Innehållsförteckning för Bloody revolutions från Inside History Collection

Indian scouts lead the way without making a sound. Behind them follow a column of militia who constantly trip over tree roots as they follow a seemingly invisible forest path. This is George Washington’s first army. The year is 1754, Washington is only 22 years old, but he seems older thanks to his unwavering calm. The troops trudging behind the young officer are raw recruits. These 40 colonists are understandably nervous as they find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings in Ohio’s forests and have yet to experience battle. Up ahead, 35 French Canadian soldiers are camped in a clearing. It’s Washington’s job to remove them – France has been making moves to expel British traders and colonists from the area to secure its own access to the interior of the American…

1775 New colonial taxes trigger uprising 19th April: Britain introduces new taxes while restricting self-rule for the 13 American colonies. The colonists form an underground government and set up local militias. British troops march into Concord 1 in Massachusetts to confiscate their weapons, but find themselves forced back to the English capital of Boston, 50 kilometres to the east. 17th June: the Revolutionary Army decides to lay siege to Boston with the aim of taking it. The rebels dig into their surrounding positions while British attempts to break out lead to heavy losses. 1776 Boston is lost 17th March: under George Washington’s command, the Revolutionary Army subjects Boston to a heavy barrage from its artillery. The British are forced to retreat, leaving the 13 colonies under American control. “All men…

Vinegar-soaked wrap Marat was – according to a contemporary source – “deformed and ugly”. An itchy skin disease meant he lay for hours in his bath with a cloth soaked in vinegar around his head. David painted the 50-year old as a beautiful youth. Small wound The murderer, Charlotte Corday, killed Marat to prevent him from pursuing her politically active friends. The bathroom was slick with blood, but David toned down the gore. Murder weapon Charlotte Corday murdered Marat with a kitchen knife. The murder weapon is next to the bathtub, even though the knife was actually left in Marat’s chest when she stabbed him. Marat’s last letter In David’s painting, Marat was sending money to a poor widow when he was assassinated. In fact, he was noting down the…

WWI is a disaster for Russia with 3.3 million soldiers and civilians killed and millions more starving to death because of food shortages. The country topples into revolution when on 15th March, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate. He wants to pass the power to his brother Michael, so that the 304-year-old Romanov regime can continue but instead, a temporary government take control of the country and the Tsar’s family move to Siberia. The new government decides to continue the war against Germany – with fatal consequences. Russian war fatigue gives Bolsheviks (later Communists) greater acceptance within the community. On 7th November, 1917, they take power in a coup and Lenin makes peace with Germany. The Tsar’s family is kept under house arrest. After the Bolshevik coup, loyalist…

For several hours the group of men have waited hesitantly outside an estate in southern Mexico. Their captain, rebel leader Emiliano Zapata, is meeting with a colonel from the government army. Colonel Jesús Guajardo announces that he will face the rebels with his whole regiment. Zapata desperately needs soldiers and ammunition as he has tirelessly fought for land reform for nine years. The gate to the estate opens. One of the colonel’s men announces that dinner and cold beer are waiting inside. Zapata doesn’t trust the situation yet he selects ten men and rides in. A guard of honour stands ready to greet Zapata. They fire two shots in salute, but after a third shot is fired they level their guns against Zapata. It’s an ambush, organised by the president.…

Change in Cuba often comes from the sea. In October 1492, Christopher Columbus’ fleet arrived in Cuba and began a new chapter in world history. In 1895, José Martí sailed to Cuba and started a war that freed the country from Spanish colonialists. On 2nd December, 1956, 82 bearded men approach the Cuban coast in a leaky boat. The boat is called Granma, and their leader is Fidel Castro. The battered boat does not look like much, but Castro and his companions have big ambitions. Seven days earlier, they had sailed from Mexico to start a revolution in Cuba and overthrow the dictator Batista. The journey is not really going as planned. The trip across the ocean has been hard on the 18-metre-long, 12-person Granma. The rebels have loaded it…

“Click”. The slightly burly, balding man has just released his camera and taken a self-portrait using an oblong mirror that hangs over an old wooden door. He is alone in the room, sitting in an armchair on the third floor of the Hotel Copacabana in Bolivia’s capital La Paz. Outside the window the vast, snow-covered Andes loom, a majestic backdrop for the man called Adolfo Gonzalez – at least according to his false passport. The man’s real name is Ernesto Guevara, but his friends just call him “Che”. The normally sleek and fair-haired man is completely unrecognisable; his hair is cut short at the sides and the top of his head shaved with a razor. He’s wearing a business suit. Cuban intelligence has done its job well. On this November…

The 5,000 Boston citizens who arrived at the Old South Meeting House Church on the morning of 16th December, 1773 were an agitated crowd. When they finally crammed into the city’s largest building, Samuel Adams opened the meeting, lighting the fuse that would explode into the American Revolution, setting the colonists on the path to the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and eventual secession of 13 American colonies from British rule. Relations between Britain and its subjects in the colonies had been deteriorating for decades, distilled into the colonists’ “No Taxation without Representation” slogan. They objected to paying duties such as those on imported tea without representation in London’s Parliament. After the Tea Act of May 1773, the British East India Company had begun to ship directly to the colonies…

1 North Carolina Early settlers vanish without trace In the 1580s, English settlers made two attempts to establish a colony on Roanoke Island off America’s east coast – both disappeared without trace. Back in Britain rumours abounded about what happened to the “lost colony”. It wasn’t until 1653 that settlers successfully established themselves in North Carolina. 2 Virginia The first colony becomes a tobacco mecca In 1607, 105 colonists arrived in Virginia from England. Over 70 starved to death in the first winter. The rest were saved by native chieftain Powhatan and his daughter Pocahontas, who gave them food to survive. Pocahontas subsequently married Englishman John Rolfe, who built a lucrative tobacco industry. 3 New Jersey Free land for all! Dutch fur traders settled down on the west side of…

1 Why did the French revolt? HAIL STORMS DISRUPTED HARVEST For several years, harvests failed due to rain and hail storms. The price of flour shot up, and by the summer of 1789 a load of bread cost 14 sous, or 80 per cent of a worker’s daily wage. Thousands of peasants and workers were forced to sell their last possessions to afford food and pay their taxes. Inequality and a lack of bread pushed their anger to boiling point. ROYAL COUPLE FRITTERED AWAY A FORTUNE Louis XVI spent around 1.5 billion livres in military aid to the Americans in the War of Independence (1775-88) against France’s arch-enemy, Britain. When the treasury was empty, the king raised expensive loans and increased taxes. Meanwhile, the royal couple continued to live in…

Revolution never sleeps – and at the Tuileries Palace in Paris it didn’t even shut an eye on the stifling hot summer night between 9th and 10th August, 1792. The battle between the monarchy and the revolutionary was entering its final, decisive stages, and to Queen Marie-Antoinette’s regret, her husband, Louis the XVI had already been defeated. It was true that the king had recently prepared to resist and had ordered his Swiss guard to fight to the last drop of blood. But as the drumming approached through the Parisian night, the thought of failure had discouraged him. He wandered helplessly through his chambers, unable to decide whether or not to fight against the enraged mob that headed his way. The king’s wig was a mess, his purple clothes wrinkled…

Nearly 100 lean figures stagger through the French city of Nantes, headed for the Loire River. Everyone’s hands are tied behind their back, and the crowd is shepherded by guards who keep the dishevelled column moving with shouts, kicks and punches. The march does not end at the quayside, but continues directly onto a moored barge. The 100 prisoners are pushed close together, because the vessel is small and everyone will be included on the upcoming voyage. Shortly after, most of the guards return ashore as the barge casts off and slips into the cold waters of the river. The guards line up behind a gentleman dressed in tailored jacket, top hat and a sash sporting the blue, red and white colours of the French Revolution. Before the barge disappears…

On 2nd January, 1917, The New York Times published a modest article entitled “Rasputin, the Tsar’s aide, reported murdered”. The same rumour had crossed the Atlantic several times before hitting the front page of the US’s major newspaper, but this time it was – in contrast to earlier ones – true. Rasputin’s death had little coverage compared to the many articles about the fighting in WWI, which at the time dominated the press. And soon readers’ attention was turned to other dramatic events that shook Russia. The 300-year rule under the mighty Romanov family ended in February 1917 with economic collapse and subsequent revolution that forced the autocratic Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. Later in the year came a second revolution, which brought the Bolsheviks to power. They demanded a…

Eugen Leviné is getting ready for bed when the doorbell rings in his apartment in Munich on 13th April, 1919. Outside stands a messenger, who asks Leviné to appear before the republic’s war ministry immediately. While the 35-year-old exiled Russian races through Munich’s dark streets, the man who has taken the message to Leviné tells him that the main train station has already been occupied by loyalist soldiers. Meanwhile, small groups of armed volunteers set about taking control of the city’s key positions. Six days previously, Leviné’s old friend Ernst Toller toppled the Socialist government in Bavaria and touted for the state to become a Soviet republic. In the intervening days, ardent Leninist Leviné realised that Toller had failed to undertake a true socialist revolution and so decided to take…

Shortly before dawn on 9th March, 1916, the American garrison in the border town of Columbus is woken by crashing rifle shots and wild cries: “Viva Mexico! Viva Villa! Muerte a los americanos”, shout the Mexican rebels – death to Americans. Led by the legendary rebel Pancho Villa, 500 armed Mexicans cross the border in the cover of night and attack the small fort in New Mexico. The attack is totally unexpected. American officers are at home with their families, and the regular soldiers are asleep in the barracks. Fortunately for the garrison, the Mexican attack is as badly planned as it is surprising. The Mexicans open fire immediately on anything they think is the soldiers’ barracks – in fact, it’s the garrison’s stables. The misunderstanding gives the Americans some…

US elite drank to freedom The American Founding Fathers led the nation during the struggle for independence and celebrated victory with drunken revelry. On the evening of September 15, 1787, America’s leading politicians meet at the Philadelphia Beverage City Tavern to hold a farewell party for General George Washington. Spirits are high among the many patrons – who sing and yell all night long – and in just a couple of days, several of them will reconvene to sign the United States’ first free constitution. Several times during the evening, the glasses are raised to toast the General and the success of the fight for freedom, and the waiters repeatedly head down to the basement to bring up fresh supplies for the thirsty Founding Fathers. The scene is a…

At seven in the morning, the butler heads to wake Louis XVI. The French king is in his bed. But when the butler pulls back the drapes, the king is gone. The butler runs into six-year-old Crown Prince Louis Charles’ room. He’s not there either. The ladies go to awaken Queen Marie-Antoinette. Her bed is empty too. “They are gone! They’re gone!” echo the cries from the Tuileries Palace in central Paris. For two years, the palace has served as the royal family’s involuntary residence – the king has been living under house arrest, deprived of his absolute power. Instead, he simply signed whatever legislation the country’s new rulers in the National Assembly put in front of him. But now Louis has gone – fled with the queen and her…

The doctor bent over the wounded man lying on the green table in a front room of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, home to the Committee of Public Safety. The dressing that covered most of the man’s face was soaked with blood, and the doctor peeled off the crude dressing to inspect the wound. Although the pain was unbearable, the man uttered no sound, but stared intently at the ceiling while the doctor examined his shattered jaw. Swiftly and efficiently, the doctor pulled his loose teeth, remove splinters of bone and skin fragments and replaced the dressing before leaving the room. It was around six o’clock in the morning on 28th July, 1794, and bright sunlight was already streaming through the windows. The minute the doctor left, the man…

The worker Employees at Paris’ factories wore aprons and pantalons. Marianne A sign of liberty in France since the 1700s. She had one of the most common names. The citizen A top hat and a long coat was the bourgeois uniform. ART HISTORIANS DISCUSS whether the citizen with the top hat is a real person or not. Some have suggested that it is artist Delacroix himself, while another theory says that it is could be a theatre director or the head of the Louvre museum. VICTOR HUGO is believed to have used the street boy as inspiration for Gavroche in his book “Les Miserables” in 1862. Revolution signs and symbols When Parisians first took power from the King in 1789, the Tricolor and the Phrygian cap were symbols of freedom,…

The big black locomotive crawled into the station in Petrograd – now St Petersburg. With a sigh, the train stopped enveloping those waiting on the platform in a cloud of steam. Even though it was past midnight, thousands of people showed up, stretching their necks to see the passengers carefully climb down from the carriages and onto the platform. Few knew what the man they were waiting for looked like. But from the interest around one of the passengers, a small man with thinning red hair and beard, they figured that must be him: Vladimir Lenin – the man who had promised to abolish the Tsar’s regime and transfer power to the common man once and for all. Admiringly, they flocked around him as he talked to them warmly about…

1910 Elite in power Under General Porfirio Díaz’ 35-year rule, peasants and workers are living in poverty. The country’s land owners sit on 95 percent of all rural areas and the social divide is enormous. The desire for a change in power has become essential. Young politician Francisco Madero is running against the president in the election of 1910. But Díaz has him arrested using false accusations that Madero is planning an armed rebellion and claims victory. 1911 Rebellion grows The sound of the revolutionary drums gets louder. One of the most prominent is Emiliano Zapata, who previously occupied the land of large estates and distributed it between local villagers. His guerrilla army, the Zapatistas, initiate the rebellion in the south. They fight for the poor farmers’ rights and for…