text:
November Uprising

The November Uprising (1830–31), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution, was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when young Polish officers from the military academy of the Army of Congress Poland revolted, led by Lieutenant Piotr Wysocki. Large segments of the peoples of Lithuania, Belarus, and Right-bank Ukraine soon joined the uprising. Although the insurgents achieved local successes, a numerically superior Imperial Russian Army under Ivan Paskevich eventually crushed the uprising. The Russian Emperor Nicholas I issued the Organic Statute in 1832, according to which, henceforth Russian-occupied Poland would lose its autonomy and become an integral part of the Russian Empire. Warsaw became little more than a military garrison, and its university closed.

Background
After the Partitions of Poland by Austria, Germany, and Russia, Poland ceased to exist as an independent political entity at the end of 1795. However, the Napoleonic Wars and Polish participation in the wars against Russia and Austria resulted in the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. The Congress of Vienna brought that state's existence to an end in 1815, and essentially solidified the long-term division of Poland between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Austrian Empire annexed territories in the south, Prussia took control over the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Poznań in the west and Russia assumed hegemony over the semi-autonomous so-called Congress Kingdom.

Initially, the Russian-formed Congress Kingdom enjoyed a relatively large amount of internal autonomy and was only indirectly subject to imperial control. It had its own constitution. The province, united with Russia through a personal union with the Tsar as King of Poland, could elect its own parliament (the Sejm) and government. The kingdom had its own courts, army and treasury. Over time, the freedoms granted to the Kingdom were gradually taken back, and the constitution was progressively ignored by the Russian authorities. Alexander I of Russia never formally crowned himself as King of Poland. Instead, in 1815, he appointed his brother, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich as de facto viceroy and disregarded the constitution.

Soon after the Congress of Vienna resolutions had been signed, Russia ceased to respect them. In 1819, Alexander I abandoned liberty of the press in the Congress Kingdom and introduced censorship. The Russian secret police, commanded by Nikolay Nikolayevich Novosiltsev, started to infiltrate and persecute Polish clandestine organizations, and in 1821, the Tsar ordered the abolition of Freemasonry. As a result, after 1825, sessions of the Polish Sejm were conducted in secret. Nicholas I of Russia formally crowned himself as King of Poland on 24 May 1829 in Warsaw.

Despite numerous protests by various Polish politicians who actively supported the "personal union", Grand Duke Constantine had no intention of respecting the Polish constitution, one of the most progressive in Europe at that time. He abolished Polish social and patriotic organizations and the liberal opposition of the Kaliszanie faction, and replaced Poles with Russians in important administrative positions. Although married to a Pole (Joanna Grudzińska), he was commonly considered an enemy of the Polish nation. Also, his command over the Polish Army led to serious conflicts within the officer corps. The frictions led to various conspiracies throughout the country, most notably within the army.

Outbreak

The armed struggle began when a group of conspirators led by a young cadet from the Warsaw officers' school, Piotr Wysocki, took arms from their garrison on 29 November 1830 and attacked the Belweder Palace, the main seat of the Grand Duke. The final spark that ignited Warsaw was a Russian plan to use the Polish Army to suppress France's July Revolution and the Belgian Revolution, in clear violation of the Polish constitution.

The rebels managed to enter the Belweder, but Grand Duke Constantine had escaped in women's clothing. The rebels then turned to the main city arsenal and captured it after a brief struggle. The following day, armed Polish civilians forced the Russian troops to withdraw north of Warsaw. That incident is sometimes called the Warsaw Uprising or the November Night. (Noc listopadowa).

Uprising
Taken by surprise with the rapidly unfolding of events during the night of 29 November 1830, the local Polish government (administrative council) assembled immediately to take control and to decide on a course of action. Unpopular ministers were removed and men like Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the historian Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and General Józef Chłopicki took their places. Loyalists led by Prince Czartoryski initially tried to negotiate with Grand Duke Constantine and to settle matters peacefully. However, when Czartoryski told the council that Constantine was ready to forgive the offenders and that the matter would be amicably settled, Maurycy Mochnacki and other radicals angrily objected and demanded a national uprising. Fearing an immediate break with Russia, the government agreed to let Constantine depart with his troops.

Mochnacki did not trust the newly-constituted ministry and set out to replace it with the Patriotic Club, organized by him. At a large public demonstration on 3 December in Warsaw, he denounced the negotiations between the government and Grand Duke Constantine, who was encamped outside the city. Mochnacki advocated a military campaign in Lithuania to spare the country from the devastation of war and to preserve the local food supply. The meeting adopted a number of demands to be communicated to the administrative council, including the establishment of a revolutionary government and an immediate attack upon the forces of Constantine. The Polish army, with all but two of its generals, Wincenty Krasiński and Zygmunt Kurnatowski, now joined the uprising.

The remaining four ministers of the pre-revolutionary cabinet left the administrative council, and their places were taken by Mochnacki and three of his associates from the Patriotic Club, including Joachim Lelewel. The new body was known as the "provisional government". To legalize its actions the provisional government ordered the convocation of the Sejm and on 5 December 1830 proclaimed General Chłopicki as "dictator of the uprising".

Chłopicki considered the uprising an act of madness but bowed to pressure and consented to take command temporarily in the hope that it would be unnecessary to take the field. An able and highly-decorated soldier, he had retired from the army because of the chicanery of Constantine. He overestimated the power of Russia and underestimated the strength and the fervor of the Polish revolutionary movement. By temperament and conviction, he was opposed to a war with Russia and did not believe in a successful outcome. He accepted the dictatorship essentially to maintain internal peace and to save the constitution.

Believing that Tsar Nicholas was unaware of his brother's actions and that the uprising could be ended if the Russian authorities accepted the constitution, Chłopicki's first move was to send Prince Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki to Saint Petersburg to negotiate. Chłopicki refrained from strengthening the Polish army and refused to initiate armed hostilities by expelling Russian forces from Lithuania. However, the radicals in Warsaw pressed for war and the complete liberation of Poland. On 13 December, the Sejm pronounced the National Uprising against Russia, and on 7 January 1831, Prince Drucki-Lubecki returned from Russia with no concessions. The Tsar demanded the complete and unconditional surrender of Poland and announced that the "Poles should surrender to the grace of their Emperor". His plans foiled, Chłopicki resigned the following day.

Power in Poland was now in the hands of the radicals united in the Towarzystwo Patriotyczne ('Patriotic Society'), directed by Joachim Lelewel. On 25 January 1831, the Sejm passed the Act of Dethronization of Nicholas I, which ended the Polish-Russian personal union and was equivalent to a declaration of war on Russia. The proclamation declared that "the Polish nation is an independent people and has a right to offer the Polish crown to him whom it may consider worthy, from whom it might with certainty expect faith to his oath and wholehearted respect to the sworn guarantees of civic freedom."

On 29 January, the national government of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was established, and Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł was chosen as successor to Chłopicki, who was persuaded to accept active command of the army.

Russo-Polish War
It was too late to move the theatre of hostilities to Lithuania. On 4 February 1831, a 115,000-strong Russian army under Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch crossed the Polish borders. The force included the Finnish Guards' Rifle Battalion. The first major battle took place on 14 February 1831, close to the village of Stoczek near Łuków. In the Battle of Stoczek, Polish cavalry under Brigadier Józef Dwernicki defeated the Russian division of Teodor Geismar. However, the victory had mostly psychological value and could not stop the Russian advance towards Warsaw. The subsequent Battles of Dobre, Wawer and Białołęka were inconclusive.

The Polish forces then assembled on the right bank of the Vistula to defend the capital. On 25 February, a Polish contingent of approximately 40,000 met a Russian force of 60,000 east of Warsaw at the Battle of Olszynka Grochowska. Both armies withdrew after almost two days of heavy fighting and with considerable losses on both sides. Over 7,000 Poles fell on that field, and the number of killed in the Russian army was slightly larger. Diebitsch was forced to retreat to Siedlce and Warsaw was saved.

Chłopicki, whose soldierly qualities reasserted themselves by military activity, was wounded in action and his place taken by General Jan Skrzynecki, who, like his predecessor, had won distinction under Napoleon for personal courage. Disliked by Grand Duke Constantine, he had retired from service. He shared with Chłopicki the conviction that war with Russia was futile but with the opening of hostilities took command of a corps and fought creditably at Grochov. When the weak and indecisive Michał Radziwiłł surrendered the dictatorship, Skrzynecki was chosen to succeed him. He endeavored to end the war by negotiations with the Russian field commanders and hoped for benign foreign intervention.

Sympathetic echoes of the Polish aspirations reverberated throughout Europe. Enthusiastic meetings had been held in Paris under Lafayette's chairmanship, and money for the Polish cause was collected in the United States. The governments of France and Britain, however, did not share the feelings of some of their people. King Louis-Philippe of France thought mainly of securing for himself recognition on the part of all European governments, and Lord Palmerston was intent on maintaining friendly relations with Russia.

Britain regarded with alarm the reawakening of the French national spirit and did not wish to weaken Russia, "as Europe might soon again require her services in the cause of order, and to prevent Poland, whom it regarded as a national ally of France, from becoming a French province of the Vistula". Austria and Prussia adopted a position of benevolent neutrality towards Russia. They closed the Polish frontiers and prevented the transportation of munitions of war or supplies of any kind.

Under those circumstances, the war with Russia began to take on a somber and disquieting aspect. The Poles fought desperately and attempts were made to rouse Volhynia, Podolia, Samogitia and Lithuania. With the exception of the Lithuanian uprising in which the youthful Countess Emilia Plater and several other women distinguished themselves, the guerilla warfare carried on in the frontier provinces was of minor importance and served only to give Russia an opportunity to crush local risings. Notorious was the slaughter of the inhabitants of the small town of Ashmiany in Belarus. Meanwhile, new Russian forces under Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia arrived in Poland but met with many defeats. Constant warfare, however, and bloody battles such as that at Ostroleka in which 8,000 Poles died, considerably depleted the Polish forces. Mistakes on the part of the commanders, constant changes and numerous resignations, and the inactivity of the commanders, who continued to hope for foreign intervention, added to the feeling of despair.

The more radical elements severely criticized the government not only for its inactivity but also for its lack of land reform and its failure to recognize the peasants' rights to the soil they tilled, but the Sejm, fearing that the governments of Europe might regard the war with Russia as social revolution, procrastinated and haggled over concessions. The initial enthusiasm of the peasantry waned, and the ineptitude of the government became more apparent.

In the meantime, the Russian forces, commanded after the death of Diebitsch by General Paskevich, were moving to encircle Warsaw. Skrzynecki failed to prevent the Russian forces from joining, and the Sejm responded to popular clamor for his deposition by appointing General Dembinski to temporary command. The atmosphere was highly charged. Severe rioting took place and the government became completely disorganized. Count Jan Krukowiecki was made President of the Ruling Council. He had little faith in the success of the military campaign but believed that when passions had subsided he could end the war on what seemed to him advantageous terms.

Despite a desperate defence by General Józef Sowiński, Warsaw's suburb of Wola fell to Paskevich's forces on 6 September. The next day saw the second line of the capital's defensive works attacked by the Russians. During the night of 7 September Krukowiecki capitulated, although the city still held out. He was immediately deposed by the Polish government and replaced by Bonawentura Niemojowski. The army and the government withdrew to the Modlin fortress, on the Vistula, subsequently renamed Novo-Georgievsk by the Russians, and then to Płock. New plans had been adopted when the news arrived that the Polish crack corps under Ramorino, unable to join the main army, had laid down its arms after crossing the Austrian frontier into Galicia. It became evident that the war could be carried on no longer.

On 5 October 1831, the remainder of the Polish army of over 20,000 men crossed the Prussian frontier and laid down their arms at Brodnica in preference to submission to Russia. Only one man, a colonel by the name of Stryjenski, gained the peculiar distinction of giving himself up to Russia.

Following the example of Dąbrowski a generation before, General Bem endeavored to reorganize the Polish soldiers in Prussia and Galicia into Legions and lead them to France, but the Prussian government frustrated his plans. The immigrants left Prussia in bands of between fifty and a hundred, and their journey through the various German principalities was greeted with enthusiasm by the local populations. Even German sovereigns such as the King of Saxony, the Princess of Weimar and the Duke of Gotha shared in the general demonstration of sympathy. It was only upon the very insistent demands of Russia that the Polish committees all over Germany were be closed.

Aftermath

Adam Czartoryski remarked that the war with Russia, precipitated by the rising of young patriots in November 1830, came either too early or too late. Puzyrewski argued that the rising should have been initiated in 1828, when Russia was experiencing reversals in Turkey and was least able to spare substantial forces for war with Poland (Lewinski-Corwin, 1917). Military critics, such as the Russian pundit General Puzyrevsky, maintained that in spite of the inequality of resources of the two countries, Poland had had every chance of holding her own against Russia if the campaign had been managed skillfully.

Russia sent over 180,000 well-trained men against Poland's 70,000, 30% of whom were fresh recruits entering the service at the opening of hostilities. "In view of this, one would think that not only was the result of the struggle undoubted, but its course should have been a triumphant march for the infinitely stronger party. Instead, the war lasted eight months, with often doubtful success. At times the balance seemed to tip decidedly to the side of the weaker adversary who dealt not only blows but even ventured daring offensives."

It had long been argued, as Edward Lewinski-Corwin in 1917, that "anarchy and a lack of concord" among people were the causes of Poland's national downfall. Thus, when the rising finally began, the insurgents demanded absolute power for their leaders and tolerated no criticism for fear that discord would again prove ruinous for all. However, the men chosen to lead, because of their past achievements, proved unable to perform the great task expected of them. Moreover, many apparently had little faith that their joint effort could succeed.

Militarily, Poland might have succeeded if the line of battle had been established in Lithuania, wrote Lewinski-Corwin, and if the Russian forces, arriving in Poland progressively, had been dealt with separately and decisively, one unit after another.

After the end of the November Uprising, Polish women wore black ribands and jewellery as a symbol of mourning for their lost homeland. Such images can be seen in the first scenes of the movie Pan Tadeusz, filmed by Andrzej Wajda in 1999, based on the Polish national epic. A 1937 German film, Ride to Freedom was partly shot on location in Poland.

The Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, who had championed the cause of the Poles in The Pleasures of Hope, was affected by the news of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians in 1831 as if it had been the deepest of personal calamities. "Poland preys on my heart night and day", he wrote in one of his letters, and his sympathy found a practical expression in the foundation in London of the Association of the Friends of Poland. The November Uprising was also supported in the United States. Edgar Allan Poe was sympathetic to the Polish cause and volunteered to fight the Russians during the November Uprising (Bobr-Tylingo 1982, 145).

Despite Poland's deep connection to Catholicism and the fact that many participants in the rebellion were Catholic, the rebellion was condemned by the Church. Pope Gregory XVI issued an encyclical letter in the following year on the subject of civil disobedience. Cum Primum stated:

"When the first report of the calamities, which so seriously devastated your flourishing kingdom reached our ears, We learned simultaneously that they had been caused by some fabricators of deceit and lies. Under the pretext of religion, and revolting against the legitimate authority of the princes, they filled their fatherland, which they loosed from due obedience to authority, with mourning. We shed abundant tears at the feet of God, grieving over the harsh evil with which some of our flock was afflicted. Afterward We humbly prayed that God would enable your provinces, agitated by so many and so serious dissensions, to be restored to peace and to the rule of legitimate authority."

In Popular culture
Frédéric Chopin's "Fantasy in F minor Op. 49" was completed and published in 1841, and many performers regard this work as an “Ode to the Fallen,” in which Chopin is reminiscing about family and friends killed or missing as a result of the 1831 rebellion.

Aleksander Chodźko composed the song "Herby" about this uprising. The remix created by Dawid Hallmann gained popularity.

title: November Uprising


text:
Silesian Uprisings

The Silesian Uprisings (Powstania śląskie; Aufstände in Oberschlesien, Polenaufstände) were a series of three uprisings from August 1919 to July 1921 in Upper Silesia, which was part of the Weimar Republic at the time. Ethnic Polish and Polish-Silesian insurrectionists, seeking to have the area transferred to the newly founded Polish Republic, fought German police and paramilitary forces which sought to keep the area part of the new German state founded after World War I. Following the conflict, the area was divided between the two countries. The rebellions have subsequently been commemorated in modern Poland as an example of Polish nationalism. Despite central government involvement in the conflict, Polish historiography renders the events as uprisings reflecting the will of ordinary Upper Silesians rather than a war.

Background
Much of Silesia had belonged to the Crown of Polish Kingdom in medieval times, but it passed to the Kings of Bohemia under the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century. Following the death of Louis II Jagiellon of Bohemia and Hungary in the Battle of Mohács, Silesia became part of the Habsburg monarchy when Ferdinand I of Austria was elected as the King of Bohemia. Frederick the Great of Prussia seized Silesia from Maria Theresa of Austria in 1742 in the War of Austrian Succession, after which it became a part of Prussia and subsequently, in 1871, the German Empire. Although the province of Silesia overall had by then become Germanized through the Ostsiedlung and later the Kulturkampf, Poles constituted a majority in Upper Silesia.

Mineral resources
Upper Silesia was bountiful in mineral resources and heavy industry, with mines, iron and steel mills. The Silesian mines were responsible for almost a quarter of Germany's annual output of coal, of its zinc and 34 percent of its lead. After World War I, during the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, the German government claimed that, without Upper Silesia, it would not be able to fulfill its obligations with regard to reparations to the Allies.

Demographics in the early 20th century
The area in Upper Silesia east of the Oder was dominated by ethnic Poles, most of whom were working class. Most spoke a dialect of Polish, a few felt they were a Slavic group of their own called Silesians. In contrast, most of the local middle and upper classes were ethnic Germans, including the landowners, businessmen, factory owners, local government, police, and Catholic clergy. The population of Upper Silesia was overwhelmingly Catholic with 92% of the people being Roman Catholic. Most of the 8% of Upper Silesians who were Protestant tended to be Germans, but the linguistic and ethnic divide between Catholic Germans and Poles tended to subsume their shared religion.

In the German census of 1900, 65% of the population of the eastern part of Silesia was recorded as Polish-speaking, which decreased to 57% in 1910. This was partly a result of forced Germanization, but was also due to the creation of a bilingual category, which reduced the number of Polish speakers. American Paul Weber drew up a language map that showed that in 1910, in most of the Upper Silesian districts east of the Oder river, Polish-speaking Silesians constituted a majority, forming more than 70% of the population there.

While still under German control, various Poles identified as Silesians would write, publish, distribute pamphlets, newsletters and other written material, promoting the idea of a Polish-Silesian Identity. Included among the statements within these texts was adherence to the Roman Catholic church. One such publisher was Ignacy Bulla (later changed to Buła in celebration), who would spread information related to these principles at risk to his own life and freedom. He is widely credited with having inspired the Polish-Silesian patriotic feelings that inspired the uprisings. His contribution to bringing Silesia back into the Roman Catholic Church was the subject of at least one dissertation presented by a Seminary student.

The First World War
As a frontier area, Upper Silesia was placed under martial law in August 1914 and remained so for rest of the war. The German military administrators distrusted the Poles, taking the viewpoint that as Slavs, they were naturally sympathetic towards the Russians, and governed Upper Silesia in a very high-handed and harsh manner. The First World War was a period in Upper Silesia of collapsing living standards as wages failed to keep up with inflation; almost everyone suffered from shortages of food and working hours were increased in the mines and factories. The nationalist climate produced by the Spirit of 1914, with its sense that all Germans should rally behind the Kaiser in the war effort, led members of Germany's Polish minority to feel more excluded and marginalized than before 1914. The subject of an independent Polish state was first raised by the Germans and Austrians who in 1916 created a puppet Polish state on the territory of Congress Poland, the lands of which were taken from the Russian Empire in 1915. The way in which the Allies promoted the promise of an independent Poland after the war, most notably in the 14 Points issued by the American president Woodrow Wilson led to hopes within the Polish community within the Reich that Poland might be reborn again after an Allied victory. During the First World War, about 56, 000 men from Upper Silesia were killed fighting in the war with the heaviest losses being taken at the Battle of Somme in 1916.

Versailles plebiscite
During the Paris peace conference in 1919, a strong division emerged between the British prime minister David Lloyd George who wanted Upper Silesia to remain within Germany vs. the French Premier Georges Clemenceau who supported the Polish claim to Upper Silesia. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, had ordered a plebiscite in Upper Silesia, to determine whether the territory should be a part of Germany or Poland. The plebiscite was to be held within two years of the Treaty in the whole of Upper Silesia, although the Polish government had only requested it to be held in the areas east of the Oder river, which had a significant number of Polish speakers. Thus, the plebiscite took place in all of Upper Silesia, including the predominantly areas in the east and the predominantly German-speaking areas west of the river. The Upper Silesian plebiscite was to be conducted on 20 March 1921. In the meantime, the German administration and police remained in place. The requirement for a referendum in Upper Silesia in the Treaty of Versailles was a compromise to resolve the Anglo-French dispute at the Paris peace conference. Around the German city of Posen turned the Polish city of Poznań, an uprising by the Polish majority in December 1918 had left about 2,900 people dead, and it was felt preferable to have a plebiscite in Upper Silesia and rather a resort to arms as being the case in Poznań.

Meanwhile, propaganda and strong arm tactics by both sides led to increasing unrest. The German authorities warned that those voting for Poland might forfeit their jobs and pensions. Pro-Polish activists argued that, under Polish rule, Silesian Poles would no longer be discriminated against. Poland also promised to honour their German state social benefits, such as the old age pensions. However, many German Army veterans joined the Freikorps (Free Corps), a paramilitary organization whose troops fought any pro-Polish activists. The pro-Poland side employed the Polish Military Organisation (POW) – a secret military organisation and predecessor of Polish intelligence – to fight back with the same force.

The majority of the men serving in the para-military forces on both sides were veterans of the First World War and were experienced soldiers, accustomed to fighting and killing. In addition, most of the men serving on the German side had served in the Freikorps ("Free Corps"), units of volunteers raised by the government to fight against the possibility of a Communist revolution. Most of the men serving on the Polish side had previously served in the German military during World War One.

Eventually, the deteriorating situation resulted in Upper Silesian Uprisings conducted by Poles in 1919 and 1920.

The right to vote was granted to all aged 20 and older who either had been born in or lived in the plebiscite area. A result was the mass migration of both Germans and Poles. The German newcomers accounted for 179,910, while Polish newcomers numbered over 10,000. Without these "new voters", the pro-German vote would have had a majority of 58,336 instead of the final 228,246. The plebiscite took place as arranged on 20 March. A total of 707,605 votes were cast for Germany and 479,359 for Poland.

The Third Silesian Uprising conducted by Poles broke out in 1921 supported by thousands of troops from outside the region mobilized by the Polish government.. The League of Nations was asked to settle the dispute before it led to even more bloodshed. In 1922, a six-week debate decided that Upper Silesia should be divided. This was accepted by both countries, and the majority of Upper Silesians. Approximately 736,000 Poles and 260,000 Germans thus found themselves now in Polish (Upper) Silesia, and 532,000 Poles and 637,000 Germans remained in German (Upper) Silesia.

First Uprising (1919)
On 15 August 1919, German border guards (Grenzschutz) massacred ten Silesian civilians in a labour dispute at the Mysłowice mine (Myslowitzer Grube). The massacre sparked protests from the Silesian Polish miners, including a general strike of about 140,000 workers, and caused the First Silesian uprising against German control of Upper Silesia. The miners demanded the local government and police become ethnically mixed to include both Germans and Poles.

About 21,000 Germans soldiers of the Weimar Republic's Provisional National Army (Vorläufige Reichsheer), with about 40,000 troops held in reserve, quickly put down the uprising. The army's reaction was harsh, with 2,500 Poles either hanged or executed by firing squad for their parts in the protest. Some 9,000 ethnic Poles sought refuge in the Second Polish Republic, taking along their family members. This came to an end when Allied forces were brought in to restore order, and the refugees were allowed to return later that year.

Second Uprising (1920)
The Second Silesian Uprising (Drugie powstanie śląskie) was the second of the three uprisings.

In February 1920, an Allied Plebiscite Commission was sent to Upper Silesia. It was composed of representatives of the Allied forces, mostly from France, with smaller contingents from United Kingdom and Italy. Soon, however, it became apparent that the Allied forces were too few to maintain order. Further, the commission was torn apart by lack of consensus: the British and Italians favored the Germans, while the French supported the Poles. The British blamed this situation on the France's intent on limiting Germany's industrial might. Those forces failed to prevent continuing unrest.

In August 1920, a German newspaper in Upper Silesia printed what later turned out to be a false announcement of the fall of Warsaw to the Red Army in the Polish–Soviet War. Pro-German activists spontaneously organised a march to celebrate what they assumed would be the end of independent Poland. The volatile situation quickly degenerated into violence as pro-German demonstrators began looting Polish shops; the violence continued even after it had become clear that Warsaw had not fallen.

On 19 August, the violence eventually led to a Polish uprising which quickly resulted within the occupation of government offices in the districts of Kattowitz (Katowice), Pless (Pszczyna) and Beuthen (Bytom). Between 20 and 25 August, the rebellion spread to Königshütte (Chorzów), Tarnowitz (Tarnowskie Góry), Rybnik, Lublinitz (Lubliniec) and Gross Strehlitz (Strzelce Opolskie). The Allied Commission declared its intention to restore order, but internal differences kept anything from being done; British representatives held the French responsible for the easy spread of the uprising through the eastern region.

The fighting was slowly brought to an end in September, by a combination of allied military operations and negotiations between the parties. The Poles obtained the disbanding of the Sipo police and the creation of a new police (Abstimmungspolizei) for the area, which would be 50% Polish. Poles were also admitted to the local administration. The Polish Military Organisation in Upper Silesia was supposed to be disbanded, though in practice this did not happen.

Third Uprising (1921)

The Third Silesian Uprising (Trzecie powstanie śląskie) was the last, largest and longest of the three uprisings. It included the Battle of Annaberg and began in the aftermath of a plebiscite that yielded mixed results. The British and French governments could not reach a consensus on the interpretation of the plebiscite. The primary problem was the disposition of the "Industrial Triangle" east of the Oder river, whose triangle ends were marked by the cities of Beuthen (Bytom), Gleiwitz (Gliwice) and Kattowitz (Katowice). The French wanted to weaken Germany, and thus supported Polish claims on the territory; the British and the Italians disagreed, in part because the German government declared that a loss of the Silesian industries would render Germany incapable of paying the demanded war reparations. Devising a frontier that was mutually acceptable to both sides proved to be impossible because in many of the contested districts of Upper Silesia, the people in the urban areas tended to vote for staying in Germany while the rural areas voted for going to Poland. Thus, any division would mean that a number of people would end up on the "wrong" side of the frontier.

In late April 1921, rumours spread that the British position would prevail, prompting the local Polish activists to organise an uprising. The insurrection was to begin in early in May. Having learned from previous failures, the Third War was carefully planned and organized under the leadership of Wojciech Korfanty. It started on 2–3 May 1921, with the destruction of German rail bridges (see "Wawelberg Group") in order to slow down the movement of German reinforcements. A particular concern was to prevent the recurrence of violent acts against Polish civilians by members of the Freikorps, demobilised Imperial German army units that had refused to disband. These paramilitary units existed throughout Germany and usually acted independently from both the provisional official army and the leadership of the fledgling German Republic. However, the Reich government subsidized these groups and thus had much leverage over them. The most violent and the most aggressive of the Freikorps units sent into Upper Silesia was the Oberland corps from Bavaria, which seemed to have been the unit most responsible for the atrocities on the German side.

The Inter-Allied Commission, in which General Henri Le Rond was the most influential individual, waited rather long prior to taking any steps to end the violence. The French troops generally favored the insurrection, while within some cases, British and Italian contingents actively cooperated with Germans. UK Prime Minister Lloyd George's speech in the British Parliament, strongly disapproving of the insurrection, aroused the hopes of some Germans, but the Entente appeared to have no troops ready and available for dispatch. The only action the 'Inter-Allied Military Control Commission' and the French government made was demanding immediate prohibition of the recruiting of German volunteers from outside Upper Silesia, and this was promptly made public.

After the initial success of the insurgents in taking over a large portion of Upper Silesia, the German Grenzschutz several times resisted the attacks of Wojciech Korfanty's Polish troops, in some cases with the cooperation of British and Italian troops. An attempt on the part of the British troops to take steps against the Polish forces was prevented by General Jules Gratier, the French commander-in-chief of the Allied troops. Eventually, the insurgents kept most of territory they had won, including the local industrial district. They proved that they could mobilize large amounts of local support, while the German forces based outside Silesia were barred from taking an active part in the conflict.

The fighting in Upper Silesia was characterized by numerous atrocities on both sides with rape and mutilation being integral and routine methods of war. The men of both sides tended to conflate "national honor" and their sense of masculinity with their perceived ability to "protect" the women of their respective communities from the other side. For both sides, rape served as a way to symbolically "unman" the men of the other side by proving that they were incapable of defending their women and as a way of asserting their power over the women of the other side, hence the frequency of rape. Complaints about rape by both sides started to become common after the 1919 uprising, but were most common after the 1921 uprising. The British historian Tim Wilson wrote about sexual violence by the German forces: "Eighteen such incidents can be easily verified. Many of these were multiple rapes; in other cases of mass rape the number of victims were not even given". In September 1922, the Polish government submitted a detailed dossier about the rape of Polish Upper Silesian women to the League of Nations. Wilson also wrote that rape of women believed to be supporting the German cause by "Polish militants" was "relatively common".

Mutilation by both sides were a common tactic as a way to show dominance over the other side. Both sides liked to mutilate the faces of their victims to the point of obliviating the face as a way to show their dominance by robbing the victim of not only their lives, but even their identities that they held in life. Reports from the British officers state that the "corpses of both men and women have been mutilated". The most common means of mutilation was by smashing in the face with rifle butts into a bloody mash. Likewise, castration of prisoners were a common tactic, again as a way to show dominance and to literally "unman" the other side. Violence against the genitals was the second common form of mutilation of faces. One British Army officer wrote in 1921 "It is revolting the number of murders that took place, generally at night and in the woods, which no amount of patrolling could stop. For instance, a one-armed German ex-soldier was taken out and murdered by the Poles one night, and the same night the French reported several murders by the Germans near their post in the woods close by". Wilson wrote that these tactics were not "the triumph of innate barbarism in the absence of social constraint", but rather were tactics quite consciously chosen to express contempt and dominance. Much of the grotesque violence was due to the fluidity of identities in Upper Silesia where many people saw themselves as neither German nor Polish, but rather Silesian, thus leading to nationalists to take extreme measures to polarize society into diametrically opposed blocs. In May-June 1921, at least 1, 760 people were killed in the fighting in Upper Silesia.

The support of France for Poland proved to be crucial. On 23 May 1921, the Freikorps defeated the Poles at the Battle of Annaberg, which in turn led to a French ultimatum demanding that the Reich cease at once its support of the German para-military forces. The next day, much to the shock of the Freikorps who were expecting to follow up their victory by keeping all of Upper Silesia for Germany, the German president Frederich Ebert bowed to the ultimatum and banned the Freikorps.

Twelve days after the outbreak of the insurrection, Korfanty offered to take his troops behind a line of demarcation (the "Korfanty Line"), conditional on the released territory not being re-occupied by German forces, but by Allied troops. It was not, however, until 1 July that the British troops arrived in Upper Silesia and began to advance in company with those of the other Allies towards the former frontier. Simultaneously, with this advance, the Inter-Allied Commission pronounced a general amnesty for the illegal actions committed during the insurrection, with the exception of acts of revenge and cruelty. The German Grenzschutz was withdrawn and disbanded.

Aftermath

Arrangements between the Germans and Poles in Upper Silesia and appeals issued by both sides, as well as the dispatch of six battalions of Allied troops and the disbandment of the local guards, contributed markedly to the pacification of the district.

The Allied Supreme Council was, however, still unable to come to an agreement on the partition of the Upper Silesian territory on the lines of the plebiscite; the British and the French could only agree on one solution: turning the question over to the Council of the League of Nations.

The greatest excitement was caused all over Germany and in the German part of Upper Silesia by the intimation that the Council of the League of Nations had handed over the matter for closer investigation to a commission; this remained composed of four representatives, one each from Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and China. The commission collected its own data and issued a decision, stressing the principle of self-determination. On the basis of the reports of this commission and those of its experts, in October 1921 the Council awarded the greater part of the Upper Silesian industrial district to Poland.

The Polish Government had decided to give Silesia considerable autonomy with the Silesian Parliament as a constituency and the Silesian Voivodeship Council as the executive body.

Poland obtained almost exactly half of the 1,950,000 inhabitants, viz., 965,000, but not quite a third of the territory, i.e., only 3,214 of 10,951 square kilometres (1,241 of 4,228 mi2). This, however, constituted the more valuable portion by far of the district. Of 61 coal mines 49$1/2$ fell to Poland, the Prussian state losing 3 mines out of 4. Of a coal output of 31,750,000 tonnes, 24,600,000 tonnes fell to Poland. All iron mines with an output of 61,000 tonnes fell to Poland. Of 37 furnaces, 22 went to Poland, 15 to Germany. Of a pig-iron output of 570,000 tonnes, 170,000 tonnes remained German, and 400,000 tonnes became Polish. Of 16 zinc and lead mines, which produced 233,000 tons in 1920, only 4, with an output of 44,000 tonnes, remained German. The main towns of Königshütte (Chorzów), Kattowitz (Katowice), and Tarnowitz (Tarnowskie Góry) were given to Poland. In the Silesian territory that Poland regained, the Germans were a significant minority. Similarly, a significant minority of Poles (about half a million Poles) was still left on the German side, most of them in Oppeln (Opole).

In order to mitigate the hardships likely to arise from the partition of a district that was essentially an economic unit, it was decided, on the recommendation of the Council of the League of Nations, that German and Polish delegates, under a chairman appointed by the Council of the League, should draw up economic regulations as well as a statute for the protection of minorities, which were to have a duration of fifteen years. Special measures were threatened in the event that either of the two states should refuse to participate in the drawing up of such regulations, or to accept them subsequently.

In May 1922, the League of Nations issued the German-Polish Accord on East Silesia, also known as the Geneva Accord, intended to preserve the economic unity of the area and to guarantee minority rights. The League also set up a tribunal to arbitrate disputes. Furthermore, in response to a German complaint about the importance of Silesian coal for the German industry, Germany was given the right to import 500,000 tons per year at discounted prices. In 1925, three years following the development of the agreement and approaching the termination of the coal agreement, Germany refused to import the appropriate quantities of coal, attempting to use the coal issue as a lever against Poland, trying to impose a revision of the whole Polish-German frontier. Polish-German relations worsened, as Germany also began a tariff war with Poland, but the Polish government would not yield on the border issue.

In 1921, Adolf Hitler who was the best known member of the Munich-based National Socialist German Workers' Party, but not its leader, came into conflict with the party's founder and leader, Anton Drexler. In July 1921, the dispute came was resolved with Hitler seizing control of the party and deposing Drexler as a party leader. At the meeting in Munich that decided in favor of Hitler, it was the veterans of the Upper Silesia campaign newly returned to Bavaria, described by one contemporary as the "Upper Silesian adventurers, flashing medals, badges and swastikas", who provided the decisive votes which enabled the triumph of Hitler over Drexler. A number of the Freikorps veterans of the Upper Silesia war such as Fritz Schmedes went on to serve in the Nazi Party. Schmedes, who played a leading role as a Freikorps officer in the "vicious fighting" in Upper Silesia in 1921, became a SS-Brigadeführer in World War Two who committed one of the worse massacres ever in Greek history when his men massacred the entire village of Distomo on 10 June 1944.

Under the Sanajca' regime, Michał Grażyński, was appointed as the voivode of Polish Upper Silesia in 1927. Graźyński became involved in a lengthy feud with Korfanty and went out of his way to downplay and minimize Korfanty's role in the uprisings. By contrast, Graźyński vastly inflated his own role in the uprising of 1921 as he described himself as the "chief insurgent" and the "sole liberator" of Upper Silesia, an attempt to rewrite history in his favor that made him unpopular in Upper Silesia. The fact that Grażyński was from Galicia led him being viewed as an outsider in Upper Silesia. During his time as the voivode which lasted until 1939, Grażyński held gigantic rallies to honor the anniversary of the uprising of 1921 every May 3rd that were meant as much to honor himself as the anniversary of the uprising. Grażyński's rallies were boycotted by Korfanty and his supporters who complained that he was taking all of the credit for the uprisings for himself. Jan Kustos, the leader of the Upper Silesia Defense League that wanted autonomy for Upper Silesia in Poland criticised the especially grandiose and expensive rally Grażyński organsed on 3rd May 1931 to mark the 10th anniversary of the uprising as a colossal waste of money, charging that it was unjust that millions of zlotys have been spent on the rally when so ordinary people were suffering from the Great Depression.

In September 1939, Polish Upper Silesia was annexed to Germany, and during the German occupation, there were a violent policy of Germanizing the "recovered lands". During the German occupation, the Polish veterans of the Upper Silesia uprisings were as much possible hunted down and killed as enemies of the Reich. For this reason alone, the Polish veterans tended to be overrepresented in the Polish resistance. In 1945, all of Upper Silesia was annexed to Poland. During the Communist era, the government in Warsaw took an ultra-nationalist line to rebut the charge that it was under Soviet domination, and placed great emphasis on the "recovered western territories" as the centerpiece of its claim for legitimacy. Władysław Gomułka gave a speech at Góra Świętej Anny on 1 May 1946 to honor the Poles killed fighting in the battle in 1921 and presented a line of continuity between the uprising of 1921 and his government. This was especially the case during the period when Gomułka was in power between 1956-1970 as he restored the tradition of celebrating the anniversary of the third uprising every May 3rd and often took part in the celebrations.

The last veteran of the Silesian Uprisings, Wilhelm Meisel, died in 2009 at the age of 105. In 2021, a dispute emerged over plans to put up a monument in Opole honoring those who fought for Poland. The Social-Cultural Society of Germans in Opole Silesia, representing the last of the volksdeutche (ethnic German) minority in Silesia, called for a monument to honor both sides. The mayor of Opole stated he wanted to "commemorate the heroes of the Silesian uprising who fought for Poland and not those who shot at them."

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

title: Silesian Uprisings


text:
Abel (disambiguation)

Abel was a son of Adam and Eve in the Bible. According to the Bible, he was the first person to die, murdered by his brother Cain.

Abel may also refer to:

People and fictional characters

 * Abel (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
 * Abel (surname)
 * Niels Henrik Abel, a Norwegian mathematician

Places

 * Mount Abel (British Columbia), Canada
 * Abel Lake, New Zealand
 * Abel, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community
 * Mount Abel, former name of Cerro Noroeste, California, United States
 * Abel Nunatak, a nunatak in Antarctica
 * Abel (אבעל), Yiddish name of the municipality of Obeliai, Lithuania
 * Abel (crater), an impact crater on the Moon
 * Abel (אבל), meaning "stream" in Hebrew, the name of several biblical sites in modern-day Israel
 * Abel-beth-maachah, in Galilee
 * Abel-meholah, in the Jordan Valley

Science and technology

 * Abel (hominid), the name given to the only specimen of Australopithecus bahrelghazali
 * Abel Prize, an annual prize in mathematics
 * Advanced Boolean Expression Language, hardware description language for developing programmable logic devices
 * Abel, a piece of change ringing software

Music

 * Abel (band), an American rock band
 * ABEL, an album by Abel Pintos
 * Abel (EP), EP by Japanese rock band Unsraw
 * "Abel", a single by The National from Alligator
 * Abel Tesfaye, Canadian singer known professionally as the Weeknd

Other uses

 * Tropical Storm Abel, from the 1996 Pacific typhoon season
 * Abel (1986 film), a Dutch drama film
 * Abel (2010 film), a Mexican comedy film
 * Abel Stadium, a sports stadium for Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska
 * Abel, Inc., a Japan-based Dreamcast video game developer and publisher, founded in 1997

title: Abel (disambiguation)


text:
The Merchant's Tale

"The Merchant's Tale" (The Marchantes Tale) is one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In it Chaucer subtly mocks antifeminist literature like that of Theophrastus ("Theofraste"). The tale also shows the influence of Boccaccio (Decameron: 7th day, 9th tale ), Deschamps' Le Miroir de Mariage, Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (translated into English by Chaucer), Andreas Capellanus, Statius, and Cato. The tale is found in Persia in the Bahar Danush, in which the husband climbs a date tree instead of a pear tree. It could have arrived in Europe through the One Thousand and One Nights, or perhaps the version in book VI of the Masnavi by Rumi. Though several of the tales are sexually explicit by modern standards, this one is especially so. Larry Benson remarks:

"The central episode of the Merchant's Tale is like a fabliau, though of a very unusual sort: It is cast in the high style, and some of the scenes (the marriage feast, for example) are among Chaucer's most elaborate displays of rhetorical art."

Many characters in this Tale have cratylic names: Januarie, the main character, is named in conjunction with his equally seasonal wife May, representing their individual characters: Januarie is "hoor and oolde", sharing the bare and unfruitful characteristics of his title month, whereas his youthful and "fresshe" wife represents the spring seasons. This has particular relevance when considering the parallel between this tale, and the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve. Januarie's brothers are named Placebo and Justinus: the former a sycophant, whose name in Latin means 'I will please', and the latter a fairer man ('the just one') with no individual motive.

The main character, Januarie (or January), a senex amans, is a 60-year-old knight from the town of Pavia, in Lombardy.

Summary of the tale
Januarie decides that he wants to marry, predominately for the purpose of lawful recreational sex and to produce an heir, and he consults his two brothers, Placebo (meaning 'I shall please'), who while encouraging him offers no personal opinion, and Justinus (meaning 'the just one'), who opposes marriage from his own experience. Januarie, a vain man, hears only the flattery of his sycophantic friend Placebo.

Januarie marries May, a young woman not yet 20 years old, largely out of lust and under the guise of religious acceptability. He chooses her seemingly spontaneously after telling all his friends to go and look for a wife for him. It is unknown why May accepts Januarie; however, it is safe to assume that she did it for social betterment and possibly some kind of inheritance, Januarie being a rich man.

A squire in Januarie's court, called Damyan, falls in love with May and writes a letter to her confessing his desires: the goddess Venus "hurt him with hire brond" at the wedding party – meaning she set his heart on fire with love. This could simply be a personification of Damyan falling in love, but since Pluto and Proserpina do physically intervene later, Damyan's love could be seen as literally induced by Venus. May reciprocates his attraction and plots to have sex with him. Januarie creates a beautiful walled garden, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden as well as courtly love poetry, where he and May do "things that were not done in bed". Immediately after this Januarie is struck blind, although it is not explained why, though Chaucer's suggestion is that his vanity, lust and general immorality have rendered him blind in body and in moral judgment. This disability, however, spiritually serves Januarie well. His language and character, formerly lewd and repulsive, becomes beautiful and gentle love poetry, and his love for May could be seen to evolve to more than just lust and desire. On 8 June, Januarie and May enter a garden that he has built for her. Meanwhile, Damyan has sneaked into the garden using a key that he has made from a mould May has given him and waits for May in a pear tree, symbolising, it has been said, the forbidden fruit from Genesis.

May, implying that she is pregnant and craving a pear, requests one from the tree and Januarie, old and blind, and therefore unable to reach, is persuaded to stoop and allow May to climb onto his back herself. Here Chaucer evokes enormous pathos for the "hoor and oolde" Januarie, soon to be cuckolded by a manipulative female figure, a clear reversal from the horrific and repulsive figure painted by the narrator in the opening presentation of the man. In the tree, May is promptly greeted by her young lover Damyan, and they begin to have sex, described by the Merchant in a particularly lewd and bold fashion: "And sodeynly anon this Damyan / Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng." Indeed, the narrator does apologise for this explicit description, addressing the pilgrims saying: "Ladyes, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth; I kan nat glose, I am a rude man –"

Two gods are, at this moment, watching the adultery: husband and wife Pluto and Proserpina. They begin a passionate argument about the scene, in which Pluto condemns women's morality. He decides that he will grant Januarie his sight back, but Proserpina will grant May the ability to talk her way out of the situation, saying, "I swere / That I shal yeven hire suffisant answere / And all wommen after, for hir sake; / That, though they shulle hemself excuse, / And bere hem doun that wolden hem excuse, / For lak of answere noon of hem shall dien." Indeed, Proserpina's promise that "alle wommen after" should be able to excuse themselves easily from their treachery can be seen as a distinctly misogynistic comment from the narrator, or perhaps even from Chaucer himself. These presentations of these two characters and their quarrel crystallises much of the tale, namely the argument between man and woman and the religious confusion in the tale, which invokes both the classical gods and the Christian one. Indeed the presence of particular gods has individual relevance when related to this tale: as the classical myth tells, Proserpina, a young and much loved goddess, was stolen and held captive by Pluto, the King of the Underworld, who forced her to marry him.

Januarie regains his sight – via Pluto's intervention – just in time to see his wife and Damyan engaged in intercourse, but May successfully convinces him that his eyesight is deceiving him because it has only just been restored and that she is only "struggling with a man" because she was told this would get Januarie's sight back.

The tale ends rather unexpectedly: the fooled Januarie and May continue to live happily. However, Chaucer does not end the tale entirely happily: a darker suggestion is there, as May tells Januarie that he may be mistaken on many more occasions ("Ther may ful many a sighte yow bigile"), indicating that, perhaps, her infidelity will not stop there. Conforming with the wider symbolism in the tale of spring triumphing over winter (May over January), the conclusion supports the unimportance of Damyan (whose name has no seasonal context): he only has two lines of direct speech in the tale, and at the end is utterly forgotten, even by the Merchant.

Fabliau debate
One question that splits critics is whether the Merchant's tale is a fabliau. Typically a description for a tale of carnal lust and frivolous bed-hopping, some would argue that especially the latter half of the tale, where Damyan and May have sex in the tree with the blind Januarie at the foot of the tree, represents fabliau. Derek Pearsall, for example, is in favour of this view. Some critics, such as Maurice Hussey, feel that Chaucer offers a great deal more sophistication and philosophical insight to put this on a level above fabliau.

Sources and variants
Similar tales are Boccaccio's Story of Lydia and Pyrrhus and The Simpleton Husband from One Thousand and One Nights. Book IV of The Masnavi of Rumi contains another pear tree story.

Adaptations
On 27 February 2017, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama premiered a new, full-length operatic adaptation of Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale created by writer Stephen Plaice and composer Julian Philips, entitled The Tale of Januarie. Plaice created his libretto in Middle English not only adapting the original Chaucer text for an operatic setting, but also drawing on other works by Chaucer and creating entirely original Middle English lyrics. Philips and Plaice structured this adaptation across all four seasons of the calendar year, extending Chaucer's original Tale into Autumn thereby following Januarie's tale on beyond the grave. The Tale of Januarie is published by Peters Edition.

In Pasolini's film The Canterbury Tales, this story is adapted with Josephine Chaplin as May and Hugh Griffith as Sir January.

title: The Merchant's Tale


text:
Talk:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969 movie)

well this movie was really good for an older movie :) I really enjoyed seeing this
 * "good for an older movie"? This movie is awesome... 81.232.72.53 12:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


text:
Torre del Greco

Torre del Greco ("Greek man's Tower") is a comune in the Metropolitan City of Naples in Italy, with a population of c. 85,000. The locals are sometimes called Corallini because of the once plentiful coral in the nearby sea, and because the city has been a major producer of coral jewellery and cameo brooches since the seventeenth century.

Ancient period

Tracing the history of Torre del Greco is difficult given the almost complete lack of historical documentary sources. Based on archaeological evidence, in Roman times Torre del Greco was probably a suburb of Herculaneum and, like elsewhere on the Bay of Naples such as at Oplontis and Stabiae, many patricians' villas would have lined the coast. In 79 AD the eruption of Vesuvius buried the area under volcanic ash.

The nearby Roman Villa Sora was a large and sumptuous residence with terraces down to the beach and overlooking the sea from its 150m-long frontage, dating from the 1st c. BC, whose excavated remains can be seen today. It was built on multiple levels like the Villa of the Papyri and on the beach below are the remains of a Roman bath complex (Terme Ginnasi) and quays would have been on the shore. It was embellished in the early imperial period and was being renovated in 79 AD probably after the 62 AD earthquake as shown by the piles of lime in some rooms, unfinished precious opus sectile floors made of imported marble and a famous graffito which recorded the cost of the work.

Many exquisite statues and frescos were found here firstly in the Bourbon excavations of the 1700s which are now in the museums such as Naples and the Palermo. Its size and quality implies it belonged to an important figure, possibly of the Imperial family judging by the spectacular frescoes which during the excavations of 1989 the area inspector considered closer to the Neronian Domus Aurea than to Pompeian houses.

It was rediscovered in 1974 by the GAV Archaeological Group. Further excavations in 1989–92 exposed the areas east and west of the apsidal hall, including service corridors, reception rooms, finely decorated bedrooms and the remains visible today. It was found that the top floor collapsed following the eruption while the bottom floor was buried by the ash. The middle floor can be visited today.

The remains of another maritime villa nearby at Terma-Ginnasio have been found which was terraced down to the shore and also had panoramic views of the Bay, similar to Villa A at Oplontis.

The so-called Villa Breglia was another maritime villa lying under the railway station and was partially excavated in 1934.

Post-Roman period
Later two villages are known to have been established in the area, Sora and Calastro. The Byzantine general Belisarius moved their inhabitants to Naples in 535. Around 700, it was also known as Turris Octava, the Latin for The Tower of Eight [sides] or The Eighth Tower, probably referring to a coastal watch tower. The current name appears for the first time in 1015; according to tradition, it stems from a Greek hermit who took up residence in the tower, or from the cultivation of a particular vine from Greece.

Middle ages
Torre del Greco was part of the royal estates of the Kingdom of Naples, until King Alfonso V of Aragon ceded it to the Carafa family.

In 1631 Torre del Greco was again damaged by an eruption of Vesuvius. Its citizens bought back their rights in 1699, after paying 106,000 ducats to their landlord, the Marquis of Monforte, and thenceforth the city flourished as a maritime trading and fishing port. The tradition of coral crafting dates from this time.

The historical centre of Torre del Greco was buried under a 10 m layer of lava in 1794.

19th and early 20th century
At the time of the French rule of Joachim Murat, Torre del Greco, with 18,000 inhabitants, was the third largest mainland city in the Kingdom of Naples after Naples and Foggia.

Starting in the 16th century, wealthy families and even Italian nobility built elaborate summer palaces on the outskirts of the town. Among the most notable of these is the Palazzo Materazzo, renovated in the 1970s as a dance school, but later taken over by squatters after the 1980 Irpinia earthquake destroyed the homes of many of the poorer residents. In the 19th century, and continuing into the early 20th century, Torre del Greco was a popular summer resort for wealthy Italians.

In its heyday Torre del Greco was renowned for its cafés and eateries, particularly the "Gran Caffè Palumbo", a large Art Nouveau café with an extensive outdoor pavilion known for its gelato, pastries, food and coffee. The comedian Totò was among those who made Torre del Greco their annual summer retreat. The reason for Torre del Greco's popularity as a resort town was its fine beaches and the rural setting of lush farmlands and vineyards, as well as its close proximity to Vesuvius. As the town nearest to the volcano, Torre del Greco was the main starting point for tourists wishing to scale the mountain. This was facilitated by the Vesuvius Funicular, which took tourists to the crater from the town.

During World War II, the city was used as an ammunition depot by the German army, and consequently suffered heavy bombing by Allied forces.

Climate
Torre del Greco experiences a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa).

Economy
The city is the headquarters of Banca di Credito Popolare di Torre del Greco.

Main sights

 * Roman archaeological remains, including the so-called Villa Sora (1st century AD), probably a property of the Flavians.
 * The monastery of the Zoccolanti, with a cloister housing 28 frescoed panels depicting the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.
 * The parish church of Santa Croce, whose baroque belltower was buried by lava in 1794.
 * The 17th-century church of San Michele.
 * Villa delle Ginestre, where the poet Giacomo Leopardi sojourned.
 * The Museum of Coral.

Cameos and coral jewellery
Diving for coral has taken place in the Mediterranean Sea ever since Roman times, and in the 15th century Torre del Greco became known for its coral diving and harvesting of red coral. However, it was not until the 17th century that the first cameos were produced, and not until 1815 that a unique manufacturing contract was granted to the town by the King of Naples for a period of ten years.

At present there are several hundred companies and several thousands of people employed in the manufacture of coral and shell cameos. Coral is now mainly imported from Asia, since areas in the Mediterranean are increasingly becoming protected. The total industry is estimated to have a turnover of around US$225 million.

Noted persons from Torre del Greco

 * Enzo Aprea, Journalist and writer
 * Salvatore Accardo, violinist and conductor
 * Francesco Albanese, tenor
 * Ruggero Bonghi, philologist and politician
 * Rita Bottiglieri, ex pentathlete
 * Ruggero Cappuccio, author and director
 * Vincenzo Ciaravolo, sailor, recipient of the Gold Medal of Military Valor
 * Valentina Bianco, actress
 * Salvatore Commesso, cyclist
 * Ermanno Corsi, journalist and writer
 * Ettore Capriolo, Italian translator of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
 * Gino D'Acampo, chef
 * Nicolas De Corsi, painter
 * Giovanni Di Cristo, Italy national team judoka
 * Enrico de Nicola, first President of Italy
 * Maria Di Donna, singer of the 99 Posse
 * Mauro Esposito, footballer for A.S. Roma and the Italy national football team
 * Aniello Formisano, Italian senator
 * Nicola Lagnena, footballer
 * Mimmo Liguoro, journalist
 * Ernesto Mahieux, actor
 * Adolfo Margiotta, comedian
 * Giovanni Noto, engraver
 * Carlo Parlati, sculptor
 * Valeria Parrella, writer
 * Tobia Polese, painter
 * Massimo Rastelli, footballer
 * Arturo Scotto, member of the Italian Parliament
 * Gioacchino Vitelli, painter
 * Francesco Vitiello, actor
 * Gennaro Vitiello, director and stage actor
 * Nicola Antonio Zingarelli, composer
 * Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence
 * Luigi Mari, writer

Twin towns
Torre del Greco is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇹 Montesarchio (Italy)

title: Torre del Greco


text:
The Voyage Home

The Voyage Home may refer to:

 * Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a 1986 American science fiction film directed by Leonard Nimoy
 * The Voyage Home (2004 film), an Italian historical drama film directed by Claudio Bondì
 * "The Voyage Home" (The Outer Limits), a television episode
 * The Voyage Home, a 2004 novel by Jane Rogers

title: The Voyage Home


text:
User talk:Marx~enwiki

Hi. A couple of things - you can't upload word files - any content will need to be copy and pasted in. The copy of yours or someone else's CV/Resume is not appropriate content for Wikipedia. Thanks. Secretlondon 13:24, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
 * also you called this "U.S.S.R. & United Russian Communist Party" when it blatantly is not. Secretlondon 13:27, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)

Hello. Someone claiming to be you requested your user page be deleted. I shall assume this was a legitimate request. However, if it wasn't please let me know at user talk:Angela and I can undelete the page. Angela. 20:05, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Marx. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Marx~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 01:22, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Marx~enwiki


text:
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a radio drama series which aired in the USA from 1939 to 1950, it ran for 374 episodes, with many of the later episodes considered lost media. The series was based on the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Some of the surviving episode recordings may be found online, in various audio quality condition.

For most of the show's run, the program starred Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. Other actors played Holmes and Watson in later seasons.

Production
From the outset of the show, the series was billed in different listings under various titles including Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and other titles. The most popularly remembered title is The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. On occasion, the title of a radio episode differs from that of its original story – for example, the radio adaption of "The Adventure of the Red Circle" is entitled "Mrs. Warren's Lodger".

From 1939 until 1943, episodes were adapted or written by Edith Meiser who had written the earlier series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which aired from 1930 to 1935. Meiser left the show after disagreements with a sponsor over the amount of violence in the program. It is also reported that Meiser left the show to focus on other projects. From 1943 onward, most episodes were written by the team of Denis Green and Anthony Boucher with some early episodes written by Green and Leslie Charteris. Edith Meiser returned to write for the show for its seventh season. Max Ehrlich and Howard Merrill wrote the episodes of season 8. Denis Green returned as a writer for the last season.

Originally, the show starred Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson. Together, they starred in 220 episodes which aired weekly on Mondays from 8:30 to 9:00 pm. Basil Rathbone's last episode as the famous detective was "The Singular Affair of the Baconian Cipher". He was eager to separate himself from the show to avoid being typecast in the role. Tom Conway replaced him in the starring role, though Nigel Bruce got top billing. The new series lasted 39 episodes, and Bruce and Conway then left the series. From then until 1950 the series continued with various actors playing the two principal parts.

The show first aired on the Blue Network but later moved to the Mutual Broadcasting System. The show moved to Mutual in 1943 at the start of its fourth season. The series was originally broadcast from Hollywood. During World War II, the show was also broadcast overseas through the Armed Forces Radio Service. The program aired on ABC instead of Mutual for its sixth and ninth seasons.

Many episodes were recorded in front of a live audience.

Cast

 * Sherlock Holmes:
 * Basil Rathbone (1939–1946)
 * Tom Conway (1947)
 * John Stanley (1947–1949)
 * Ben Wright (The Singular Affair of the Ancient Egyptian Curse in 1947, as stand-in for Tom Conway, 1949–1950 as a regular)

 * Dr. Watson:
 * Nigel Bruce (1939–1947)
 * Joseph Kearns (The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes in 1946, stand-in for Nigel Bruce)
 * Alfred Shirley (1947–1948)
 * Ian Martin (1948)
 * Wendell Holmes (credited as "George Spelvin") (1948–1949)
 * Eric Snowden (The Terrifying Cats in 1946, as a stand-in for Nigel Bruce, 1949–1950 as a regular)

There is only a limited amount of information available about additional cast members, since complete cast lists are available only for a handful of episodes. In multiple episodes, Mary Gordon played Mrs. Hudson, a role she also played in the 1939–1946 Sherlock Holmes film series featuring Rathbone and Bruce. Professor Moriarty was played by multiple actors in the radio series, including Joseph Kearns (who also played Watson) and Lou Merrill.

Frederick Worlock played Inspector Lestrade in at least three known episodes. Worlock also played different roles in multiple films in the 1939–1946 film series, such as the role of Geoffrey Musgrave in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death. Lestrade was played by Bernard Lenrow in the seventh season and Horace Braham in the eighth season. Rex Evans played Mycroft Holmes in at least two known episodes. Evans played an assassin in the Sherlock Holmes film Pursuit to Algiers.

In each episode, the announcer would be presented as arriving at the home of Dr. Watson, then retired, who would share a story about Holmes and his adventures. The announcer for the first three seasons of the show was Knox Manning. In various episodes of the fourth season, the announcers were Owen Babbe, Marx Hartman, and Bob Campbell. Harry Bartell became the announcer for the fifth season. The announcer for the sixth season was Joseph Bell. Bell had previously been the announcer for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Cy Harrice took over the role for the seventh and eighth seasons. Herb Allen was the announcer for the ninth season.

Actors who performed in multiple roles on the show include Verna Felton, Paula Winslowe, Carl Harbord (who also played Inspector Hopkins in the Sherlock Holmes film Dressed to Kill), Herbert Rawlinson, Paul Frees, Theodore von Eltz, and June Foray.

Sponsors
The show's announcer acted as the spokesman for the sponsor. Grove's Bromo Quinine sponsored the show for the first three seasons. Petri Wine was the sponsor for the fourth and fifth seasons. Petri Wine stopped sponsoring the show after the end of the fifth season. While Rathbone left the show at the same time, the reason Petri ceased their sponsorship was unconnected to Rathbone's departure according to one source, which states that the decision was made because it was more affordable for Petri to sponsor the radio series The Casebook of Gregory Hood instead.

The sponsor for the series was Kreml Hair Tonic for the show's sixth season, and the Trimount Clothing Co. for the seventh season. Trimount renewed their sponsorship for the eighth season. Petri Wine returned as the sponsor for the ninth season. By May 1950, it was confirmed that Petri did not plan to renew their sponsorship if the series continued.

Episodes
Season 1 (October 2, 1939 – March 11, 1940; 24 episodes) started with an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" and ended with an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Retired Colourman". The last episode of the season was originally intended to be an adaptation of "The Final Problem". It is not known why the change was made, but it may be because "The Final Problem" had already been used on radio several times. It was announced on the penultimate show that "The Final Problem" would be the last episode; in the final episode, Watson said he had changed his mind about which story he was going to tell.

Season 2 (September 29, 1940 – March 9, 1941; 24 episodes) started with an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Empty House". The last episode was an adaptation of "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place". The season included a six-episode serial adapted from The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Season 3 (5 October 1941 – March 1, 1942; 22 episodes) started with an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" and ended with an episode titled "The Giant Rat of Sumatra". An episode also titled "The Giant Rat of Sumatra", inspired by a reference in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", had previously aired in 1932 in the second season of the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Season 4 (May 7, 1943 – May 28, 1945; 109 episodes) started with a dramatization of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches". The last episode of the season is titled "Dance of Death". According to the Pittsburgh Press, Nigel Bruce "astounded sound engineers" by imitating the sound of a seagull required for the episode "Death in Cornwall", which aired on February 7, 1944. Some episodes in this season and the following two seasons were novelized by H. Paul Jeffers in his 2005 book The Forgotten Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Season 5 (September 3, 1945 – May 27, 1946; 39 episodes) started with an episode titled "The Case of the Limping Ghost", based on an incident in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man". The last episode of the season was "The Singular Affair of the Baconian Cipher", suggested by an incident in The Sign of Four. This was the last season with Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes. Rathbone and Bruce also appeared on the CBS radio program Request Performance in November 1945, and swapped roles as Holmes and Watson in a short sketch performance on the program. Some of the episodes in this season were novelized by Ken Greenwald in his book The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1989).

Season 6 (October 12, 1946 – July 7, 1947; 39 episodes) started with the episode "The Adventure of the Stuttering Ghost", suggested by an incident in "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor". The season ended with "The Adventure of the Iron Maiden". This was the last season with Nigel Bruce playing Watson.

Season 7 (September 28, 1947 – June 20, 1948; 39 episodes) started with "The Case of the Dog Who Changed His Mind" and ended with an adaptation of "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger".

Season 8 (September 12, 1948 – June 6, 1949; 39 episodes) started with an episode titled "The Case of the Unwelcome Ambassador" and ended with an episode titled "The Adventure of the Red Death".

Season 9 (September 21, 1949 – June 14, 1950; 39 episodes) started with an episode with an unknown title. The second episode, which aired on September 28, 1949, was titled "The Eloquent Corpse". Many of this season's episodes, including the last two episodes, have unknown titles. The last episode with a known title is "Command Performance", which aired on May 31, 1950.

Scripts of some missing episodes have been published by Purview Press. 'Sherlock Holmes:The Lost Radio Scripts' (ISBN 978-1617094729), 'Sherlock Holmes: More Lost Radio Scripts' (ISBN 978-1617095351) edited by Ian Dickerson.

title: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


text:
Glycemic index

The glycemic (glycaemic) index (GI; ) is a number from 0 to 100 assigned to a food, with pure glucose arbitrarily given the value of 100, which represents the relative rise in the blood glucose level two hours after consuming that food. The GI of a specific food depends primarily on the quantity and type of carbohydrate it contains, but is also affected by the amount of entrapment of the carbohydrate molecules within the food, the fat and protein content of the food, the amount of organic acids (or their salts) in the food, and whether it is cooked and, if so, how it is cooked. GI tables, which list many types of foods and their GIs, are available. A food is considered to have a low GI if it is 55 or less; high GI if 70 or more; and mid-range GI if 56 to 69.

The term was introduced in 1981 by David J. Jenkins and co-workers. It is useful for quantifying the relative rapidity with which the body breaks down carbohydrates. It takes into account only the available carbohydrate (total carbohydrate minus fiber) in a food. Glycemic index does not predict an individual's glycemic response to a food, but can be used as a tool to assess the insulin response burden of a food, averaged across a studied population. Individual responses vary greatly.

The glycemic index is usually applied in the context of the quantity of the food and the amount of carbohydrate in the food that is actually consumed. A related measure, the glycemic load (GL), factors this in by multiplying the glycemic index of the food in question by the carbohydrate content of the actual serving.

Measurement
The glycemic index of a food is defined as the incremental area under the two-hour blood glucose response curve (AUC) following a 12-hour fast and ingestion of a food with a certain quantity of available carbohydrate (usually 50 g). The AUC of the test food is divided by the AUC of the standard (either glucose or white bread, giving two different definitions) and multiplied by 100. The average GI value is calculated from data collected in 10 human subjects. Both the standard and test food must contain an equal amount of available carbohydrate. The result gives a relative ranking for each tested food.

Foods with carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion and release glucose rapidly into the bloodstream tend to have a high GI; foods with carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, tend to have a low GI.

A lower glycemic index suggests slower rates of digestion and absorption of the foods' carbohydrates and can also indicate greater extraction from the liver and periphery of the products of carbohydrate digestion.

The current validated methods use glucose as the reference food, giving it a glycemic index value of 100 by definition. This has the advantages of being universal and producing maximum GI values of approximately 100. White bread can also be used as a reference food, giving a different set of GI values (if white bread = 100, then glucose ≈ 140). For people whose staple carbohydrate source is white bread, this has the advantage of conveying directly whether replacement of the dietary staple with a different food would result in faster or slower blood glucose response. A disadvantage with using white bread as a reference food is that it is not a well-defined reference: there is no universal standard for the carbohydrate content of white bread.

Accuracy
Glycemic index charts often give only one value per food, but variations are possible due to:
 * Ripeness – riper fruits contain more sugars, increasing GI
 * Cooking methods – the more cooked, or overcooked, a food, the more its cellular structure is broken, with a tendency for it to digest quickly and raise blood glucose more
 * Processing – e.g., flour has a higher GI than the whole grain from which it is ground as grinding breaks the grain's protective layers and the length of storage. Potatoes are a notable example, ranging from moderate to very high GI even within the same variety.

More importantly, the glycemic response is different from one person to another, and also in the same person from day to day, depending on blood glucose levels, insulin resistance, and other factors.

The glycemic index only indicates the impact on glucose level two hours after eating the food. People with diabetes have elevated levels for four hours or longer after eating certain foods.

Grouping
GI values can be interpreted intuitively as percentages on an absolute scale and are commonly interpreted as follows:

A low-GI food will cause blood glucose levels to increase more slowly and steadily, which leads to lower postprandial (after meal) blood glucose readings. A high-GI food causes a more rapid rise in blood glucose level and is suitable for energy recovery after exercise or for a person experiencing hypoglycemia.

The glycemic effect of foods depends on various factors, such as the type of starch (amylose versus amylopectin), physical entrapment of the starch molecules within the food, fat and protein content of the food and organic acids or their salts in the meal. The presence of fat or soluble dietary fiber can slow the gastric emptying rate, thus lowering the GI. In general, coarse, grainy breads with higher amounts of fiber have a lower GI value than white breads.

Many modern diets rely on the glycemic index, including the South Beach Diet, Transitions by Market America and NutriSystem Nourish Diet. However, others have pointed out that foods generally considered to be unhealthy can have a low glycemic index, for instance, chocolate cake (GI 38), ice cream (37), or pure fructose (19), whereas foods like potatoes and rice have GIs around 100 but are commonly eaten in some countries with low rates of diabetes.

Weight control
Dietary replacement of saturated fats by carbohydrates with a low glycemic index may be beneficial for weight control, whereas substitution with refined, high glycemic index carbohydrates is not. However, a 2023 Cochrane review did not find that adoption of low glycemic index (or load) diets by people who are overweight or obese leads to more weight loss (and better fat control) than use of diets involving higher glycemic index/load or other strategies.

In clinical management of obesity, diets based on a low glycemic index/load appear to provide better glycemic and inflammatory control than ones based on a high glycemic index/load (and therefore could potentially be more effective in preventing obesity-related diseases). In overweight and obese children, adoption of low glycemic index/load diets may not lead to weight loss but might potentially provide other benefits.

Compared to quantity of carbohydrate
Depending on quantities, the number of grams of carbohydrate in a food can have a bigger impact on blood sugar levels than the glycemic index does. Consuming less dietary energy, losing weight, and carbohydrate counting can be better for lowering the blood sugar level. Carbohydrates impact glucose levels most profoundly, and two foods with the same carbohydrate content are, in general, comparable in their effects on blood sugar. A food with a low glycemic index can have a high carbohydrate content or vice versa; this can be accounted for with the glycemic load (GL) where $GL = GI% × grams of carbohydrate per serving$.

Compared to insulin index
While the glycemic index of foods is used as a guide to the rise in blood glucose that should follow meals containing those foods, actual increases in blood glucose show considerable variability from person to person, even after consumption of identical meals. This is in part because glycemic index does not take into account other factors besides glycemic response, such as insulin response, which is measured by the insulin index and can be more appropriate in representing the effects from some food contents other than carbohydrates. In particular, since it is based on the area under the curve of the glucose response over time from ingesting a subject food, the shape of the curve has no bearing on the corresponding GI value. The glucose response can rise to a high level and fall quickly, or rise less high but remain there for a longer time, and have the same area under the curve.

title: Glycemic index


text:
Butler's Rangers

Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a Loyalist provincial military unit of the American Revolutionary War, raised by American loyalist John Butler. Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. Their winter quarters were constructed on the west bank of the Niagara River, in what is now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The Rangers fought principally in New York and Pennsylvania, but ranged as far west as Ohio and Michigan, and as far south as Virginia and Kentucky.

The Rangers were engaged in numerous violent raids that characterized the northern frontier of the American Revolutionary War, such as the Battle of Wyoming in July 1778 and the Cherry Valley massacre of November 1778. These actions earned the Rangers a reputation for ruthlessness.

Formation
Similar to other Loyalist regiments that fought for the British Crown during the Revolutionary War, for example the King's Royal Regiment of New York, Butler's Rangers was made up of Loyalist refugees who had fled to Canada following the outbreak of the American Revolution. John Butler was a French and Indian War veteran and landowner with a 26,000 acre estate near Caughnawaga in the Mohawk Valley. On the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Butler abandoned these landholdings and fled to the Province of Quebec (now Canada) in the company of other Loyalist leaders, such as Daniel Claus and the Mohawk leader, Joseph Brant. During the war, John Butler also served as a deputy superintendent in the British Indian Department under Guy Johnson, another prominent Loyalist from the Mohawk Valley.

During the 1777 Saratoga Campaign, Butler persuaded about 350 Seneca warriors to participate in the Siege of Fort Stanwix, and led a group of Indian Department rangers at the Battle of Oriskany. As a result, Butler was granted permission in September 1777 to raise a “corps of rangers,” and was commissioned as its major commandant. Butler's Rangers would be based at Fort Niagara, and would work closely with Britain’s native allies. Over the course of the war, the Rangers slowly grew from two companies in February 1778 to 10 companies by September 1781. Although the Rangers were headquartered at Fort Niagara, one company was later stationed at Detroit.

A number of Black Loyalists also served in Butler's Rangers. Most prominent among these was Richard Pierpoint, formerly a slave in the northern Thirteen Colonies. After the war, Pierpoint settled with the disbanded Rangers in Canada.

Campaigns
In the summer of 1778, 110 Rangers under the command of Major Butler, accompanied by 464 mostly Seneca warriors, led by Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter, destroyed the settlements in the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. At the Battle of Wyoming on July 3, 1778, between 300 and 400 Patriot militia and Continentals were thoroughly routed by Butler's forces. The battle is frequently referred to as the Wyoming Massacre due to the large number of American soldiers who were scalped and killed by the Seneca as they fled the battlefield. A sensationalist and widely distributed newspaper report published a few weeks later falsely accused the Rangers of slaughtering women and children in the aftermath of the battle.

In September 1778, Captain William Caldwell’s company participated in the Attack on German Flatts that destroyed about 63 houses as well as barns and mills.

Two months later, Major Butler’s son, Captain Walter Butler, commanded about 150 Rangers at the Cherry Valley Massacre. Unlike at Wyoming where few if any non-combatants were killed, Captain Butler was unable to prevent the Seneca killing 32 civilians including children. About 70 of the inhabitants were taken captive but most of the women and children were released two days later.

At the Battle of Newtown in August 1779, the Rangers, Brant’s Volunteers and a contingent of Haudenosaunee and Munsee Delaware were unable to turn back the invasion of Haudenosaunee territory by the Continental Army during the genocidal Sullivan Campaign. The Rangers were forced to withdraw under sustained artillery fire when Major Butler became aware that his position was being flanked.

John Butler was promoted from Major to Lieutenant Colonel in the winter of 1780.

In October 1780, houses, barns, mills, and stores of grain and hay were burned as Loyalist forces led by Sir John Johnson marched down the Schoharie Valley to the Mohawk River, then headed west to destroy Stone Arabia. Four companies of Butler’s Rangers under the command of Lt. Col. Butler took part in this action. Albany and Tryon County militia under the command of Brigadier General Robert Van Rensselaer engaged Johnson's men west of Stone Arabia at the inconclusive Battle of Klock's Field on October 19, 1780.

A year later, Major John Ross, commanding the 2nd Battalion of the King's Royal Regiment of New York, led a raid on the Mohawk Valley that destroyed Warrensborough to the east of Fort Hunter before heading to Johnstown. With Ross were three companies of Butler's Rangers commanded by Captain Butler. On October 25, 1781, Ross engaged several hundred patriot militia commanded by Colonel Marinus Willett at the Battle of Johnstown. Five days later, as Ross withdrew towards Oswego, a rear-guard action at West Canada Creek resulted in the death of Captain Butler.

In June 1782, Captain William Caldwell’s company and their Shawnee allies forced Colonel William Crawford’s expedition to withdraw at the Battle of Sandusky. Caldwell was wounded early in the battle. In August, Caldwell crossed into Kentucky and after an unsuccessful attack on Bryan Station, defeated the patriot militia at the Battle of Blue Licks. A month later Captain Andrew Bradt’s company was present at the unsuccessful Siege of Fort Henry, in what is now Wheeling, West Virginia.

Officers
The company commanders of Butler's Rangers were:
 * Captain Andrew Bradt
 * Captain Walter Butler, John Butler's son, killed in action in 1781
 * Captain William Caldwell, victor at the Battle of Sandusky and the Battle of Blue Licks
 * Captain George Dame
 * Captain Bernard Frey
 * Captain Peter Hare
 * Captain John McDonell
 * Captain John McKinnon
 * Captain Benjamin Pawling
 * Captain Peter Ten Broeck
 * Captain Andrew Thompson, fell overboard and drowned in Lake Erie in the fall of 1781 when returning from Detroit

Uniforms and Weapons
There is an historical debate as to what the Butler's Ranger uniform actually looked like.
 * Variation A – Their uniforms consisted of a green woolen coat faced white and a white woolen waistcoat. Their pant garment was gaitered trousers made from Russia sheeting, a hemp product. Their hats were round hats, useful in shielding their faces from the sun. When in garrison or on parade, they could bring up the leaves of that hat to form a cocked hat. Their belting was black.
 * Variation B – Dark green coats faced with scarlet and lined with the same, a waistcoat of green cloth, and Buckskin Indian leggings reaching from the ankle to the waist...their caps were almost skull caps of black jacket leather or turned up felt with a black cockade on the left side. Their belts were of buff leather and crossed at the breast where they were held in place by a brass plate marked in the same manner and with the same words as the cap plate. This version is based on supposition rather than primary source materials.

Butler's Rangers primarily used both the Long-Land and Short-Land forms of the Brown Bess musket. A mix of other firearms may have been used but would have created a supply issue due to calibre variations.

Resettlement in Canada
Butler's Rangers were disbanded in June 1784, and its veterans were given land grants in the Nassau District, now the Niagara region of Ontario, as a reward for their services to the British Crown. In 1788 the Nassau Militia was formed with John Butler as its Commander, filling its ranks with the demobilized officers and men of Butler's Rangers. In 1792 the county of Lincoln was formed and the name of the militia was changed to Lincoln Militia by 1793. The Lincoln Militia saw extensive fighting during the War of 1812 (1812–1815).

The Lincoln Militia still exists today as The Lincoln and Welland Regiment, a primary reserve regiment of the Canadian Forces, based in St. Catharines, Ontario. Although the building that houses The Lincoln and Welland Regiment Museum in Niagara-on-the-Lake is known as "Butler's Barracks", it is not the original barracks and never housed Butler's Rangers. It was built in the years following the War of 1812 to house the Indian Department, and received the name because Butler had been a Deputy Superintendent in that department.

Novels

 * Brick, John. The King's Rangers. Doubleday and Company, 1954.
 * References to this war are described in the novel "Zach" by William Bell
 * Miller, Orlo. "Raiders of the Mohawk." Macmillian, 1966. A romanticized account based on the true life experiences of Daniel Springer, who served in the Rangers along with his older brother, Richard.

title: Butler's Rangers