Len Goodman, ballroom dancer and television personality, from Bethnal Green
 * Leslie Grantham, actor, born in Camberwell
 * Jimmy Greaves, footballer, born in Manor Park, raised in Hainault
 * Tony Hadley, lead singer of Spandau Ballet, from Islington
 * Steve Harley, musician, frontman of the band Cockney Rebel, born in Deptford
 * Simon Harris, DJ and record producer, born in Westminster
 * Steve Harris, musician, founder of Iron Maiden, from Leytonstone
 * Brian Harvey, musician and original lead singer of East 17, from Walthamstow
 * Barry Hearn, sporting events promoter, born in Dagenham
 * Eddie Hearn, sporting events promoter, born in Dagenham
 * Gordon Hill, also known as the Wealdstone Raider, internet meme, from Wealdstone
 * Alfred Hitchcock, film director, born in Leytonstone and raised there, Limehouse and Stepney.
 * Glenn Hoddle, former football player and England manager, born in Hayes
 * Chas Hodges, musician, member of the "Rockney" duo Chas & Dave, from Edmonton
 * Roy Hodgson, football manager and former player, born in Croydon
 * Bob Hoskins, actor, raised in Finsbury Park
 * Derek Jameson, journalist and broadcaster from Hackney
 * Steve Jones, rock guitarist with the Sex Pistols, singer, actor and radio DJ, from Shepherd's Bush
 * Vinnie Jones, actor and former footballer, from Watford
 * Harry Kane, footballer, born in Walthamstow, raised in Chingford
 * Gary Kemp, musician and actor, born in Smithfield
 * Martin Kemp, musician and actor, born in Islington
 * Ronnie Knight, former nightclub owner and gangster, born in Hoxton
 * Ronnie and Reggie Kray, identical twin brothers, gangsters, and business owners, born in Hoxton and lived in Bethnal Green
 * Frank Lampard, football manager and former player, born in Romford
 * Frank Lampard Sr, former footballer, born in East Ham
 * Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London and leader of the Greater London Council, born in Streatham
 * John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, punk rock singer with the Sex Pistols, born in Holloway
 * Kellie Maloney, boxing promoter, born in Peckham
 * Glen Matlock, rock and punk rock musician, from Paddington
 * Derek Martin, actor, born in Bow
 * Hoxton Tom McCourt, punk rock/Oi! musician, from Hoxton/Shoreditch
 * Steve McFadden, actor, known for playing Phil Mitchell on Eastenders, from Maida Vale
 * Lenny McLean, bare-knuckle/unlicensed boxer, actor, born in Hoxton
 * Paul Merson, footballer, manager and Sky Sports pundit, from Harlesden
 * Warren Mitchell, actor, known for playing Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part, from Stoke Newington
 * Charlie Mullins, businessman, founder of Pimlico Plumbers, born in St Pancras, raised in Elephant and Castle
 * Billy Murray, actor, born in Forest Gate, raised in Upton Park
 * Terry Naylor, former footballer, born in Islington
 * Mark Noble, former footballer, born in Canning Town, raised in Beckton
 * Chubby Oates, club comedian and actor, from Bermondsey
 * Des O'Connor, television personality and singer, born in Stepney
 * Ronnie O'Sullivan, snooker player from Chigwell
 * Cliff Parisi, actor and former stand-up comedian, born in Poplar
 * Joe Pasquale, comedian, actor, and television presenter, born in Grays
 * Dave Peacock, musician, member of the "Rockney" duo Chas & Dave, from Enfield
 * Jack Petchey, businessman and philanthropist, born in Plaistow
 * Martin Peters, former footballer and manager, born in Plaistow, raised in Dagenham
 * Claude Rains, the actor born in Camberwell in 1889, became famous after abandoning his heavy Cockney accent and developing a unique Mid-Atlantic accent described as "half American, half English and a little Cockney thrown in"
 * Harry Redknapp, former footballer and manager, born in Poplar
 * Mike Reid, actor and comedian, from Hackney
 * Shane Richie, actor and television presenter, born in Kensington
 * Linda Robson, actress and TV presenter from Islington
 * Jonathan Ross, television and radio presenter, born in St Pancras, raised in Leytonstone
 * Paul Ross, television and radio presenter, born in Romford, raised in Leytonstone
 * Roy Shaw, author, businessman, and former criminal, born in Stepney, lived in Bethnal Green and Waltham Abbey
 * Teddy Sheringham, footballer and manager, from Highams Park
 * Marina Sirtis, actress, born in Hackney
 * Thomas Skinner, businessman and television personality, from Romford
 * Arthur Smith, comedian, from Bermondsey
 * Stacey Solomon, singer and television personality, born in Dagenham
 * Terence Stamp, actor, born in Stepney
 * Nicola Stapleton, actress, born in Elephant and Castle, raised in Walworth
 * Tommy Steele, 1950s pop and film artist, born in Bermondsey
 * Mark Strong, actor, born in Clerkenwell
 * Alan Sugar, business magnate and television personality, from Hackney
 * Suggs, lead singer of Madness known for singing in his Cockney accent, from Camden
 * Joe Swash, actor and television presenter, from Islington
 * Reg Varney, actor and comedian, born in Canning Town
 * Terry Venables, former footballer and manager, from Dagenham
 * Sid Vicious, punk rock musician, born in Lewisham
 * Gregg Wallace, television presenter and former greengrocer, born in Peckham
 * Jessie Wallace, actress, born in Enfield
 * Shani Wallis, actress, known for her role as Nancy in the 1968 Musical Film "Oliver!", born in Tottenham
 * Danniella Westbrook, actress, born in Walthamstow
 * Barbara Windsor, actress, born in Shoreditch
 * Amy Winehouse, musician, born in Enfield, raised in Southgate
 * Anna Wing, actress, from Hackney
 * Ray Winstone, actor, born in Homerton, raised in Plaistow and Enfield
 * Jake Wood, actor and GEICO gecko voiceover artist, born in Westminster
 * Adam Woodyatt, actor from Walthamstow
 * Jess Wright, television personality, model, and singer, born in Tower Hamlets
 * Mark Wright, television personality and footballer, born in Buckhurst Hill

Use in films and media

 * Many of Ken Loach's early films were set in London. Loach has a reputation for using genuine dialect speakers in films:
 * 3 Clear Sundays
 * Up the Junction
 * Cathy Come Home
 * Poor Cow (the title being a Cockney expression for "poor woman")
 * Alfie
 * The Mighty Boosh. The Hitcher, played by Noel Fielding, is notoriously Cockney.
 * Oliver!. Fagin and his working orphans, particularly The Artful Dodger and Nancy, speak in Cockney
 * Sparrows Can't Sing. The film had to be subtitled when released in the United States due to audience comprehension difficulties.
 * Bronco Bullfrog. The film's tagline was "Cockney youth - with English subtitles".
 * The Long Good Friday. The DVD of this film has an extra feature that explains the rhyming slang used.
 * Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw.
 * My Fair Lady, a musical based on Bernard Shaw's play.
 * Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, a West End musical comedy (with Cockney speech in the title) about Cockney low-life characters.
 * In A Clockwork Orange, the fictional language used of Nadsat had some influence from Cockney.
 * Mary Poppins (and featuring Dick Van Dyke's infamous approximation of a Cockney accent)
 * Mary Poppins Returns (with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays Jack, stating "If they [the audience] didn't like Dick's accent, they'll be furious with mine")
 * Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street — Mrs. Nellie Lovett and Tobias Ragg have Cockney accents.
 * Passport to Pimlico. A newspaper headline in the film refers to the Pimlico residents as "crushed Cockneys".
 * Cockneys vs Zombies
 * The Lord of the Rings (film series) The orcs speak in cockney accents
 * My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Spring Breakdown. Ragamuffin, portrayed by Jason Michas, has a Cockney accent.
 * Pinocchio, The Coachman, voiced by Charles Judels, has a Cockney accent.
 * The Gentlemen
 * Football Factory
 * Green Street Elite
 * Legend. The two main characters, Ronnie and Reggie Kray plus a certain number of other characters have a cockney accent.
 * Peaky Blinders. The characters Alfie Solomons and Billie Kimber speak with a cockney accent.
 * The Getaway and Blood & Truth are video games released by Sony that center around cockney gangster culture.

title: Cockney


text:
Convention on the Future of Europe

The Convention on the Future of the European Union, also known as the European Convention, was a body established by the European Council in December 2001 as a result of the Laeken Declaration. Inspired by the Philadelphia Convention that led to the adoption of the United States federal Constitution, its purpose was to produce a draft constitution for the European Union for the Council to finalise and adopt. The Convention finished its work in July 2003 with their Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. See History of the European Constitution for developments after this point.

Laeken Declaration
In December 2001, when the European Council met in Laeken, a fresh declaration was adopted committing the EU to greater democracy, transparency and efficiency, and setting out the process by which a constitution could be arrived at. This was to be achieved by a convention, which was intended to comprise the main 'stakeholders', in order to examine questions about the future direction of the EU. It was to produce a "final document", which soon became the draft constitution, to be handed over to the Intergovernmental Conference, scheduled for 2004, which would finalise a new treaty.

Work
The European Convention was established with 102 members. Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was appointed Chairman, former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene were appointed Vice-Chairmen. Its members were drawn from the national parliaments of member states and candidate countries, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and representatives of heads of state and government. The Convention met for the first time in February 2002, and met thereafter in plenary session once or twice per month. It deliberated in public in the European Parliament building in Brussels.

The 13 member præsidium of the convention consisted of the chairman and vice-chairmen along with:

Government Representatives: Ana de Palacio y del Valle-Lersundi (Spain - PP); Henning Christophersen (Denmark - Venstre); Georgios Katiforis (Greece - PASOK).

European Commission Representatives: Michel Barnier - UMP; António Vitorino - PS

European Parliament Representatives: Klaus Hänsch - SPD; Íñigo Méndez de Vigo y Montojo - PP

National Parliament Representatives: Gisela Stuart, Labour Party UK; John Bruton, FG Ireland

Invitee: Alojz Lojze Peterle - NSi (Slovenia)

title: Convention on the Future of Europe