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Rampart Nations
New Perspectives on Central and Eastern European Studies

Published in association with the Herder Institute for Historical Research on

East Central Europe, Marburg, Germany

Series Editors
Heidi Hein-Kircher, Head of Academic Forum
Eszter Gantner, Research Associate
Peter Haslinger, Director, and Professor for East Central European History at
Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen

Decades after the political changes that accompanied the fall of the Soviet
Union, the history and cultures of Eastern Europe remain very important for
understanding the challenges of today. With a special focus on the Baltic states,
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, New Perspectives on Cen-
tral and Eastern European Studies investigates the historical and social forces
that have shaped the region, from ethnicity and religion to imperial legacies
and national conflicts. Each volume in the series explores these and many other
topics to contribute to a better understanding of contemporary Central and
Eastern Europe.

Volume 1
Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional
Societies in the Age of Nationalism
Edited by Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher
Rampart Nations
Bulwark Myths of East European
Multiconfessional Societies
in the Age of Nationalism


Edited by
Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher

berghahn
NEW YORK • OXFORD
www.berghahnbooks.com
 First published in 2019 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com

© 2019 Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages

for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Berezhnaya, Liliya, editor. | Hein-Kircher, Heidi, 1969– editor.
Title: Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional
Societies in the Age of Nationalism / edited by Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi
Hein-Kircher.
Description: New York: Berghahn Books, 2019. | Series: New Perspectives on
Central and Eastern European Studies; volume 1 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018053684 (print) | LCCN 2018058014 (ebook) | ISBN
9781789201482 (ebook) | ISBN 9781789201475 (hardback: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: National characteristics, East European. | Groupidentity—
Europe, Eastern. | Ethnicity—Europe, Eastern. | Religious pluralism—
Europe, Eastern. | Nationalism—Europe, Eastern. | National security—
Social aspects--Europe, Eastern.
Classification: LCC DJK26.5 (ebook) | LCC DJK26.5 .R36 2019 (print) |
DDC 947—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053684

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78920-147-5 hardback

ISBN 978-1-78920-148-2 ebook
 Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration and Toponyms x

Part I. Background
Introduction Constructing a Rampart Nation: Conceptual
Framework 3
Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher
Chapter 1 The Origins of Antemurale Christianitatis Myths:
Remarks on the Promotion of a Political Concept 31
Kerstin Weiand

Part II. (De-)Sacralizing and Nationalizing Borderlands

Chapter 2 Not a Bulwark, but a Part of the Larger Catholic
Community: The Romanian Greek Catholic Church in
Transylvania (1700–1850) 61
Ciprian Ghisa
Chapter 3 Securitizing the Polish Bulwark: The Mission of Lviv
in Polish Travel Guides during the Late Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Centuries 81
Heidi Hein-Kircher
Chapter 4 Ghetto as an “Inner Antemurale”? Debates on
Exclusion, Integration, and Identity in Galicia in the Nineteenth
and Early Twentieth Centuries 103
Jürgen Heyde
Chapter 5 Holy Ground and a Bulwark against “the Other”:
The (Re)Construction of an Orthodox Crimea in the
Nineteenth-Century Russian Empire 125
Kerstin S. Jobst
vi CONTENTS

Chapter 6 Bastions of Faith in the Oceans of Ambiguities:

Monasteries in the East European Borderlands (Late Nineteenth–
Beginning of the Twentieth Century) 146
Liliya Berezhnaya
Chapter 7 “The Turkish Wall”: Turkey as an Anti-Communist and
Anti-Russian Bulwark in the Twentieth Century 186
Zaur Gasimov

Part III. Promoting Antemurale Discourses

Chapter 8 Why Didn’t the Antemurale Historical Mythology
Develop in Early Nineteenth-Century Ukraine? 207
Volodymyr Kravchenko
Chapter 9 Translating the Border(s) in a Multilingual and
Multiethnic Society: Antemurale Myths in Polish and Ukrainian
Schoolbooks of the Habsburg Monarchy 241
Philipp Hofeneder
Chapter 10 Mediating the Antemurale Myth in East Central
Europe: Religion and Politics in Modern Geographers’ Entangled
Lives and Maps 262
Steven Seegel
Chapter 11 Bulwarks of Anti-Bolshevism: Russophobic Polemic
of the Christian Right in Poland and Hungary in the Interwar Years
and Their Roots in the Nineteenth Century 293
Paul Srodecki
Chapter 12 Defenders of the Russian Land: Viktor Vasnetsov’s
Warriors and Russia’s Bulwark Myth 319
Stephen M. Norris

Part IV. Reflections on the Bulwark Myths Today

Chapter 13 Antemurale Thinking as Historical Myth and Ethnic
Boundary Mechanism 347
Pål Kolstø
Chapter 14 Concluding Thoughts on Central and Eastern European
Bulwark Rhetoric in the Twenty-First Century 374
Paul Srodecki

Index 396
 Illustrations

Figures

Figure 6.1. Cartoon, “Galician Pilgrims Travelling Abroad,”

Zerkalo 15, no. 27 (May 1882): 4. Photo by Liliya Berezhnaya. 158
Figure 6.2. Iulian Butsmaniuk, mural in the Church of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus in Zhovkva, featuring Bohdan Khmelnytskyi,
Ivan Vishenskyi, Ivan Mazepa, Halshka Hulevichyvna, 1932–1939.
Wikimedia Commons, public domain. 164
Figure 6.3. Iulian Butsmaniuk, mural in the Church of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus in Zhovkva, featuring the Brest Union and the
heroes of the Cossack Times, 1932–1939. Wikimedia Commons,
public domain. 165
Figure 11.1. Polish recruitment poster dated 1920. The text
reads: “To Arms! Save the Fatherland! Remember well our fate.”
Wikimedia Commons, public domain. 300
Figure 12.1. Viktor Vasnetsov, Bogatyri, 1898. Photograph
by anagoria. Wikimedia Commons, public domain. 322
Figure 12.2. Viktor Vasnetsov, Kreshcheniie Rusi, 1896.
Special stamp to commemorate the 1,025th anniversary of the
Christianization of Rus by the Russian Post, Publishing and
Trade Centre “Marka,” 2013. Design of the souvenir sheet by
A. Moscovets. Scanned by Dmitry Ivanov. Wikimedia Commons,
public domain. 328

Maps

Map 10.1. Map of Poland during the reign of King Jan Sobieski,
published on the 200th anniversary of the Defense of Vienna, 1883.
Map by J. Szpetkowski. Wikimedia Commons, public domain. 263
viii ILLUSTRATIONS

Map 10.2. Geological and special map of the Kingdom of Saxony,

1878. Map by Albrecht Penck. Reprinted from Albrecht Penck,
Geologische Spezialkarte des Königreich Sachsen (Leipzig: Giesecke
& Devrient, 1878). 267
Map 10.3. German ethnic and cultural lands, 1925. Map by
Albrecht Penck. Courtesy Cornell University, PJ Mode Collection
of Persuasive Cartography. 269
Map 10.4. Military-political map of Poland, 1916. Map by
Eugeniusz Romer. Courtesy Library of Congress. Retrieved 14 June
2018 from https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/files/2017/01/Figure-1.jpeg. 271
Map 10.5. The Ukrainian territory in Europe, 1914. Map by Stepan
Rudnytskyi. Reprinted from Stepan Rudnyts’kyi, Ukraina und die
Ukrainer (Berlin, 1915). 275
Map 10.6. Ukraine in its ethnographic borders, 1920. Map by
Stepan Rudnytskyi and Heorg von Hasenko. Courtesy Harvard
Map Collection, Harvard Library. 277
Map 10.7. Ethnographical map of Hungary, based on population
density, 1919. Map by Count Pál Teleki. Reprinted from Count Pál
Teleki, Magyarország néprajzi térképe a népsűrűség alapján
(Budapest: Magyar Földrajzi Intézet, 1919). 281
 Acknowledgments

The idea of this book is the result of the cooperation between the Cluster of
Excellence “Religion and Politics in Pre-Modern and Modern Cultures” at
the University of Münster and the Herder Institute for Historical Research
on East Central Europe—Institute of the Leibniz Association in Marburg.
It was cofinanced by the SFB/TRR 138 “Dynamics of Security.”
We would like to thank these institutions for their financial and organi-
zational support.
 A Note on Transliteration
and Toponyms

For transliterating the Cyrillic alphabet into Latin, we chose the BGN/
PCGN romanization system, developed by the United States Board on
Geographic Names and by the Permanent Committee on Geographical
Names for British Official Use. For purposes of simplification, we have
omitted apostrophes for ъ and ь.
Toponyms in multiethnic Eastern Europe differ in spelling from lan-
guage to language. For example, the Western Ukrainian city of L’viv was
officially called Lemberg in German during the Habsburg monarchy from
1772 until 1918, while under Polish rule and control it was Lwów, and in
Soviet times and in the Russian language it is Lvov. As the spelling of a
toponym varies from one (national) perspective of analysis to another, we
decided to use only the common English spelling—in this case Lviv, for ex-
ample—to make it simpler to read the text. We introduce the cities’ spelling
in the respective languages of the region only at the first mention of the
toponym in each chapter.
 PART I


Background
 INTRODUCTION

Constructing a Rampart Nation

Conceptual Framework


Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher

Nowadays, images of fences, walls, bastions, and fortresses are popular

metaphors in the political sphere. They polarize and divide societies into
ideological camps as we can observe in contemporary Europe. The old to-
pos of Europe as a fortress has been reintroduced in numerous forms in
the media and has once again found its way into various political agendas,
for example in the present Polish and Hungarian right-wing governments.
Bulwark myths, otherwise called antemurale myths, are widespread in
East European countries today but also have a tradition dating back to early
modern times. Such myths contain several components:
The claim of a perennial menace caused by an “Other” as enemy on a terri-
torial or cultural basis. . . ; the call to defend, not only oneself, but also one’s
own people against the threat of the “Other”. . . ; the claim of being chosen to
defend a higher or greater entity, of which one is a part.1

They also contain the claim of a civilizing mission. The antemurale myth is
often instrumentalized, not only against foreign enemies but also in order
to mobilize and unite the community inside the bulwark.
During the nationalizing processes in nineteenth-century Eastern Eu-
rope, bulwark myths gained particular importance in the southern and
western borderland territories of continental empires, mainly today’s Po-
land, Hungary, and Ukraine but also in neighboring states. Being a “ram-
part nation” was one of the main motifs in national claims to be part of
Europe. Antemurale mythology was also crucial for the creation of national
identity and coherence in Eastern European borderland societies.
Our volume deals with bulwark (antemurale) myths as securitizing and
spatial myths in East European border regions in the age of nationalism,
focusing on their definition, how they functioned and were spread, and the
key figures and groups who played a role in their dissemination. Despite
4 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

the obvious popularity of these narratives in European history, historiogra-

phy has not yet paid enough attention to bulwark myths in modern Eastern
European history. Above all, transnational studies have until recently ig-
nored the field of political myths in multiconfessional and multiethnic East
European regions, although a few comparative studies provide incentives
for further research.2
The very notion of “transnational history,” other than being a possible
alternative to dominant national narratives, remains quite vague. Some
identify it as an umbrella term for historical debates, whereas others give a
rather open definition: transnational history deals with the “people, ideas,
products, processes and patterns that operate over, across, through, be-
yond, above, under, or in-between polities and societies.”3 Notably, transna-
tional history goes further than comparative history, as it suggests tracing
interaction and transfer not only between direct neighbors but also be-
tween entities and institutions far away from the borderline.4 Urban and
religious history is particularly fruitful for these purposes.
In particular, present-day Ukraine exemplifies contact and conflict re-
gions in Eastern Europe. Recently, the collection of articles by Philipp Ther
and Georgiy Kasianov5 described a way in which transnational history could
be used by historians dealing with Ukrainian borders and contact zones.
Importantly, such an approach allows placing Ukrainian history within the
general European context. While advocating Ukraine as a laboratory of
transnational history “that deliberately transcends the boundaries of one
culture or country,” Ther and Kasianov suggest focusing on agents of cul-
tural exchange.6 Notably, the recent collection of articles edited by Serhii
Plokhy on the outlook of historical writing in post-Soviet Ukraine contains
a section on the “transnational turn” and goes beyond the cultural focus.
Its contributors elaborate on, among other things, military history, cartog-
raphy, art and Jewish studies as possible “transnational fields” of Ukrainian
historiography.7
This is indeed relevant, not only to Ukrainian history but also to the
neighboring territories.8 Moreover, the application of transnational his-
tory—with its emphasis on agents of antemurale rhetoric—in combination
with the study of political myths offers an unusual and rather new perspec-
tive. Our book, which can neither cover the whole geographical range nor
address all possible thematic affiliations, aims to bridge this research gap
at least partly.
In this introduction, we shall first dwell upon the general definition of
political myth, then highlight the features of bulwark myths as securitizing
and spatial myths, and finally outline the history of antemurale myths in
modern Eastern Europe as reflected in the structure and the major conclu-
sions of this book.
 INTRODUCTION 5

Political Myths: General Definitions

Bulwark myths belong to the category of the so-called political myths. These
are simplifying and meaningful narratives in which the mental frame of ref-
erence is based on a set of prior assumptions. Myths always delineate “an
eternal fight between the good and the evil,”9 between “Self” and “Other.” In
contrast to religious myths, they do not necessarily have a transcendental
component. A political myth thus refers to a politically constituted commu-
nity and interprets its origins and character. In order to achieve this goal,
it constitutes an emotionally charged narration that constructs the past
quite selectively, stereotypically idealizing past and present.10 According to
Peter Niedermüller, it “purges the memory symbolically” and becomes a
“collective autobiography.”11 The semantic structure makes a political myth
changeable, which is necessary in the long run. Thus, the mythical narration
could be varied and also adapted to the audience.12 Through its message, a
political myth provides the community with orientation that it also shapes
at the same time. It paraphrases and verifies modes of behavior and values
by means of this functionality. Hence, a political myth explains existing col-
lective problems and designates binding goals for the community.13
Because of its function in providing sense and orientation, political
myths are an inherent element of a political system. To put it briefly, they
are “narratives, that is, stories that deal with the origins, the sense and the
historical mission of a political community so as to enable orientation and
options for action.”14 Moreover, they are important elements of cultures
of memory and provide a unifying storyline for “imagined communities.”15
In showing historic achievements and heroes, political myths explain why
one should be a member of this or that community. Hence, they contribute
mainly to the self-confidence of a political association, being “the narrative
foundation of the symbolic order of a community.”16
These myths possess conveying, legitimizing, and integrating functions
and contribute to the coherence of the society. Their communicative and
mobilizing mission proves to be of great importance when the community
undergoes phases of collective uncertainty, for example during political,
economic, and social crises, when it experiences deficiencies regarding in-
tegration, identity, and legitimization.17 Because of these functions, it be-
comes clear why political myths give a heroic account of merits and tell
of the successful defense of the community against various dangers. This
historic achievement provides the feeling of security.
Each political community has its own myths. According to George
Schöpflin, difficulties in categorizing political myths are caused by the na-
ture of myth itself. Its function is to construct coherence; therefore, “dif-
ferent myths receive emphasis at different times to cope with different
6 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

challenges.”18 Whereas the individual myth’s narration depends on histor-

ical context, political myths share common characteristics. Most of them
give an account of the origins of the community. Additionally, myths deal
with transfiguration, authentication, and/or a catharsis. Each community
has a certain repertoire of political myths that can be adjusted to the col-
lective needs and activated if there is a need for articulated collective iden-
tity, coherence, cohesion, or legitimation. The case of the Jewish ghetto,
discussed by Jürgen Heyde (Leipzig) in this volume, demonstrates that
through the erection of “inner walls,” society itself can be aggregated by
excluding national and religious Others.
John Armstrong labeled the most constitutive myths as “mythomo-
teurs” that help to define group identities in relation to the polity, which
they already did in premodern times. A mythomoteur “arouses intensive
affect by stressing the individuals’ solidarity against an alien force, that is,
by enhancing the salience of boundary perceptions.”19 When the conditions
within a society are perceived as threatened and insecure, concepts of dan-
ger become virulent.20
This mosaic of myths is implemented in a society through elements of
memory and political culture, such as political rituals and festivities, sym-
bols, and memorials that nonverbally paraphrase the mythical narrative.
This helps to present political myths as first-order truths that “cannot be
perceived to be inventions.”21 However, it is also possible to communicate
the general story verbally, for example through various media that are
aptly discussed in the individual chapters of this book (e.g., historical texts,
schoolbooks, maps, travel guides, but also theatrical performances, songs,
and so on).
Such forms of media are assumed to be “objective” and communicate
values through a normative mythical “story.” This issue is highlighted in
many contributions in this volume: Volodymyr Kravchenko (Edmonton)
scrutinizes it using the example of Ukrainian and Russian historiography;
Liliya Berezhnaya (Münster) demonstrates the role of Ukrainian monas-
teries in the formation of political myths; Kerstin Weiand (Frankfurt) ad-
dresses the issue in the writings of Renaissance and Baroque authors and
in the documents of Imperial Diets; Zaur Gasimov (Istanbul) highlights
the story of émigré politicians; and Paul Srodecki (Kiel/Ostrava) examines
the interwar Catholic Right and the contemporary press as the key agents
in the myth-making process. These and other contributions reveal that the
texts popularizing bulwark myths were often produced in political and ac-
ademic milieus. From the late Middle Ages on, various historians, politi-
cians, Church hierarchs, and later also journalists were actively involved in
the formation and dissemination of bulwark rhetoric.
 INTRODUCTION 7

Importantly, there were many other influential intermediaries that

helped to transfer antemurale myth to the lower layers of society in the
age of nationalism. This becomes clear by looking at schoolbooks in
Philipp Hofeneder’s (Graz) contribution and at travel guides from Heidi
Hein-Kircher’s (Marburg) chapter. Besides these, maps and painted art-
works were also crucial in this process, to name just a few examples dis-
cussed by Steven Seegel (Greeley, CO) and Stephen M. Norris (Oxford,
OH). Both genres, maps and paintings, promoted the popularity of the bul-
wark mythical narrative, providing it with visual attributes. For instance,
Seegel argues that modern mappers (Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, and
German) often regarded themselves as public servants and scientific ex-
perts; maps were a form of graphic media deployed by geographers as his-
torical actors, who often presupposed Europe’s uniqueness.
In contrast, Norris focuses on the longue durée “life” of a single painting,
Viktor Vasnetsov’s famous Bogatyri (“Warriors,” 1898) in Russian/Soviet
cultural memory. For Norris, Vasnetsov’s painting, frequently popularized
in the press, on postage stamps, on cigarette cases, and on postcards, func-
tioned as an expression of a bulwark myth while it was used as means to call
for unity. In this way, visualized antemurale mythical narration was used
for the consolidation of a society.

Bulwark Myths as Securitizing and Spatial Myths

Bulwark myths have two important distinctive features as political myths.

First, they interpret heroic performances in securing a community faced
with a great threat that came from outside. This surmounted threat, the
“evil,” is a point of reference for present and future times. Through focusing
on a past threat, which is interpreted quite selectively in favor of the group,
a threat for present and future times is derived. This bulwark mission be-
comes a promise to the members of the community to protect them, their
values, and their faith against threats that are coming or will come from
outside the bastion. At the same time, the narrative of the heroic defense,
of being a rampart, is invoked in order to incite the community to future
heroic performances. The implication is that the community will only be
saved by following the bulwark myth’s message. So, a bulwark myth quite
heavily distinguishes between community members and nonkinsmen, the
Other. It describes a threat scenario and a process of creating security as
one of managing the threat.22
If a threat to the community is indicated, the necessary answer is the
promise to secure the community. Thus, we can understand “security” as a
8 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

discursively communicated political notion of value and of societal order to

which political myths and particularly bulwark myths contribute.23
This is most prominently demonstrated in Weiand’s chapter. Military
phrasing has adhered to bulwark rhetoric from its very beginning. Renais-
sance authors were already using the antemurale metaphor to underline
the impression of an isle under siege, of inner peace and outer war. The
idea of an existential threat to the community shielded by a bulwark linked
European borderland peripheries with the core of the Holy See.
The securitizing mythical narratives often deal with both the threat
and the ways to overcome it. The example of the “Turkish wall” against
the (Russian/Soviet) Communist danger, introduced in Gasimov’s chapter,
makes clear the mobilizing potential of the bulwark myth. Gasimov’s study
is also paradigmatic for understanding the common mechanisms of the
antemurale myth’s functioning on both sides of the historical Christian/
Muslim border.
Second, bulwark myths clarify which territory belongs to the commu-
nity. They are thus spatially oriented narratives, defining a specific claimed
territory that should be defended. Through such a narrative, they create a
specific idea of a space. The imagined territory acquires a symbolic func-
tion and represents a community. Thus, bulwark myths as myths of space
can function as emotional glue.24
Contested borderland regions are a particular focus of the myths of
space in general and of the bulwark myths in particular. These narratives
are particularly prevalent in multiethnic regions where a specific territory
has been claimed. Pål Kolstø (Oslo) points out in this context that antemu-
rale myths constitute a special case of a boundary-creating mechanism
relying to a large extent on civilizational thinking. Because it belongs to
a greater civilization, the in-group is defined as superior to certain adja-
cent groups. Focusing on the national states in Eastern Europe (Georgia,
Ukraine, and Russia), Kolstø asks how the antemurale myth can play out
in situations in which two groups belong to the same Christian confes-
sion. In these cases, he concludes, power differentials are just as import-
ant as civilizational perceptions for the construction of antemurale myths,
and stronger and more resourceful groups (nations, ethnic groups) tend
to downplay differences while the smaller and less resourceful group will
emphasize the differences.
Bulwark myths as myths of space function as narrative “border posts,” if
we understand space as a cognitive construct functioning as a base for the
community.25 Hence, these myths define and justify the claims on the col-
lective territory. This observation fits Georg Simmel’s classical definition
that, “the boundary is not a spatial fact with sociological consequences, but
a sociological fact that forms itself spatially.”26
 INTRODUCTION 9

The role of a bulwark myth in modern societies is not necessarily limited

to the creation of meaning. Often, these myths provide the basis for the
sacralization of political ideologies. Contemporary historiography argues
that, despite various manifestations of secularization in economic and cul-
tural spheres (like the “nationalization” of Church property in nineteenth-
century Western Europe), the “symbiosis of religious and national” re-
mained intact in ideological and mental spheres.27 In the modern period,
myths were above all an important instrument of the sacralization of na-
tion/empire/multistate entities and also of the nationalization of religion.28
Many of the authors of this book, with the help of antemurale mythol-
ogy, have been able to trace the theme of the sacralization of nation/empire
and the nationalization of religion. It is analyzed in Norris’s text, which
describes the transformation of sacralized Russianness into secular Soviet-
ness. It is also scrutinized in Seegel’s chapter on maps as a modern tool to
sacralize and instrumentalize the past, and in Hein-Kircher’s case study,
which reveals how the Polish rampart Lviv was stylized as a martyr for
Western Christianity. But the role of antemurale myths in the process of
sacralization within modern nations and empires is presented most vividly
in the chapters by Berezhnaya, Kerstin Jobst (Vienna), and Srodecki.
Berezhnaya’s study compares the history of three Ukrainian monaster-
ies—the Orthodox Pochaiv Holy Dormition Lavra (Volhynia), the Greek
Catholic Nativity Monastery in Zhovkva (near Lviv), and the Orthodox
Holy Dormition Monastery (the Crimea). Despite denominational differ-
ences, the leadership of these three monasteries shows the same pattern in
interpreting the challenges of nationalism. The dissemination of national
and imperial ideology with religious overtones occurred with the help of
new mass media, actively used by Church hierarchs in political propa-
ganda. It was enhanced by the notions of a “true faith,” a “national Church,”
and the new “nationalized” images of enemies.
This “mutual conditioning” between religion and nation as social sys-
tems of interpretation is based on political mythology. For some experts,
like Anthony Smith, nationalism itself is a product of a hybridization be-
tween “the earlier religious myth and the nationalist ideal.”29 Others pay
attention to how threats to the national identity are mythologized and
sharpen the sense of us and them. As Srodecki discusses in his chapter
on East European Catholic Right movements, thanks to that hybridization,
bulwark myths in interwar Poland and Hungary stylized both countries as
the most important bastions of European freedom and Christian civiliza-
tion against “godless Bolsheviks.”
It is the borderland situation, the feeling of a “contested frontier,” that
determines the specificity of the religious-national bond: “The political
conflict is likely to have superimposed upon it a sense of religious conflict,
10 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

so that national identity becomes fused with religious identity.”30 The case
of Crimea, discussed by Jobst, is perhaps one of the most striking. The ab-
sorption of the Crimea into the Russian collective memory was not only a
result of organic colonization but a much more complex and multifaceted
process of unification. It was accompanied by the ideology of the sacral-
ized and nationalized empire that actively grew on the basis of the bulwark
myth and the topos of the Crimea as the cradle of Russian civilization.
One case study in this volume looks at an opposite development: the
way the antemurale rhetoric was secularized in the twentieth century. As
demonstrated by Gasimov, the role of religion in the development of the
idea of the Turkish wall was just secondary. Both the exiled intellectuals
and their Turkish counterparts were able to combine laicism with Turkish
nationalism by developing the idea of an anti-Communist bulwark. In this
way, the Turkish rampart nation differed from most European projects on
antemurale, demonstrating parallels with the contemporary Soviet model.
In public perception, bulwark myths are often mixed with other polit-
ical myths like that of the “Golden Age” (glorious past) or of common or-
igin.31 In the taxonomy of political myths provided by George Schöpflin,
antemurale myths are placed in the category of redemption and suffering.
They could also be situated among the myths of territory, civilizing mis-
sion, or national character. The third option contains some contradictions:
the antemurale myth postulates the inclusion of a single ethnic group into
a broader community that is presumably more culturally developed.32 By
narrating a heroic achievement of the border community, this myth also
claims this community to be an equal part of the core community, which in
turn brings it into contradiction with the myth of national character, also
quite popular among the borderland communities. The topos of a civiliz-
ing mission inherent in bulwark myths suggests a possible resolution to
this dilemma. On the one hand, the bulwark myth narrates how the given
borderland society defends itself and the core communities. On the other
hand, it claims a mission of bringing the communities living on the other
side of the “bulwark” the advantages and privileges of a presumably higher
and culturally more developed civilization.
In this way, the notion of a civilizing mission, having been a constitutive
part of imperial and colonial discourses since the second half of the nine-
teenth century, also contributes to the popularization of bulwark myths.
Yet, several other aspects of its use are important here. The general defini-
tion of the civilizing mission refers to the conviction that one’s own society
has the right and the duty to intervene in less developed societies in order
to promote more progress there.33 Four basic components are inherent to
such a definition: the idea of progress, the idea of the superiority of one’s
own society, the notion that the civilizing society is able to reach the highest
 INTRODUCTION 11

level of civilization, and, finally, the conviction that progress in other soci-
eties can be accelerated through intervention.34 This secular definition of a
civilizing mission, however, is deeply rooted in the old concept of Christian
mission, which did not disappear with the rise of modernity. As the studies
of bulwark myths reveal, the general idea of progress and civilization is of-
ten enriched here by messianic overtones and the notion of moral progress
(as, for instance, demonstrated in Seegel’s study of the 1883 Polish map). It
is associated with Divine Providence and religious conversions.35
Another consistent feature of bulwark myths is the constant reference
to common places of memory. Our book provides a variety of examples of
East European antemurale places of memory. These include historical per-
sonalities (e.g., the Polish King Jan III Sobieski in Hein-Kircher’s study) and
events (e.g., the “Miracle on the Vistula” and the “Red Terror” in Srodecki’s
chapter) and sacral places (e.g., Pochaiv Holy Dormition Lavra and Crimea)
and artifacts (Vasnietsov’s “Warriors” and Butsmaniuk’s frescoes in west-
ern Ukrainian Zhovkva).
These are symbols that serve as building blocks of political myths, in-
cluding the bulwark ones. As formulated by George Schöfplin, “Reference
to symbols could be quite sufficient to recall the myth for members of the
community without needing to return to the ritual.”36
Generally, cultures of memory consist of various historically and cultur-
ally variable practices and concepts. They (re)produce a certain image of
the past in the collective memory and transform it into the present. More-
over, they produce suggestive interpretive patterns and imagined traditions
that are used as a message for the respective society. In this way, the culture
of memory is potently charged with political myths.37
In sum, bulwark myths are an interpretation of the historic achieve-
ments of a society and its territorial shape. At the same time, they not only
claim a territory but also define the society’s relation to its territory. Bul-
wark myths quite paradigmatically demonstrate the interrelation between
identity formation and territorial claims. They also provide legitimacy to
the “borders in the mind.”38 As a result, one can find bulwark myths where
it is necessary to strengthen identity and culture, to define a society in de-
marcating it from Others and to imagine a territory.39

Bulwark Myths in Modern Eastern Europe

These narrative strategies are often to be found in East European history,

and they contribute to the imagination of Eastern Europe in a specific way.
As discussed in Weiand’s chapter, the concept of antemurale christianitatis
emerged in the high Middle Ages against the background of the Mongol
12 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

raids and reached its peak between the late fifteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, particularly during the anti-Ottoman wars.40 The notion of being a
bulwark against the Muslim threat was widespread in early modern Cro-
atia, Hungary, and Venice; the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; and the
lands of the Habsburg monarchy.41
From the very beginning, the (self-)definition of antemurale was mostly
limited to the Catholic lands. Territories dominated by the Eastern Rite
believers—such as Serbia, Muscovy, Rhodes, and Crete—were granted this
title by the Holy See only with certain reservations. Although typical for
the Christian-Islamic border, antemurale myths can also be found in the
regions where different Christian faiths meet. Here, the extrapolation “civ-
ilization/barbarism” is often enriched with thoughts about the “true faith.”
In this way, the antemurale myth is used as a source of legitimation for dif-
ferent kinds of missionary activities (religious, political, and cultural), per-
haps with the only exception being the Transylvanian case Ciprian Ghisa
(Cluj) discusses in this volume.
The antemurale rhetoric is by no means a prerogative of East European
elites and media. However, antemurale myths acquired particular rel-
evance and meaning in East European frontier zones. By frontier zones,
we mean the territories that are situated along the southern, southwest-
ern, and western borders of the former Russian Empire, encompassing the
lands of modern-day Ukraine and the Black Sea region. These lands have
been contested since antiquity, and they have contributed to the growth
of the Byzantine, Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian empires as multieth-
nic and multifaith communities. For some, these territories, with regard
to their historical legacies, fit the category of the so-called mesoregions,42
or even “borderland-type civilizations” (e.g., the Black Sea region, the so-
called East European borderland including Belarus and Moldova),43 or,
more traditionally, East Central Europe, otherwise defined as New Central
Europe.44
It is remarkable, though, that many of these regional attempts to recon-
sider European geography within the so-called spatial turn combine the
positively charged borderland’s “pluralistic image” with the narratives of
“victimization” and “resistance.” The concept of the “frontier civilization”
as a precondition of the democratic development in post–Cold War Eu-
rope also found its promoters.45 Clearly, such methodological approaches
“are neither harmful nor innocent. Imagined spaces on mental maps can be
ascribed not only as ‘spaces of perception,’ but also as ‘spaces of action.’”46
Although we are aware of the shortcomings of regionalization in mod-
ern historical writing,47 we define the geographical focus of our volume as
mesoregional. Our book deals mostly with the lands of modern Ukraine
and its neighbors (Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Habsburg, and
 INTRODUCTION 13

Ottoman lands) in the age of nationalism. This includes border regions as

well as some of the so-called core imperial areas (e.g., Russian in Norris’s
and Kolstø’s chapters and Ottoman/Turkish in Gasimov’s text). The me-
soregional approach permits looking “at de-territorialized yet not timeless
units of analysis by way of intra-regional and inter-regional comparison
in order to identify clusters of longue durée-like structural markers.”48 We
are also fully aware of terminological intricacies in this sense (Ukraine and
its many neighbors did not have sovereignty in this period and, thus, had
no clearly defined state borders). Still, it is on the one hand fruitful to start
from the classical view of antemurale rhetoric as the prerogative of Catho-
lic countries. On the other hand, our approach allows us to introduce var-
ious multiconfessional and multiethnic perspectives on the whole region
beyond the narrow scope of specific national discourses.
Recent historiography emphasizes that “mesoregion” is an analytical cat-
egory, not an ontological one. As Diana Mishkova and Balázs Trencsényi
argue in their latest book, “Regions thus do not emerge as objectified and
disjointed units functioning as quasi-national entities with fixed bound-
aries and clear-cut lines between insiders and outsiders, but rather as
flexible and historically changing frameworks for interpreting certain
phenomena.”49
We assume that Eastern Europe as a mesoregion could be described
in terms of multilayered, complex interactions of the steppe, of Rus, Pol-
ish, Habsburg, Russian, Ottoman imperial, and Soviet traditions.50 We are
aware that—with reference to long and intensive research debates—some
of our authors (e.g., Seegel and Srodecki) could not follow the geographical
term “Eastern Europe” and define these territories more concretely as East
Central Europe, which includes German territories, or Central Europe,
which also encompasses Austrian lands.
Whether called Eastern, Central, or East Central Europe, these were
the lands of “several nested geographies,”51 at the same time being “a con-
tact zone possessing a quite differentiated spectrum of social and cultural
phenomena.”52 Mary Louise Pratt defines contact zones as social arenas in
which cultures “meet, clash, and grapple with each other within spaces of
asymmetrical power relations.”53 These territories could otherwise be called
a communication region that is characterized by dense internal interaction
and multiple cultural practices and experiences.54
The logic of the antemurale functioned on both sides there. For the local
population, living on a front line required both cooperation and confronta-
tion with close neighbors. In the case of danger, bulwark rhetoric was often
in use, while the logic of cooperation across the border emerged in peaceful
times. This region was seen both as a bulwark and as a bridge. Border con-
flicts gave rise to the formation of semi-independent military units, such
14 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

as the Ukrainian Cossacks, who were often portrayed as frontiersmen de-

fending the Orthodox faith, the Ukrainian nation, or the Russian Empire.55
The boundary between Christian and Islamic cultures, which is rooted in
history, also influenced various interdependent debates about civilization,
barbarism, religious missions, and self-identification with the role of a
“chosen people” (e.g., as defenders of faith or culture) in the region.56
Since the nineteenth century, the mythic narrative of bulwarks has un-
dergone considerable change due to the rise of nationalism and the transfor-
mations of political borders. Antemurale myths have therefore experienced
a revival as modern rampart nations were born. Recent statements by East
European politicians and journalists, as analyzed in Kolstø’s chapter and
Srodecki’s concluding remarks on the legacies of the antemurale rhetorics
at the end of the book, show that ancient topoi of a chosen people and the
civilization/barbarism divide remain intact today. Since the beginning of
the twentieth century, anti-Islamic rhetoric has sometimes been replaced
by a sharp anti-Russian/Soviet vocabulary.
This is aptly demonstrated in several case studies in this volume, par-
ticularly in those of Kolstø, Gasimov, and Srodecki. Political myths of
antemurale, due to their semantic flexibility, are essential elements of na-
tional ideologies. A certain chain effect has been crucial in this respect.
Despite the obvious “dividing function” of bulwark myths, many national
traditions in the region have been determined in their modern (i.e., mainly
nineteenth-century) development by the inclusion of mirroring images of
the enemy from the other side of the border. Since the nationally motivated
and accelerated enhancement of bulwark narratives in the nineteenth cen-
tury, they have become an important source of legitimation for the ideol-
ogies of nation-states and empires in the region. Consequently, they are
deeply engraved in today’s national consciousness.
One focus of our book rests upon the longue durée processes in na-
tional consciousness from the end of the eighteenth century until World
War II. In the historical literature, this period has been given the name of
“the age of nationalism.” It is generally supposed that this time witnessed
the rise of nationalism, which became a generally recognized sentiment
molding public and private life. However, such a universal definition is
questionable. In the abovementioned region, the expression of national-
ism had different forms. Some scholars define an “Eastern type of nation-
alism” as ethnic, as opposed to “Western nationalism,” which they say was
a civic one. Hans Kohn, who coined this typology around World War II,
described ethnic nationalism as inherently backward, while civic (polit-
ical) nationalism was allegedly progressive.57 The critique of such asser-
tions concerned mostly the equation of nation and state, which in some
East European cases is rather problematic. The often postulated equation
 introduction 15

of nation and modernity also does not seem to work in Eastern European
contexts in the “long” nineteenth century.58
However, the most critical point deals with the dichotomy between na-
tion-state and empire. For decades, historians have seen empires, in con-
trast to nation-states, in the, “tradition of negativity, which perceived social
reality through a framework defined by the characteristics of the modern
world of nation-states and its historicity. Empire within this old trend has
been defined as the opposite and the subordinate: a historical archaism
before the advent of the age of nationalism.”59
Instead, we opt for a more balanced solution: one should not sharply
oppose the nationalization of empires to the formation of nation-states
during the long nineteenth century.60 Both processes took place in the re-
gion; both were legitimized by bulwark myths. The examples discussed
by Kravchenko and by Ghisa in this book demonstrate this statement ex
negativo. Kravchenko and Ghisa raise the issue of historical contexts that
prevent the spread of bulwark rhetoric. In Kravchenko’s article, these were
territorial divisions that prevented the formation of antemurale mythology.
Early nineteenth-century Ukrainian territories were often perceived as
“lands-in-between” suffering from “fatal geography.” Because Ghisa de-
scribes a rather peaceful coexistence in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-
century Transylvania, one can presume that this particular situation was
also the reason for the absence of the antemurale rhetoric. A “confessional
security” could indeed prevent the feeling of threat and in this way hin-
der the dissemination of bulwark rhetoric in confessional polemics. For the
Greek Catholic elites in Transylvania, the only apparent danger was that
coming from inside, as the Orthodox threat. Although the rhetoric of be-
longing to the greater and more civilized Roman Catholic community was
quite popular at the time, bulwark mythology did not find fertile ground
in Transylvania. From these counterexamples, we can assume that a threat
scenario from outside is one of the absolute prerequisites for the formation
and popularization of bulwark myths.
The second focus of our book is on a synchronic perspective, allowing
the tracing of reciprocal transfers and multisided national and intercon­
fessional ideological competition and the intertwining of mythical narra-
tives. The emphasis on transfers and the media of myth making allows us
to apply the approach of transnational history to our subject. One of our
key arguments is that, since the late Middle Ages, the main agents of an­
temurale mythology’s dissemination in Eastern Europe have been trans-
national actors. This is apparent in the studies of Weiand, Gasimov, and
Seegel: whether in the case of Renaissance theologians, historians and dip-
lomats, or modern émigré politicians and cartographers, these were all the
stories of transnational lives, contacts, and careers. Our book is the history
16 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

of transfers and borrowings that demonstrate how antemurale rhetoric,

colored with the stains of separation and delineation, has always been pop-
ularized by transnational actors.
In this book, we have scrutinized the peculiarities of antemurale rheto-
ric’s application to various national and imperial ideologies and the respec-
tive processes of “mental mapping” in the region. We thus decided to focus
on two important aspects: the abovementioned role of antemurale mythol-
ogy in the (de-)sacralization and nationalization of borderland regions and
the major forms, media, and actors of antemurale discourses. Our volume
is hence organized in four parts: Background (Part I), (De-)Sacralizing and
Nationalizing Borderlands (Part II), Promoting Antemurale Discourses
(Part III), and Reflections on the Bulwark Myths Today (Part IV).
After an introduction by Berezhnaya and Hein-Kircher and a historical
reframing presented by Weiand in Part I, all chapters of Part II deal with
the (de-)sacralization and nationalization of the Eastern European border-
lands. As explained above, Ghisa’s chapter provides a counterexample and
demonstrates that the denominational Othering functioned only within the
ethnic community and not outside of it. As he discusses the early stage, it
seems that this process embossed the further development of the national
movement of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Hein-Kircher
explains then, that due to the negative image of the Ruthenians/Ukraini-
ans, the Polish antemurale topos picked up the denominational differences
between these groups and lead finally to a legitimization of the national
conflict within the city of Lviv and Galicia and to a de-sacralization of the
antemurale topos.
In the next chapter, Heyde explains the inner-Jewish discussions on
excluding or integrating the Jews mainly in postemancipational times in
Galicia. One important finding is, like that of Ghisa, that innergroup con-
flicts using religious arguments also lead to the erection of inner walls. The
same phenomenon is discussed in Berezhnaya’s chapter, which demon-
strates that through religious antemurale argumentations, nationalizing
processes lead to national differentiations. Gasimov’s chapter concludes
the section by showing through the Turkish case—the imagination of an
anti-communist and anti-Russian bulwark—that antemurale rhetoric does
not necessarily lead to the sacralization of the nation. (De-)sacralization
and nationalization of the Eastern European borders are hence highly en-
tangled, possessing legitimizing and coherence-giving functions.
Part III is consecutively dedicated to the promotion of these discourses.
At first, Kravchenko discusses why the antemurale myth had not developed
in Ukraine during the first half of the nineteenth century. He concludes
that, because of the late nation-building process, the promotion of antemu-
rale thinking became possible only when the Ukrainian national movement
 INTRODUCTION 17

began to build its own national space at the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury. Hofeneder and Seegel explain in their chapters how seemingly “neu-
tral” media, such as schoolbooks and maps, were used as key instruments
for the dissemination of rampart myths and the construction of a national
space that excluded Other ethnic and national groups.
The following chapters of Srodecki and Norris discuss the longue durée
aspects of the lives of myths. Srodecki focuses on the new anti-Bolshevik
narrative that emerged after World War I in Hungary and Poland, while
Norris discusses the varying perceptions of one painting that represents
the Russian founding myth from the nineteenth century until the first
decade of the twenty-first century. To sum up the findings of this part,
the promotion of antemurale myths could be carried out by different me-
dia, but they have to narrate the myth’s message verbally, visually, or even
ritually.
The consequences of this promotion and implementation of bulwark
myths in contemporary Eastern European historical consciousnesses are
analyzed in Part IV. Kolstø focuses on the boundary-making antemurale,
emphasizing their cultural and denominational differences, but concludes
that they mostly refer to power relations. Srodecki’s chapter discusses the
emergence of today’s antemurale rhetoric. The contemporary bulwark
myth is experiencing a revival and is often used to legitimize and sharpen
political conflicts in the region. It appears to be grounded on the historical
legacies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries discussed in this book.
Rampart myths have not yet lost their political impact on Eastern Euro-
pean rampart nations.

Our book demonstrates that antemurale rhetoric arises from the need of
the border society to differentiate itself from a religious (confessional)/
ethnic/national/civilizational Other when faced with a real or perceived
threat. In modern Eastern Europe numerous actors took part in the dis-
semination of antemurale mythology: political and religious leaders, intel-
lectuals, artists, cartographers, and journalists. As they crossed multiple
state and regional borders to popularize threat scenarios, they became real
protagonists of transnational history. In the age of nationalism, these actors
used various media to reach an audience from schoolbook maps, newspa-
pers, and paintings to historical texts, sermons, and political manifestos.
In a way, by legitimating lines of division, antemurale propagators have
all worked against borderland traditions of coexistence and cross-border
cooperation. By the end of the nineteenth century, as the traditional im-
perial orders of the Romanovs, Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Hohenzollern
gradually waned, nationalizing discourses using antemurale rhetoric be-
came dominant. These communicators of antemurale rhetoric often used
18 LILIYA BEREZHNAYA and HEIDI HEINKIRCHER

various religious and secular sites of memory in this mesoregion for the
popularization of antemurale mythology within the framework of nation-
alist or imperial ideologies. Because this rhetoric was an effective weapon
with high mobilizing potential, it was particularly attractive for the oppos-
ing sides during World War I. By the end of the war, East European border-
lands had indeed become “bloodlands.”61
Our book is intended to provide a stimulus for further transnational
studies of myth making in this East European mesoregion and to supply
historical background knowledge for understanding the revival of bulwark
mythology in contemporary Eastern Europe. It includes examples of Jewish
and other non-Christian antemurale mythology in order to enrich schol-
arship on bulwark myths. However, our book cannot cover the whole geo-
graphical spectrum—for instance, Moldova is only touched on, while the
Baltic lands are entirely missing from this book. The sample case studies
use various methodological approaches (from art history to theology, with
most chapters concentrated at the crossroads of political, social, and re-
ligious history) and introduce the diversity of bulwark myths, while also
revealing their common foundations.
Nevertheless, our volume does not encompass a systematic or complete
investigation of bulwark rhetoric in the region. Several questions remain to
be answered: How is the use of bulwark mythology in political and religious
ideologies to be distinguished from its abuse? Were there any differences
between denominationally homogeneous areas and those that were mixed?
Can we find any specifically confessional aspects in bulwark mythology?
How did the panmovement ideologies (e.g., pan-Slavism) influence trans-
formations in the antemurale myths? Although some questions remain to
be answered, our book gives an overview of the way bulwark myths contrib-
uted to the “historization” of borderland communities. It also reveals how
these myths were, and today still are, appropriated by national movements
to demarcate themselves from other denominational and ethnic groups.

Liliya Berezhnaya is an assistant professor at the Cluster of Excellence

“Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster, Germany. Her research
interests are focused on comparative borderland studies, imperial and na-
tional discourses in Eastern European history, symbolic geography and the
construction of “the Other,” Ukrainian religious and cultural history, and
eschatological notions in Christian traditions. She coedited (with Christian
Schmitt) Iconic Turns: Nation and Religion in Eastern European Cinema
since 1989 (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Her The World to Come: Ukrainian Im-
ages of the Last Judgment, cowritten with John-Paul Himka, was released in
2015 by Harvard University Press.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
on the extreme right was driven out of the engagement, and the
British gunboats, turning the American flank, attacked the
“Ticonderoga,” which maintained a doubtful battle. The American left
was also turned, the “Eagle” having been driven to take refuge
between the “Saratoga” and “Ticonderoga,” in the centre.
Macdonough’s ship was then exposed to the concentrated fire of the
“Confiance” and “Linnet,” and his battery was soon silenced. The
“Saratoga” could no longer use a gun on the engaged side, and the
battle was nearly lost.
Then Macdonough’s forethought changed the impending defeat
into victory. His fire had nearly silenced the “Confiance,” and
disregarding the “Linnet,” he ceased attention to the battle in order
to direct the operation of winding ship. Little by little hauling the ship
about, he opened on the “Confiance” with one gun after another of
the fresh broadside, as they bore; and the “Confiance,” after trying
in vain to effect the same operation, struck her colors. Then the
British fleet was in the situation which Downie had anticipated for
the Americans in the event of silencing the “Saratoga.” The three
smaller vessels were obliged to surrender, and the gunboats alone
escaped. The battle had lasted from quarter past eight till quarter
before eleven.
 POSITIONS
OF THE
BRITISH AND AMERICAN FORCES
AT
PLATTSBURG
AFTER A SKETCH BY BRIG. GEN. MACOMB

By land, the British attack was much less effective than by water.
The troops were slow in reaching their positions, and had time to
make no decisive movement. A column under Major-General
Robinson was ordered to move round by the right flank to a ford
previously reconnoitred, some distance up the Saranac, in order to
gain a position whence they could reverse the American works and
carry them by assault; but Robinson’s column missed its way, and
before reaching the ford heard the cheers of the American troops,
and halted to ascertain its cause.[180] The remainder of the army
waited for Robinson’s column to assault. The casualties showed that
nothing like a serious engagement took place. The entire loss of the
British army from September 6 to September 14 was officially
reported as only thirty-seven killed and one hundred and fifty
wounded, and of this loss a large part occurred previous to the
battle of September 11. The entire American loss was thirty-seven
killed and sixty-two wounded.
In the naval battle, Macdonough reported fifty-two killed and fifty-
eight wounded, among about eight hundred and eighty men. The
British reported fifty-seven killed and seventy-two wounded, in crews
whose number was never precisely known, but was probably fully
eight hundred. In neither case was the loss, though severe, as great
relatively to the numbers as the severity of the action seemed to
imply. The “Saratoga” lost twenty-eight killed in a crew of two
hundred and forty. In Perry’s battle on Lake Erie, the “Lawrence” lost
twenty-two men killed in a crew of one hundred and thirty-one.
About one man in eight was killed on Macdonough’s ship; about one
man in six on Perry’s.
With needless precipitation, Prevost instantly retreated the next
day to Champlain, sacrificing stores to a very great amount, and
losing many men by desertion. The army was cruelly mortified, and
Prevost lost whatever military reputation he still preserved in
Canada. In England the impression of disgrace was equally strong.
“It is scarcely possible to conceive the degree of mortification and
disappointment,” said the “Annual Register,”[181] “which the
intelligence of this defeat created in Great Britain.” Yeo brought
official charges of misconduct against Prevost, and Prevost defended
himself by unusual arguments.
“With whatever sorrow I may think of the unfortunate occurrences
to which I allude,” he wrote to Bathurst, three weeks later,[182] “I
consider them as light and trivial when compared to the disastrous
results which, I am solemnly persuaded, would have ensued had any
considerations of personal glory, or any unreflecting disregard of the
safety of the province, or of the honor of the army committed to my
charge, induced me to pursue those offensive operations by land,
independent of the fleet, which it would appear by your Lordship’s
despatch were expected of me. Such operations, my Lord, have been
attempted before, and on the same ground. The history of our
country records their failure; and had they been undertaken again
with double the force placed under my command, they would have
issued in the discomfiture of his Majesty’s arms, and in a defeat not
more disastrous than inevitable.”
The Duke of Wellington was not so severe as other critics, and
hesitated to say that Prevost was wrong; “though of this I am
certain, he must equally have returned ... after the fleet was beaten;
and I am inclined to think he was right. I have told the ministers
repeatedly that a naval superiority on the Lakes is a sine qua non of
success in war on the frontier of Canada, even if our object should
be wholly defensive.”[183] Yet the Duke in conversation seemed to
think that his army in Canada was also at fault. “He had sent them
some of his best troops from Bordeaux,” he said five-and-twenty
years afterward,[184] “but they did not turn out quite right; they
wanted this iron fist to command them.”
Meanwhile Major-General Izard, by Armstrong’s order, marched
his four thousand men as far as possible from the points of attack.
Starting from Champlain, August 29, the army reached Sackett’s
Harbor September 17, having marched about two hundred and
eighty miles in twenty days. At Sackett’s Harbor Izard found no
orders from the government, for the government at that time had
ceased to perform its functions; but he received an earnest appeal
from General Brown to succor Fort Erie. “I will not conceal from
you,” wrote Brown, September 10,[185] “that I consider the fate of
this army very doubtful unless speedy relief is afforded.” Izard, who
had no means of testing the correctness of this opinion, decided to
follow Brown’s wishes, and made, September 17, the necessary
preparations. Violent storms prevented Chauncey from embarking
the troops until September 21; but September 27 the troops reached
Batavia, and Izard met Brown by appointment. The army had then
been a month in movement. The distance was more than four
hundred miles, and no energy could have shortened the time so
much as to have affected the result of the campaign. At one end of
the line Sir George Prevost retreated from Plattsburg September 12;
at the other end, Lieutenant-General Drummond retreated from Fort
Erie September 21; and Izard’s force, constituting the largest body
of regular troops in the field, had been placed where it could
possibly affect neither result.
Izard was a friend of Monroe, and was therefore an object of
Armstrong’s merciless criticism.[186] Brown was a favorite of
Armstrong, and shared his prejudices. The position of Izard at
Buffalo was calculated to excite jealousy. He had implicitly obeyed
the wishes of Armstrong and Brown; in doing so, he had sacrificed
himself,—yielding to Macomb the credit of repulsing Prevost, and to
Brown, who did not wait for his arrival, the credit of repulsing
Drummond. As far as could be seen, Izard had acted with loyalty
toward both Armstrong and Brown; yet both distrusted him. Brown
commonly inclined toward severity, and was the more sensitive
because Izard, as the senior officer, necessarily took command.
Until that moment Izard had enjoyed no chance of showing his
abilities in the field, but at Niagara he saw before him a great
opportunity. Drummond lay at Chippawa, with an army reduced by
battle and sickness to about twenty-five hundred men. Izard
commanded fifty-five hundred regular troops and eight hundred
militia.[187] He had time to capture or destroy Drummond’s entire
force before the winter should set in, and to gather the results of
Brown’s desperate fighting. Brown was eager for the attack, and
Izard assented. October 13 the army moved on Chippawa, and
stopped. October 16, Izard wrote to the War Department,[188]—
“I have just learned by express from Sackett’s Harbor that
Commodore Chauncey with the whole of his fleet has retired into port,
and is throwing up batteries for its protection. This defeats all the
objects of the operations by land in this quarter. I may turn Chippawa,
and should General Drummond not retire, may succeed in giving him
a good deal of trouble; but if he falls back on Fort George or
Burlington Heights, every step I take in pursuit exposes me to be cut
off by the large reinforcements it is in the power of the enemy to
throw in twenty-four hours upon my flank or rear.”
In this state of mind, notwithstanding a successful skirmish,
October 19, between Bissell’s brigade and a strong detachment of
the enemy, Izard made a decision which ruined his military
reputation and destroyed his usefulness to the service. He reported
to the Department, October 23,[189]—
“On the 21st, finding that he [Drummond] still continued within his
works, which he had been assiduously engaged in strengthening from
the moment of our first appearance, the weather beginning to be
severe, and a great quantity of our officers and men suffering from
their continued fatigues and exposure, at twelve at noon I broke up
my encampment, and marched to this ground [opposite Black Rock]
in order to prepare winter quarters for the troops.”
Nothing remained but to break up the army. Brown was sent at
his own request to Sackett’s Harbor, where the next fighting was
expected. A division of the army went with him. The remainder were
placed in winter quarters near Buffalo. Fort Erie was abandoned and
blown up, November 5, and the frontier at Niagara relapsed into
repose.
 Izard felt the mortification of his failure. His feelings were those of
a generous character, and his tone toward Brown contrasted to his
advantage both in candor and in temper with Brown’s language
toward him; but great energy generally implied great faults, and
Brown’s faults were better suited than Izard’s virtues for the work of
an American general at Niagara. Greatly to Izard’s credit, he not only
saw his own inferiority, but advised the government of it. He wrote
to the Secretary of War, November 20,[190]—
“The success of the next campaign on this frontier will in a great
measure depend on concert and good understanding among the
superior officers.... General Brown is certainly a brave, intelligent, and
active officer. Where a portion of the forces is composed of irregular
troops, I have no hesitation in acknowledging my conviction of his
being better qualified than I to make them useful in the public
service.”

So sensitive was Izard to the public feeling and his loss of

standing that he sent his resignation to the secretary, December 18,
[191] in terms which betrayed and even asserted his consciousness
of shrinking under the weight of responsibility:—
“I am fully aware that attempts have been made to lessen the
confidence of government as well as of the public in my ability to
execute the important duties intrusted to me,—duties which were
imposed unexpectedly and much against my inclination. It is therefore
not improbable that my voluntary retirement will relieve the
Department of War from some embarrassment, and that my individual
satisfaction will accord with the public advantage,—especially as my
view of the connection between military command and responsibility
differs materially from that entertained by persons in high authority.”
A man who showed so little confidence in himself could not claim
the confidence of others, and in contact with stronger characters like
Armstrong, Brown, Scott, or Andrew Jackson could play no part but
that of a victim. His resignation was not accepted, but his career was
at an end. When he relieved the pressure kept by Brown constantly
applied to the extremity of the British line, the movement of war
necessarily turned back to its true object, which was Sackett’s
Harbor. Drummond no sooner saw Fort Erie evacuated and his lines
re-established, November 5, than he hurried on board ship with a
part of his troops, and reached Kingston, November 10,[192] where
Sir George Prevost had already prepared for an attack on Sackett’s
Harbor as soon as supplies could be brought from Quebec to
Kingston over the winter roads. Soon afterward Sir George Prevost
was recalled to England, and a new commander-in-chief, Sir George
Murray, supposed to be a man of higher capacity, was sent to take
direction of the next campaign. Reinforcements continued to arrive.
[193] About twenty-seven thousand regular troops, including officers,

were in Canada;[194] a seventy-four-gun ship and a new frigate were

launched at Kingston; and no one doubted that, with the spring,
Sackett’s Harbor would be formally besieged. Izard remained at
Buffalo, doing nothing, and his only influence on the coming as on
the past campaign was to leave the initiative to the enemy.
 CHAPTER V.
Armstrong’s management of the Northern campaign caused severe
criticism; but his neglect of the city of Washington exhausted the
public patience. For two years Washington stood unprotected; not a
battery or a breastwork was to be found on the river bank except
the old and untenable Fort Washington, or Warburton.[195] A
thousand determined men might reach the town in thirty-six hours,
and destroy it before any general alarm could be given.[196] Yet no
city was more easily protected than Washington, at that day, from
attack on its eastern side; any good engineer could have thrown up
works in a week that would have made approach by a small force
impossible. Armstrong neglected to fortify. After experience had
proved his error, he still argued in writing to a committee of
Congress[197] that fortifications would have exhausted the Treasury;
“that bayonets are known to form the most efficient barriers; and
that there was no reason in this case to doubt beforehand the
willingness of the country to defend itself,”—as though he believed
that militia were most efficient when most exposed! He did not even
provide the bayonets.
 POSITIONS
OF THE
BRITISH and AMERICAN
FORCES NEAR
WASHINGTON and BALTIMORE,
FROM AUGUST 20 TO SEPTEMBER 12 1814
In truth, Armstrong looking at the matter as a military critic
decided that the British having no strategic object in capturing
Washington, would not make the attempt. Being an indolent man,
negligent of detail, he never took unnecessary trouble; and having
no proper staff at Washington, he was without military advisers
whose opinion he respected. The President and Monroe fretted at his
indifference, the people of the District were impatient under it, and
every one except Armstrong was in constant terror of attack; but
according to their account the secretary only replied: “No, no!
Baltimore is the place, sir; that is of so much more
consequence.”[198] Probably he was right, and the British would
have gone first to Baltimore had his negligence not invited them to
Washington.
In May the President began to press Armstrong for precautionary
measures.[199] In June letters arrived from Gallatin and Bayard in
London which caused the President to call a Cabinet meeting. June
23 and 24 the Cabinet met and considered the diplomatic situation.
[200] The President proposed then for the first time to abandon
impressment as a sine qua non of negotiation, and to approve a
treaty that should be silent on the subject. Armstrong and Jones
alone supported the idea at that time, but three days afterward,
June 27, Monroe and Campbell acceded to it. The Cabinet then took
the defences of Washington in hand, and July 1 decided to organize
a corps of defence from the militia of the District and the
neighboring States. July 2, the first step toward efficient defence
was taken by creating a new military district on the Potomac, with a
military head of its own. Armstrong wished to transfer Brigadier-
General Moses Porter from Norfolk, to command the new Potomac
District;[201] but the President selected Brigadier-General Winder,
because his relationship to the Federalist governor of Maryland was
likely to make co-operation more effective.
Political appointments were not necessarily bad; but in appointing
Winder to please the governor of Maryland Madison assumed the
responsibility, in Armstrong’s eyes, for the defence of Washington.
The Secretary of War seemed to think that Madison and Monroe
were acting together to take the defence of Washington out of his
hands, and to put it in hands in which they felt confidence.
Armstrong placed Winder instantly in command, and promptly issued
the orders arranged in Cabinet; but he left further measures to
Winder, Monroe, and Madison. His conduct irritated the President;
but no one charged that the secretary refused to carry out the
orders, or to satisfy the requisitions of the President or of General
Winder. He was merely passive.[202]
Winder received his appointment July 5, and went to Washington
for instructions. He passed the next month riding between
Washington, Baltimore, and points on the lower Potomac and
Patuxent,[203] obtaining with great fatigue a personal knowledge of
the country. August 1 he established his permanent headquarters at
Washington, and the entire result of his labors till that time was the
presence of one company of Maryland militia at Bladensburg. No line
of defence was selected, no obstructions to the roads were
prepared, and not so much as a ditch or a breastwork was marked
out or suggested between Annapolis and Washington. Another
fortnight passed, and still Winder was not further advanced. He had
no more men, arms, fortifications, and no more ideas, on the 18th of
August than on the 5th of July. “The call for three thousand militia
under the requisition of July 4 had produced only two hundred and
fifty men at the moment the enemy landed at Benedict.”[204] Winder
had then been six weeks in command of the Washington defences.
Meanwhile a British expedition under command of Major-General
Robert Ross, a distinguished officer of the Peninsula army, sailed
from the Gironde, June 27, to Bermuda. Ross was instructed “to
effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in
favor of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower
Canada.” The point of attack was to be decided by Vice-Admiral
Cochrane, subject to the general’s approval; but the force was not
intended for “any extended operation at a distance from the coast,”
nor was Ross to hold permanent possession of any captured district.
[205]

“When the object of the descent which you may make on the coast
is to take possession of any naval or military stores, you will not delay
the destruction of them in preference to the taking them away, if
there is reasonable ground of apprehension that the enemy is
advancing with superior force to effect their recovery. If in any
descent you shall be enabled to take such a position as to threaten
the inhabitants with the destruction of their property, you are hereby
authorized to levy upon them contributions in return for your
forbearance; but you will not by this understand that the magazines
belonging to the government, or their harbors, or their shipping, are
to be included in such an arrangement. These, together with their
contents, are in all cases to be taken away or destroyed.”

Negroes were not to be encouraged to rise upon their masters,

and no slaves were to be taken away as slaves; but any negro who
should expose himself to vengeance by joining the expedition or
lending it assistance, might be enlisted in the black corps, or carried
away by the fleet.
Nothing in these orders warranted the destruction of private or
public property, except such as might be capable of military uses.
Ross was not authorized, and did not intend, to enter on a mere
marauding expedition; but Cochrane was independent of Ross, and
at about the time when Ross reached Bermuda Cochrane received a
letter from Sir George Prevost which gave an unexpected character
to the Chesapeake expedition. A small body of American troops had
crossed Lake Erie to Long Point, May 15, and destroyed the flour-
mills, distilleries, and some private houses there. The raid was not
authorized by the United States government, and the officer
commanding it was afterward court-martialed and censured; but Sir
George Prevost, without waiting for explanations, wrote to Vice-
Admiral Cochrane, June 2, suggesting that he should “assist in
inflicting that measure of retaliation which shall deter the enemy
from a repetition of similar outrages.”[206]
When Cochrane received this letter, he issued at Bermuda, July
18, orders to the ships under his command, from the St. Croix River
to the St. Mary’s, directing general retaliation.[207] The orders were
interesting as an illustration of the temper the war had taken.
“You are hereby required and directed,” wrote the Vice-Admiral to
the British blockading squadrons, “to destroy and lay waste such
towns and districts upon the coast as you may find assailable. You will
hold strictly in view the conduct of the American army toward his
Majesty’s unoffending Canadian subjects, and you will spare merely
the lives of the unarmed inhabitants of the United States. For only by
carrying this retributory justice into the country of our enemy can we
hope to make him sensible of the impropriety as well as of the
inhumanity of the system he has adopted. You will take every
opportunity of explaining to the people how much I lament the
necessity of following the rigorous example of the commander of the
American forces. And as these commanders must obviously have
acted under instructions from the Executive government of the United
States, whose intimate and unnatural connection with the late
government of France has led them to adopt the same system of
plunder and devastation, it is therefore to their own government the
unfortunate sufferers must look for indemnification for their loss of
property.”
This ill-advised order was to remain in force until Sir George
Prevost should send information “that the United States government
have come under an obligation to make full remuneration to the
injured and unoffending inhabitants of the Canadas for all the
outrages their troops have committed.” Cochrane further wrote to
Prevost that “as soon as these orders have been acted upon,” a copy
would be sent to Washington for the information of the Executive
government.
Cochrane’s retaliatory order was dated July 18, and Ross’s
transports arrived at Bermuda July 24. As soon as the troops were
collected and stores put on board, Cochrane and Ross sailed, August
3, for Chesapeake Bay. They arrived a few days in advance of the
transports, and passing up the bay to the mouth of the Potomac,
landed, August 15, with Rear Admiral Cockburn, to decide on a plan
for using to best effect the forces under their command.
Three objects were within reach. The first and immediate aim was
a flotilla of gunboats, commanded by Captain Joshua Barney, which
had taken refuge in the Patuxent River, and was there blockaded.
The next natural object of desire was Baltimore, on account of its
shipping and prize-money. The third was Washington and
Alexandria, on account of the navy-yard and the vessels in the
Potomac. Baltimore was the natural point of attack after destroying
Barney’s flotilla; but Cockburn, with a sailor’s recklessness, urged a
dash at Washington.[208] Ross hesitated, and postponed a decision
till Barney’s flotilla should be disposed of.
Two days afterward, August 17, the troops arrived, and the
squadron, commanded by Vice-Admiral Cochrane, moved twenty
miles up the bay to the mouth of the Patuxent,—a point about fifty
miles distant from Annapolis on the north, and from Washington on
the northwest. Having arrived there August 18, Cochrane wrote, or
afterward ante-dated, an official letter to Secretary Monroe:[209]—
“Having been called on by the Governor-General of the Canadas to
aid him in carrying into effect measures of retaliation against the
inhabitants of the United States for the wanton destruction committed
by their army in Upper Canada, it has become imperiously my duty,
conformably with the nature of the Governor-General’s application, to
issue to the naval force under my command an order to destroy and
lay waste such towns and districts upon the coast as may be found
assailable.”

The notice was the more remarkable because Cochrane’s order

was issued only to the naval force. The army paid no attention to it.
Ross’s troops were landed at Benedict the next day, August 19; but
neither there nor elsewhere did they destroy or lay waste towns or
districts. They rather showed unusual respect for private property.
At Benedict, August 19, the British forces were organized in three
brigades, numbering, according to different British accounts, four
thousand five hundred, or four thousand rank-and-file.[210] Cockburn
with the boats of the fleet the next day, August 20, started up the
river in search of Barney’s flotilla; while the land force began its
march at four o’clock in the afternoon abreast of the boats, and
camped four miles above Benedict without seeing an enemy, or
suffering from a worse annoyance than one of the evening thunder-
storms common in hot weather.
The next day at dawn the British army started again, and
marched that day, Sunday, August 21, twelve miles to the village of
Nottingham, where it camped.[211] The weather was hot, and the
march resembled a midsummer picnic. Through a thickly wooded
region, where a hundred militia-men with axes and spades could
have delayed their progress for days, the British army moved in a
solitude apparently untenanted by human beings, till they reached
Nottingham on the Patuxent,—a deserted town, rich in growing
crops and full barns.
At Nottingham the army passed a quiet night, and the next
morning, Monday, August 22, lingered till eight o’clock, when it again
advanced. Among the officers in the Eighty-fifth regiment was a
lieutenant named Gleig, who wrote afterward a charming narrative
of the campaign under the title, “A Subaltern in America.” He
described the road as remarkably good, running for the most part
through the heart of thick forests, which sheltered it from the rays of
the sun. During the march the army was startled by the distant
sound of several heavy explosions. Barney had blown up his
gunboats to prevent their capture. The British naval force had thus
performed its part in the enterprise, and the army was next to take
the lead. Ross halted at Marlboro after a march of only seven miles,
and there too he camped, undisturbed by sight or sound of an
armed enemy, although the city of Washington was but sixteen miles
on his left, and Baltimore thirty miles in his front. Ross had then
marched twenty or twenty-one miles into Maryland without seeing
an enemy, although an American army had been close on his left
flank, watching him all day.
 At Marlboro Ross was obliged to decide what he should next do.
He was slow in forming a conclusion. Instead of marching at day-
break of August 23, and moving rapidly on Baltimore or Washington,
the army passed nearly the whole day at Marlboro in idleness, as
though it were willing to let the Americans do their utmost for
defence. “Having advanced within sixteen miles of Washington,”
Ross officially reported,[212] “and ascertained the force of the enemy
to be such as might authorize an attempt to carry his capital, I
determined to make it, and accordingly put the troops in movement
on the evening of the 23d.” More exactly, the troops moved at two
o’clock in the afternoon, and marched about six miles on the road to
Washington, when they struck American outposts at about five
o’clock, and saw a force posted on high ground about a mile in their
front. As the British formed to attack, the American force
disappeared, and the British army camped about nine miles from
Washington by way of the navy-yard bridge over the Eastern Branch.
Thus for five days, from August 18 to August 23, a British army,
which though small was larger than any single body of American
regulars then in the field, marched in a leisurely manner through a
long-settled country, and met no show of resistance before coming
within sight of the Capitol. Such an adventure resembled the stories
of Cortez and De Soto; and the conduct of the United States
government offered no contradiction to the resemblance.
News of the great fleet that appeared in the Patuxent August 17
reached Washington on the morning of Thursday, August 18, and set
the town in commotion. In haste the President sent fresh militia
requisitions to the neighboring States, and ordered out the militia
and all the regular troops in Washington and its neighborhood.
Monroe started again as a scout, arriving in the neighborhood of
Benedict at ten o’clock on the morning of August 20, and remaining
there all day and night without learning more than he knew before
starting.[213] Winder was excessively busy, but did, according to his
own account, nothing. “The innumerably multiplied orders, letters,
consultations, and demands which crowded upon me at the moment
of such an alarm can more easily be conceived than described, and
occupied me nearly day and night, from Thursday the 18th of
August till Sunday the 21st, and had nearly broken down myself and
assistants in preparing, dispensing, and attending to them.”
Armstrong, at last alive to the situation, made excellent suggestions,
[214] but could furnish neither troops, means, nor military
intelligence to carry them out; and the President could only call for
help. The single step taken for defence was taken by the citizens,
who held a meeting Saturday evening, and offered at their own
expense to erect works at Bladensburg. Winder accepted their offer.
Armstrong detailed Colonel Wadsworth, the only engineer officer
near the Department, to lay out the lines, and the citizens did such
work as was possible in the time that remained.
After three days of confusion, a force was at last evolved.
Probably by Winder’s order, although no such order was preserved, a
corps of observation was marched across the navy-yard bridge
toward the Patuxent, or drawn from Bladensburg, to a place called
the Woodyard, twelve miles beyond the Eastern Branch. The force
was not to be despised. Three hundred infantry regulars of different
regiments, with one hundred and twenty light dragoons, formed the
nucleus; two hundred and fifty Maryland militia, and about twelve
hundred District volunteers or militia, with twelve six-pound field-
pieces, composed a body of near two thousand men,[215] from
whom General Brown or Andrew Jackson would have got good
service. Winder came out and took command Sunday evening, and
Monroe, much exhausted, joined them that night.
There the men stood Monday, August 22, while the British army
marched by them, within sight of their outposts, from Nottingham to
Marlboro. Winder rode forward with his cavalry and watched all day
the enemy’s leisurely movements close in his front,[216] but the idea
of attack did not appear to enter his mind. “A doubt at that time,” he
said,[217] “was not entertained by anybody of the intention of the
enemy to proceed direct to Washington.” At nine o’clock that evening
Monroe sent a note to the President, saying that the enemy was in
full march for Washington; that Winder proposed to retire till he
could collect his troops; that preparations should be made to destroy
the bridges, and that the papers in the government offices should be
removed.[218] At the same time Monroe notified Serurier, the only
foreign minister then in Washington, that the single hope of saving
the capital depended on the very doubtful result of an engagement,
which would probably take place the next day or the day after, at
Bladensburg.[219]
At Bladensburg, of necessity, the engagement must take place,
unless Winder made an attack or waited for attack on the road. One
of two courses was to be taken,—Washington must be either
defended or evacuated. Perhaps Winder would have done better to
evacuate it, and let the British take the undefended village; but no
suggestion of the sort was made, nor did Winder retreat to
Bladensburg as was necessary if he meant to unite his troops and
make preparations for a battle. Instead of retreating to Bladensburg
as soon as he was satisfied—at noon of Monday, August 22—that
the British were going there, he ordered his troops to fall back, and
took position at the Old Fields, about five miles in the rear of the
Woodyard, and about seven miles by road from the navy-yard.
Another road led from the Old Fields to Bladensburg about eight
miles away. The American force might have been united at
Bladensburg Monday evening, but Winder camped at the Old Fields
and passed the night.
That evening the President and the members of the Cabinet rode
out to the camp, and the next morning the President reviewed the
army, which had been reinforced by Commodore Barney with four
hundred sailors, the crews of the burned gunboats. Winder then had
twenty-five hundred men, of whom near a thousand were regulars,
or sailors even better fighting troops than ordinary regulars. Such a
force vigorously led was sufficient to give Ross’s army a sharp check,
and at that moment Ross was still hesitating whether to attack
Washington. The loss of a few hundred men might have turned the
scale at any moment during Tuesday, August 23; but Winder neither
fought nor retreated, but once more passed the day on scout. At
noon he rode with a troop of cavalry toward Marlboro. Satisfied that
the enemy was not in motion and would not move that day, he
started at one o’clock for Bladensburg, leaving his army to itself. He
wished to bring up a brigade of militia from Bladensburg.[220]
Winder had ridden about five miles, when the British at two
o’clock suddenly broke up their camp and marched directly on the
Old Fields. The American army hastily formed in line, and sent off its
baggage to Washington. Winder was summoned back in haste, and
arrived on the field at five o’clock as the British appeared. He
ordered a retreat. Every military reason required a retreat to
Bladensburg. Winder directed a retreat on Washington by the navy-
yard bridge.
The reasons which actuated him to prefer the navy-yard to
Bladensburg, as explained by him, consisted in anxiety for the safety
of that “direct and important pass,” which could not without hazard
be left unguarded.[221] In order to guard a bridge a quarter of a mile
long over an impassable river covered by the guns of war-vessels
and the navy-yard, he left unguarded the open high-road which led
through Bladensburg directly to the Capitol and the White House.
After a very rapid retreat that “literally became a run of eight
miles,”[222] Winder encamped in Washington near the bridge-head
at the navy-yard at eight o’clock that night, and then rode three
miles to the White House to report to the President. On returning to
camp, he passed the night until three or four o’clock in the morning
making in person arrangements to destroy the bridge “when
necessary,” assuring his officers that he expected the enemy to
attempt a passage there that night.[223] Toward dawn he lay down,
exhausted by performing a subaltern’s duty all day, and snatched an
hour or two of sleep.
The British in their camp that evening were about eight miles
from Bladensburg battle-field. Winder was about five miles distant
from the same point. By a quick march at dawn he might still have
arrived there, with six hours to spare for arranging his defence. He
preferred to wait till he should know with certainty that the British
were on their way there. On the morning of Wednesday, August 24,
he wrote to Armstrong:[224]—
“I have found it necessary to establish my headquarters here, the
most advanced position convenient to the troops, and nearest
information. I shall remain stationary as much as possible, that I may
be the more readily found, to issue orders, and collect together the
various detachments of militia, and give them as rapid a consolidation
and organization as possible.... The news up the river is very
threatening. Barney’s or some other force should occupy the batteries
at Greenleaf’s Point and the navy-yard. I should be glad of the
assistance of counsel from yourself and the Government. If more
convenient, I should make an exertion to go to you the first
opportunity.”

This singular note was carried first to the President, who, having
opened and read it, immediately rode to headquarters. Monroe,
Jones, and Rush followed. Armstrong and Campbell arrived last.
Before Armstrong appeared, a scout arrived at ten o’clock with
information that the British army had broken up its camp at daylight,
and was probably more than half way to Bladensburg.[225]
Winder’s persistence in remaining at the navy-yard was explained
as due to the idea that the enemy might move toward the Potomac,
seize Fort Washington or Warburton, secure the passage of his
ships, and approach the city by the river.[226] The general never
explained how his presence at the navy-yard was to prevent such a
movement if it was made.
The whole eastern side of Washington was covered by a broad
estuary called the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, bridged only at
two points, and impassable, even by pontoons, without ample
warning. From the Potomac River to Bladensburg, a distance of
about seven miles, the city was effectually protected. Bladensburg
made the point of a right angle. There the Baltimore road entered
the city as by a pass; for beyond, to the west, no general would
venture to enter, leaving an enemy at Bladensburg in his rear. Roads
were wanting, and the country was difficult. Through Bladensburg
the attacking army must come; to Bladensburg Winder must go,
unless he meant to retreat to Georgetown, or to re-cross the Eastern
Branch in the enemy’s rear. Monroe notified Serurier Monday evening
that the battle would be fought at Bladensburg. Secretary Jones
wrote to Commodore Rodgers, Tuesday morning, that the British
would probably “advance to-day toward Bladensburg.”[227] Every
one looked instinctively to that spot[228], yet Winder to the last
instant persisted in watching the navy-yard bridge, using the hours
of Wednesday morning to post Barney’s sailors with twenty-four-
pound guns to cover an approach[229] where no enemy could cross.
 MAP OF THE
BATTLE
OF
BLADENSBURG
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N. Y.

No sooner did Winder receive intelligence at ten o’clock

Wednesday morning that the British were in march to Bladensburg,
than in the utmost haste he started for the same point, preceded by
Monroe and followed by the President and the rest of the Cabinet
and the troops. Barney’s sailors and their guns would have been left
behind to guard the navy-yard bridge had Secretary Jones not
yielded to Barney’s vigorous though disrespectful remonstrances,
and allowed him to follow.[230]
In a long line the various corps, with their military and civil
commanders, streamed toward Bladensburg, racing with the British,
ten miles away, to arrive first on the field of battle. Monroe was
earliest on the ground. Between eleven and twelve o’clock he
reached the spot where hills slope gently toward the Eastern Branch
a mile or more in broad incline, the little straggling town of
Bladensburg opposite, beyond a shallow stream, and hills and woods
in the distance. Several militia corps were already camped on the
ground, which had been from the first designated as the point of
concentration. A Baltimore brigade, more than two thousand strong,
had arrived there thirty-six hours before. Some Maryland regiments
arrived at the same time with Monroe. About three thousand men
were then on the field, and their officers were endeavoring to form
them in line of battle. General Stansbury of the Baltimore brigade
made such an arrangement as he thought best. Monroe, who had no
military rank, altered it without Stansbury’s knowledge.[231] General
Winder arrived at noon, and rode about the field. At the same time
the British light brigade made its appearance, and wound down the
opposite road, a mile away, a long column of redcoats, six abreast,
moving with the quick regularity, of old soldiers,[232] and striking
directly at the American centre. They reached the village on one side
of the stream as Winder’s troops poured down the hill on the other;
and the President with two or three of his Cabinet officers,
considerably in advance of all their own troops, nearly rode across
the bridge into the British line, when a volunteer scout warned them
of their danger.[233]
Much the larger portion of the American force arrived on the
ground when the enemy was in sight, and were hastily drawn up in
line wherever they could be placed.[234] They had no cover. Colonel
Wadsworth’s intrenchments were not used,[235] except in the case of
one field-work which enfiladed the bridge at close range, where
field-pieces were placed. Although some seven thousand men were
present, nothing deserving the name of an army existed. “A few
companies only,” said the Subaltern, “perhaps two or at the most
three battalions, wearing the blue jacket which the Americans have
borrowed from the French, presented some appearance of regular
troops. The rest seemed country-people, who would have been
much more appropriately employed in attending to their agricultural
occupations than in standing with muskets in their hands on the
brow of a bare, green hill.” Heterogeneous as the force was, it would
have been sufficient had it enjoyed the advantage of a commander.
The British light brigade, some twelve or fifteen hundred men,
under Colonel Thornton of the Eighty-fifth regiment, without waiting
for the rear division, dashed across the bridge, and were met by a
discharge of artillery and musketry directly in their face. Checked for
an instant, they pressed on, crossed the bridge or waded the
stream, and spread to the right and left, while their rockets flew into
the American lines. Almost instantly a portion of the American line
gave way; but the rest stood firm, and drove the British skirmishers
back under a heavy fire to the cover of the bank with its trees and
shrubs. Not until a fresh British regiment, moving well to the right,
forded the stream and threatened to turn the American left, did the
rout begin. Even then several strong corps stood steady, and in good
order retired by the road that led to the Capitol; but the mass, struck
by panic, streamed westward toward Georgetown and Rockville.
Meanwhile Barney’s sailors, though on the run, could not reach
the field in time for the attack, and halted on the hillside, about a
mile from Bladensburg, at a spot just outside the District line. The
rout had then begun, but Barney put his five pieces in position and
waited for the enemy. The American infantry and cavalry that had
not fled westward moved confusedly past the field where the sailors
stood at their guns. Winder sent Barney no orders, and Barney, who
was not acting under Winder, but was commander-in-chief of his
own forces under authority of the Navy Department, had no idea of
running away. Four hundred men against four thousand were odds
too great even for sailors, but a battle was not wholly disgraceful
that produced such a commander and such men. Barney’s account
of the combat was as excellent as his courage:[236]—
“At length the enemy made his appearance on the main road in
force and in front of my battery, and on seeing us made a halt. I
reserved our fire. In a few minutes the enemy again advanced, when
 I ordered an eighteen-pounder to be fired, which completely cleared
the road; shortly after, a second and a third attempt was made by the
enemy to come forward, but all were destroyed. They then crossed
over into an open field, and attempted to flank our right. He was met
there by three twelve-pounders, the marines under Captain Miller, and
my men acting as infantry, and again was totally cut up. By this time
not a vestige of the American army remained, except a body of five or
six hundred posted on a height on my right, from which I expected
much support from their fine situation.”
Such a battle could not long continue. The British turned Barney’s
right; the corps on the height broke and fled,[237] and the British,
getting into the rear, fired down upon the sailors. The British
themselves were most outspoken in praise of Barney’s men. “Not
only did they serve their guns with a quickness and precision that
astonished their assailants,” said the Subaltern, “but they stood till
some of them were actually bayoneted with fuses in their hands; nor
was it till their leader was wounded and taken, and they saw
themselves deserted on all sides by the soldiers, that they left the
field.” Barney held his position nearly half an hour, and then, being
severely wounded, ordered his officers to leave him where he lay.
There he was taken by the British advance, and carried to their
hospital at Bladensburg. The British officers, admiring his gallantry,
treated him, he said, “with the most marked attention, respect, and
politeness as if I was a brother,”—as though to show their opinion
that Barney instead of Winder should have led the American army.
After the sailors retired, at about four o’clock, the British stopped
two hours to rest. Their victory, easy as it seemed, was not cheaply
bought. General Ross officially reported sixty-four killed and one
hundred and eighty-five wounded.[238] A loss of two hundred and
fifty men among fifteen hundred said to be engaged[239] was not
small; but Gleig, an officer of the light brigade, himself wounded,
made twice, at long intervals, an assertion which he must have
intended as a contradiction of the official report. “The loss on the
part of the English was severe,” he said,[240] “since out of two thirds
of the army which were engaged upward of five hundred men were
killed and wounded.” According to this assertion, Ross lost five
hundred men among three thousand engaged, or one in six. Had
Winder inflicted that loss while the British were still on the Patuxent,
Ross would have thought long before risking more, especially as
Colonel Thornton was among the severely injured. The Americans
reported only twenty-six killed and fifty-one wounded.
At six o’clock, after a rest of two hours, the British troops
resumed their march; but night fell before they reached the first
houses of the town. As Ross and Cockburn, with a few officers,
advanced before the troops, some men, supposed to have been
Barney’s sailors, fired on the party from the house formerly occupied
by Gallatin, at the northeast corner of Capitol Square. Ross’s horse
was killed, and the general ordered the house to be burned, which
was done. The army did not enter the town, but camped at eight
o’clock a quarter of a mile east of the Capitol. Troops were then
detailed to burn the Capitol, and as the great building burst into
flames, Ross and Cockburn, with about two hundred men, marched
silently in the darkness to the White House, and set fire to it. At the
same time Commodore Tingey, by order of Secretary Jones, set fire
to the navy-yard and the vessels in the Eastern Branch. Before
midnight the flames of three great conflagrations made the whole
country light, and from the distant hills of Maryland and Virginia the
flying President and Cabinet caught glimpses of the ruin their
incompetence had caused.
Serurier lived then in the house built by John Tayloe in 1800,
called the Octagon, a few hundred yards from the War and Navy
Departments and the White House.[241] He was almost the only civil
official left in Washington, and hastened to report the event to
Talleyrand:[242]—
“I never saw a scene at once more terrible and more magnificent.
Your Highness, knowing the picturesque nature and the grandeur of
the surroundings, can form an idea of it. A profound darkness reigned
in the part of the city that I occupy, and we were left to conjectures
and to the lying reports of negroes as to what was passing in the
quarter illuminated by these frightful flames. At eleven o’clock a
 colonel, preceded by torches, was seen to take the direction of the
White House, which is situated quite near mine; the negroes reported
that it was to be burned, as well as all those pertaining to government
offices. I thought best, on the moment, to send one of my people to
the general with a letter, in which I begged him to send a guard to the
house of the Ambassador of France to protect it.... My messenger
found General Ross in the White House, where he was collecting in
the drawing-room all the furniture to be found, and was preparing to
set fire to it. The general made answer that the King’s Hotel should be
respected as much as though his Majesty were there in person; that
he would give orders to that effect; and that if he was still in
Washington the next day, he would have the pleasure to call on me.”
Ross and Cockburn alone among military officers, during more
than twenty years of war, considered their duty to involve personal
incendiarism. At the time and subsequently various motives were
attributed to them,—such as the duty of retaliation,—none of which
was alleged by either of them as their warranty.[243] They burned
the Capitol, the White House, and the Department buildings because
they thought it proper, as they would have burned a negro kraal or a
den of pirates. Apparently they assumed as a matter of course that
the American government stood beyond the pale of civilization; and
in truth a government which showed so little capacity to defend its
capital, could hardly wonder at whatever treatment it received.
A violent thunder-storm checked the flames; but the next
morning, Thursday, August 25, fresh detachments of troops were
sent to complete the destruction of public property. Without orders
from his Government, Ross converted his campaign, which till then
had been creditable to himself and flattering to British pride, into a
marauding raid of which no sensible Englishman spoke without
mortification. Cockburn amused himself by revenging his personal
grievances on the press which had abused him. Mounted on a brood
mare, white, uncurried, with a black foal trotting by her side, the
Admiral attacked the office of the “National Intelligencer,” and
superintended the destruction of the types. “Be sure that all the C’s
are destroyed,” he ordered, “so that the rascals cannot any longer
abuse my name.”[244] Ross was anxious to complete the destruction
of the public buildings with the least possible delay, that the army
might retire without loss of time;[245] and the work was pressed
with extreme haste. A few private buildings were burned, but as a
rule private property was respected, and no troops except small
detachments were allowed to leave the camp.
Soon after noon, while the work was still incomplete, a tornado
burst on the city and put an end to the effort. An accidental
explosion at the navy-yard helped to check destruction. Ross could
do no more, and was in haste to get away. No sooner had the
hurricane, which lasted nearly two hours and seemed especially
violent at the camp, passed over, than Ross began preparations to
retire. With precautions wholly unnecessary, leaving its camp-fires
burning, the British column in extreme silence, after nine o’clock at
night, began its march. Passing Bladensburg, where the dead were
still unburied, Ross left his wounded in the hospital to American
care, and marched all night till seven o’clock Friday morning, when
the troops, exhausted with fatigue, were allowed a rest. At noon
they were again in motion, and at night-fall, after marching twenty-
five miles within twenty-four hours, they arrived at Marlboro. Had
the advance from Benedict been equally rapid, Ross would have
entered Washington without a skirmish.
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