Friday, June 28, 2013

This Day in History: Jun 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles Ends World War I

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Wilson, Woodrow: the “Big Four”

The Treaty of Versailles, signed in the Versailles Palace outside Paris on June 28, 1919, between the Allied and Associated Powers on the one hand and Germany on the other, brought World War I to an end. From the moment of its signature, the treaty ignited a continuing controversy over its treatment of Germany, with some arguing from the beginning that it was far too harsh, and others that it was too lenient to ensure a lasting peace.

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 Allied delegates in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles witness the German delegation's acceptance of the terms of the Treaty Of Versailles, the treaty formally ending World War I. Versailles, France, June 28, 1919.

The treaty, negotiated between January and June 1919 in Paris, was written by the Allies with almost no participation by the Germans. The negotiations revealed a split between the French, who wanted to dismember Germany to make it impossible for it to renew war with France, and the British and Americans, who did not want to create pretexts for a new war. The eventual treaty included fifteen parts and 440 articles.

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Part I created the Covenant of the New League of Nations, which Germany was not allowed to join until 1926.



Part II specified Germany's new boundaries, giving Eupen-Malm[eacute]dy to Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine back to France, substantial eastern districts to Poland, Memel to Lithuania, and large portions of Schleswig to Denmark.

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Part III stipulated a demilitarized zone and separated the Saar from Germany for fifteen years. Part IV stripped Germany of all its colonies, and Part V reduced Germany's armed forces to very low levels and prohibited Germany from possessing certain classes of weapons, while committing the Allies to eventual disarmament as well.

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Part VIII established Germany's liability for reparations without stating a specific figure and began with Article 231, in which Germany accepted the responsibility of itself and its allies for the losses and damages of the Allies "as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

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Part IX imposed numerous other financial obligations upon Germany.

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The German government signed the treaty under protest. Right-wing German parties attacked it as a betrayal, and terrorists assassinated several politicians whom they considered responsible. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and the U.S. government took no responsibility for most of its provisions.

 

For five years the French and the Belgians tried to enforce the treaty quite rigorously, leading in 1922 to their occupation of the Ruhr. In 1924, however, Anglo-American financial pressure compelled France to scale down its goals and end the occupation, and the French, assented to modifying important provisions of the treaty in a series of new agreements. Germany in 1924 and 1929 agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but the depression led to the cancellation of reparations in 1932. The Allies evacuated the Rhineland in 1930. Germany violated many disarmament provisions of Part V during the 1920s, and Hitler denounced the treaty altogether in 1935. From March 1937 through March 1939, Hitler overturned the territorial provisions of the treaty with respect to Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Memel, with at least the tacit consent of the western powers. On September 1, 1939, he attacked Poland to alter that frontier, as well.

 



One can never know whether either rigorous Franco-British enforcement of the original treaty or a more generous treaty would have avoided a new war. Certainly the British and American governments after 1945 sought to avoid many of the problems that had been raised by the Treaty of Versailles, especially regarding reparations, and the division of Germany and the Cold War enabled them generously to rebuild the western zones and to integrate them into a western alliance without renewing fears of German aggression. Meanwhile, they deferred certain fundamental issues for so long that no formal peace treaty was ever written to end World War II.
 



 

 




by DAVID KAISER taken from: http://www.history.com/topics/treaty-of-versailles [28.06.2013]




Keynes predicts economic chaos

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At the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. The English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had attended the peace conference but then left in protest of the treaty, was one of the most outspoken critics of the punitive agreement. In his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in December 1919, Keynes predicted that the stiff war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany by the treaty would lead to the financial collapse of the country, which in turn would have serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world.

The Big Three of Versailles: Georges Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson, and David Lloyd George (1919)

By the fall of 1918, it was apparent to the leaders of Germany that defeat was inevitable in World War I. After four years of terrible attrition, Germany no longer had the men or resources to resist the Allies, who had been given a tremendous boost by the infusion of American manpower and supplies. In order to avert an Allied invasion of Germany, the German government contacted U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in October 1918 and asked him to arrange a general armistice. Earlier that year, Wilson had proclaimed his "Fourteen Points," which proposed terms for a "just and stable peace" between Germany and its enemies. The Germans asked that the armistice be established along these terms, and the Allies more or less complied, assuring Germany of a fair and unselfish final peace treaty. On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and went into effect, and fighting in World War I came to an end.

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 David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain (1916 – 1922).



In January 1919, John Maynard Keynes traveled to the Paris Peace Conference as the chief representative of the British Treasury. The brilliant 35-year-old economist had previously won acclaim for his work with the Indian currency and his management of British finances during the war. In Paris, he sat on an economic council and advised British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, but the important peacemaking decisions were out of his hands, and President Wilson, Prime Minister Lloyd George, and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau wielded the real authority. Germany had no role in the negotiations deciding its fate, and lesser Allied powers had little responsibility in the drafting of the final treaty.


It soon became apparent that the treaty would bear only a faint resemblance to the Fourteen Points that had been proposed by Wilson and embraced by the Germans. Wilson, a great idealist, had few negotiating skills, and he soon buckled under the pressure of Clemenceau, who hoped to punish Germany as severely as it had punished France in the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Lloyd George took the middle ground between the two men, but he backed the French plan to force Germany to pay reparations for damages inflicted on Allied civilians and their property. Since the treaty officially held Germany responsible for the outbreak of World War I (in reality it was only partially responsible), the Allies would not have to pay reparations for damages they inflicted on German civilians.

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The treaty that began to emerge was a thinly veiled Carthaginian Peace, an agreement that accomplished Clemenceau's hope to crush France's old rival. According to its terms, Germany was to relinquish 10 percent of its territory. It was to be disarmed, and its overseas empire taken over by the Allies. Most detrimental to Germany's immediate future, however, was the confiscation of its foreign financial holdings and its merchant carrier fleet. The German economy, already devastated by the war, was thus further crippled, and the stiff war reparations demanded ensured that it would not soon return to its feet. A final reparations figure was not agreed upon in the treaty, but estimates placed the amount in excess of $30 billion, far beyond Germany's capacity to pay. Germany would be subject to invasion if it fell behind on payments.

A picture taken after the wedding, in 1925, of John Maynard Keynes and the Russian ballet dancer M Lydia Lopokova.

Keynes, horrified by the terms of the emerging treaty, presented a plan to the Allied leaders in which the German government be given a substantial loan, thus allowing it to buy food and materials while beginning reparations payments immediately. Lloyd George approved the "Keynes Plan," but President Wilson turned it down because he feared it would not receive congressional approval. In a private letter to a friend, Keynes called the idealistic American president "the greatest fraud on earth." On June 5, 1919, Keynes wrote a note to Lloyd George informing the prime minister that he was resigning his post in protest of the impending "devastation of Europe."

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The Germans initially refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and it took an ultimatum from the Allies to bring the German delegation to Paris on June 28. It was five years to the day since the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which began the chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. Clemenceau chose the location for the signing of the treaty: the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace, site of the signing of the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War. At the ceremony, General Jan Christiaan Smuts, soon to be president of South Africa, was the only Allied leader to protest formally the Treaty of Versailles, saying it would do grave injury to the industrial revival of Europe.

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At Smuts' urging, Keynes began work on The Economic Consequences of the Peace. It was published in December 1919 and was widely read. In the book, Keynes made a grim prophecy that would have particular relevance to the next generation of Europeans: "If we aim at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare say, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the later German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilisation and the progress of our generation."

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Germany soon fell hopelessly behind in its reparations payments, and in 1923 France and Belgium occupied the industrial Ruhr region as a means of forcing payment. In protest, workers and employers closed down the factories in the region. Catastrophic inflation ensued, and Germany's fragile economy began quickly to collapse. By the time the crash came in November 1923, a lifetime of savings could not buy a loaf of bread. That month, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler launched an abortive coup against Germany's government. The Nazis were crushed and Hitler was imprisoned, but many resentful Germans sympathized with the Nazis and their hatred of the Treaty of Versailles.

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A decade later, Hitler would exploit this continuing bitterness among Germans to seize control of the German state. In the 1930s, the Treaty of Versailles was significantly revised and altered in Germany's favor, but this belated amendment could not stop the rise of German militarism and the subsequent outbreak of World War II.

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In the late 1930s, John Maynard Keynes gained a reputation as the world's foremost economist by advocating large-scale government economic planning to keep unemployment low and markets healthy. Today, all major capitalist nations adhere to the key principles of Keynesian economics. He died in 1946.


taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/keynes-predicts-economic-chaos [28.06.2013]

 


 


 

 



The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

This Day in History: Jun 27, 1898: First solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum



Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844 – on or shortly after November 14, 1909) was the first man to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian born, naturalised American seaman and adventurer, and a noted writer. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller. He disappeared in November 1909 while aboard his boat, the Spray.

Nova Scotian childhood

Joshua Slocum was born on 20 February 1844 in Mount Hanley, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia (officially recorded as Wilmot Station), a community on the North Mountain within sight of the Bay of Fundy. The fifth of eleven children of John Slocombe[1] and Sarah Jane Slocombe née Southern, Joshua descended, on his father's side, from a Quaker, known as "John the Exile" who left the United States shortly after 1780 because of his opposition to the American War for Independence.[2] Part of the Loyalist migration to Nova Scotia, the Slocombes were granted 500 acres (2.0 km2) of farmland in Nova Scotia's Annapolis County.

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Joshua Slocum was born in the family's farm house in Mount Hanley and learned to read and write at the nearby Mount Hanley School. His earliest ventures on the water were made on coastal schooners operating out of the small ports such as Port George and Cottage Cove near Mount Hanley along the Bay of Fundy. When Joshua was eight years old, the Slocombe family moved from Mount Hanley to Brier Island in Digby County, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Slocum's maternal grandfather was the keeper of the lighthouse at Southwest Point there. His father, a stern man and strict disciplinarian, took up making leather boots for the local fishermen, and Joshua helped in the shop. However, the boy found the scent of salt air much more alluring than the smell of shoe leather. He yearned for a life of adventure at sea, away from his demanding father and his increasingly chaotic life at home among so many brothers and sisters.

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He made several attempts to run away from home, finally succeeding, at age fourteen, by hiring on as a cabin boy and cook on a fishing schooner, but he soon returned home. In 1860, after the birth of the eleventh Slocombe (Joshua changed the spelling of his last name later in his life)[3] child and the subsequent death of his kindly mother, Joshua, then sixteen, left home for good. He and a friend signed on at Halifax as ordinary seamen on a merchant ship bound for Dublin, Ireland.

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Early life at sea


From Dublin, he crossed to Liverpool to become an ordinary seaman on the British merchant ship Tangier (also recorded as Tanjore), bound for China. During two years as a seaman, he rounded Cape Horn twice, landed at Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies, and visited the Moluccas, Manila, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, and San Francisco. While at sea, he studied for the Board of Trade examination, and, at the age of eighteen, he received his certificate as a fully qualified Second Mate. Slocum quickly rose through the ranks to become a Chief Mate on British ships transporting coal and grain between the British Isles and San Francisco.

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In 1865, he settled in San Francisco, became an American citizen, and, after a period of salmon fishing and fur trading in the Oregon Territory of the northwest, he returned to the sea to pilot a schooner in the coastal trade between San Francisco and Seattle. His first blue-water command, in 1869, was the barque Washington, which he took across the Pacific, from San Francisco to Australia, and home via Alaska.

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He sailed for thirteen years out of the port of San Francisco, transporting mixed cargo to China, Australia, the Spice Islands, and Japan. Between 1869 and 1889, he was the master of eight vessels, the first four of which (the Washington, the Constitution, the Benjamin Aymar and the Amethyst) he commanded in the employ of others. Later, there would be four others that he himself owned, in whole or in part.

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Family at sea

Shortly before Christmas 1870, Slocum and the Washington put in at Sydney, Australia. There, in about a month's time, he met, courted, and married a young woman named Virginia Albertina Walker. Their marriage took place on 31 January 1871. Miss Walker, quite coincidentally, was an American whose New York family had migrated west to California at the time of the 1849 gold rush and eventually continued on, by ship, to settle in Australia. She sailed with Slocum, and, over the next thirteen years, bore him seven children, all at sea or foreign ports. Four children, sons Victor, Benjamin Aymar, and Garfield, and daughter Jessie, survived to adulthood.

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In Alaska, the Washington was wrecked when she dragged her anchor during a gale, ran ashore, and broke up. Slocum, however, at considerable risk to himself, managed to save his wife, the crew, and much of the cargo, bringing all back to port safely in the ship's open boats. The owners of the shipping company that had employed Slocum were so impressed by this feat of ingenuity and leadership, they gave him the command of the Constitution which he sailed to Hawaii and the west coast of Mexico.
His next command was the Benjamin Aymar, a merchant vessel in the South Seas trade. However, the owner, strapped for cash, sold the vessel out from under Slocum, and he and Virginia found themselves stranded in the Philippines without a ship.

The Pato

 Captain Joshua Slocum

While in the Philippines, in 1874, under a commission from a British architect, Slocum organized native workers to build a 150-ton steamer in the shipyard at Subic Bay. In partial payment for the work, he was given the ninety-ton schooner, Pato, the first ship he could call his own.

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Ownership of the Pato afforded Slocum the kind of freedom and autonomy he had never experienced before. Hiring a crew, he contracted to deliver a cargo to Vancouver in British Columbia. Thereafter, he used the Pato as a general freight carrier along the west coast of North America and in voyages back and forth between San Francisco and Hawaii. During this period, Slocum also fulfilled a long-held ambition to become a writer; he became a temporary correspondent for the San Francisco Bee.

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The Slocums sold the Pato in Honolulu in the spring of 1878. Returning to San Francisco, they purchased the Amethyst. He worked this ship until June 23, 1881.[4]


The Slocums next bought a third share in the Northern Light 2. This large clipper was 233 feet in length, 44 feet beam, 28 feet in the hold. It was capable of carrying 2000 tons on three decks. Although Joshua Slocum called this ship "my best command", it was a command plagued with mutinies and mechanical problems. Under troubling legal circumstances (caused by his alleged treatment of the chief mutineer) he sold his share in the Northern Light 2 in 1883.[5]

The Aquidneck

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The Slocum family continued on their next ship, the 326-ton Aquidneck. In 1884, Slocum's wife Virginia became ill aboard the Aquidneck in Buenos Aires and died. After sailing to Massachusetts, Slocum left his three youngest children, Benjamin Aymar, Jessie, and Garfield in the care of his sisters; his oldest son Victor continued as his first mate.[6]

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In 1886, at age 42, Slocum married his 24-year-old cousin, Henrietta "Hettie" Elliott. The Slocum family, with the exception of Jessie and Benjamin Aymar, again took to the sea aboard the Aquidneck, bound for Montevideo, Uruguay. Slocum's second wife would find life at sea much less appealing than his first. A few days into Henrietta's first voyage, the Aquidneck sailed through a hurricane. By the end of this first year, the crew had contracted cholera, and they were quarantined for six months.[7] Later, Slocum was forced to defend his ship from pirates, one of whom he shot and killed; he was tried and acquitted of murder. Next, the Aquidneck was infected with smallpox, leading to the death of three of the crew. Disinfecting of the ship was performed at considerable cost. Shortly afterward, near the end of 1887, the unlucky Aquidneck was wrecked in southern Brazil.[7][8]

The Liberdade

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After being stranded in Brazil with his wife and sons Garfield and Victor, he started building a boat that could sail them home. He used local materials, salvaged materials from the Aquidneck and local workforce. The boat was launched on May 13, 1888, the very day slavery was abolished in Brazil, and therefore the ship was given the Portuguese name Liberdade. It was an unusual 35-foot (11 m) junk-rigged design which he described as "half Cape Ann dory and half Japanese sampan [sic] ".[8] He and his family began their voyage back to the United States, his son Victor (15) being the mate. After fifty-five days at sea and 5510 miles,[9] the Slocums reached Cape Roman, South Carolina[10] and continued inland to Washington D.C. for winter and finally reaching Boston via New York in 1889.[8] This was the last time Henrietta sailed with the family. In 1890, Slocum published the accounts of these adventures in Voyage of the Liberdade.[8][11]

The Spray: First solo circumnavigation of the earth

 
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In Fairhaven, Massachusetts, he rebuilt the 36′ 9″ (11.2 m) gaff rigged sloop oyster boat named Spray.

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On April 24, 1895, he set sail from Boston, Massachusetts. In his famous book, Sailing Alone Around the World,[12] now considered a classic of travel literature, he described his departure in the following manner:
"I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood."
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After an extended visit to his boyhood home at Brier Island and visiting old haunts on the coast of Nova Scotia, Slocum took his departure from North America at Sambro Island Lighthouse near Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 3, 1895.

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Slocum navigated without a chronometer, instead relying on the traditional method of dead reckoning for longitude, which required only a cheap tin clock for approximate time, and noon-sun sights for latitude. On one long passage in the Pacific, Slocum also famously shot a lunar distance observation, decades after these observations had ceased to be commonly employed, which allowed him to check his longitude independently. However, Slocum's primary method for finding longitude was still dead reckoning; he recorded only one lunar observation during the entire circumnavigation.

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Slocum normally sailed the Spray without touching the helm. Due to the length of the sail plan relative to the hull, and the long keel, the Spray was capable of self-steering (unlike faster modern craft), and balanced stably on any course relative to the wind by adjusting or reefing the sails and by lashing the helm fast. He sailed 2,000 miles (3,200 km) west across the Pacific without once touching the helm.[12]

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More than three years later, on June 27, 1898, he returned to Newport, Rhode Island, having circumnavigated the world, a distance of more than 46,000 miles (74,000 km). Slocum's return went almost unnoticed. The Spanish-American War which had begun two months earlier dominated the headlines. After the end of major hostilities, many American newspapers published articles describing Slocum's amazing adventure.

 

Sailing Alone Around the World

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In 1899 he published his account of the epic voyage in Sailing Alone Around the World, first serialized in The Century Magazine and then in several book-length editions. Reviewers received the slightly anachronistic age-of-sail adventure story enthusiastically. Arthur Ransome went so far as to declare, "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once."[13] In his review, Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, "I do not hesitate to call it the most extraordinary book ever published."

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Slocum's book deal was an integral part of his journey: his publisher had provided Slocum with an extensive on-board library, and Slocum wrote several letters to his editor from distant points around the globe.
Slocum's Sailing Alone won him widespread fame in the English-speaking world. He was one of eight invited speakers at a dinner in honor of Mark Twain in December, 1900. Slocum hauled the Spray up the Erie Canal to Buffalo, New York for the Pan-American Exposition in the summer of 1901, and he was well compensated for participating in the fair.

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Later life

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In 1901, Slocum's book revenues and income from public lectures provided him enough financial security to purchase a small farm in West Tisbury, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, in Massachusetts. After a year and a half, he found he could not adapt to a settled life and Slocum sailed the Spray from port to port in the northeastern US during the summer and the West Indies during the winter, lecturing and selling books wherever he could. Slocum spent little time with his wife on the Vineyard and preferred life aboard the Spray, usually wintering in the Caribbean.

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Slocum's mental health deteriorated during his later years. Visiting Riverton, New Jersey in May, 1906, Slocum was charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. After further investigation and questioning, it became apparent that the crime was indecent exposure, but Slocum claimed to have no memory of any wrong-doing and that, if anything had happened, it must have occurred during one of his mental lapses. Slocum spent 42 days in jail awaiting trial. At his trial he pleaded "no contest" and was released for time-served. The judge at his trial told him, "upon request of the family, I can deal leniently with you".[14]

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A few weeks after his conviction in New Jersey, Slocum and the Spray visited Sagamore Hill, the estate of US President Theodore Roosevelt on the north shore of Long Island, New York. Roosevelt and his family were interested in the tales of Slocum's solo circumnavigation. The President's young son, Archie, along with a guardian, spent the next few days sailing with Slocum up to Newport aboard the Spray, which, by then, was a decrepit, weather-worn vessel. Slocum again met with President Roosevelt in May 1907, this time at the White House in Washington. Supposedly, Roosevelt said to him, "Captain, our adventures have been a little different." Slocum answered, "That is true, Mr. President, but I see you got here first."[14]

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By 1909, Slocum's funds were running low; book revenues had tailed off. He prepared to sell his farm on Martha's Vineyard and began to make plans for a new adventure in South America. He had hopes of another book deal.[14]

  “It’ll crawl!”

 

Disappearance

In November 1909, Slocum set sail for the West Indies on one of his usual winter voyages. He had also expressed interest in starting his next adventure, exploring the Orinoco, Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers.[12] Slocum was never heard from again. In July 1910, his wife informed the newspapers that she believed he was lost at sea.


At the time, most who knew Slocum believed that the Spray had been run down by a steamer or struck by a whale, the Spray being too sound a craft and Slocum too experienced a mariner for any other cause to be considered likely.[citation needed]

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Years later, an analysis by Howard I. Chapelle, curator of maritime history at the Smithsonian Institution and a noted expert on small sailing-craft, demonstrated that the Spray was stable under most circumstances but could easily capsize if heeled beyond a relatively shallow angle. He felt that Slocum was merely lucky that his unstable vessel had not killed him earlier.[citation needed]

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Despite being an experienced mariner, Slocum never learned to swim and considered learning to swim to be useless.

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In 1924, Joshua Slocum was declared legally dead.[citation needed]

Legacy

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Joshua Slocum's achievements have been well publicised and honoured. The name Spray has become a choice for cruising yachts ever since the publication of Slocum's account of his circumnavigation. Over the years, many versions of Spray have been built from the plans in Slocum's book, more or less reconstructing the sloop with various degrees of success.

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Similarly, the French long-distance sailor Bernard Moitessier christened his 39-foot (12 m) ketch-rigged boat Joshua in honor of Slocum. It was this boat that Moitessier sailed from Tahiti to France, and he also sailed Joshua in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race around the world, making great time, only to abandon the race near the end and sail on to the Polynesian Islands.

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Ferries named in Slocum's honour (Joshua Slocum and Spray) served the two Digby Neck runs in Nova Scotia between 1973 and 2004. [15] The Joshua Slocum was featured in the film version of Dolores Claiborne.[16]

Joshua Slocum monument, general view looking north

An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), designed by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, was named after Slocum's ship Spray. It became the first AUV to cross the Gulf Stream, while operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.[17] Another AUV has been named after Slocum himself: the Slocum Electric Glider, designed by Douglas Webb of Webb Research (since 2008, Teledyne Webb Research). In 2009, a Slocum glider, modified by Rutgers University, crossed the Atlantic in 221 days.[18] The RU27 traveled from Tuckerton, New Jersey, to Baiona, Spain — the port where Christopher Columbus landed on his return from his first voyage to the New World.

Joshua Slocum plaque

A monument to Slocum exists on Brier Island, Nova Scotia, not far from his family's boot shop. Slocum is commemorated in museum exhibits at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Mount Hanley Schoolhouse Museum near his birthplace. The sculptor Daniel Chester French created a memorial to Joshua Slocum in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts; because he disappeared at sea, almost certainly, his remains are not at Forest Hills. Several biographies about Slocum are published.

Joshua Slocum monument, general view looking northeast

The Slocum River in Dartmouth, Massachusetts was named for him, as was a newly discovered plant in Mauritius while he was there: Returning to the Spray by way of the great flower conservatory near Moka, the proprietor, having only that morning discovered a new and hardy plant, to my great honor named it "Slocum".[19] Slocum himself discovered an island by accident, and named it Alan Erric Island.[20]



References

  1. ^ Geoffrey Wolff, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum, p 8: spelling of family name given as "Slocombe".
  2. ^ Geoffrey Wolff, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum, p 11
  3. ^ Geoffrey Wolff, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum)
  4. ^ Geoffrey Wolff, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum, pgs. 70-75
  5. ^ Geoffrey Wolff, The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum, pgs. 76-111
  6. ^ Berthold pg xix
  7. ^ a b Berthold pg xx
  8. ^ a b c d Slocum (1890), Voyage of the Liberdade
  9. ^ Victor Slocum (1950), p. 193
  10. ^ Cape Roman 33°3′48″N 79°20′43″W
  11. ^ Berthold pg xxi-xxii
  12. ^ a b c Slocum (1899), Sailing Alone Around the World
  13. ^ Arthur Ransome on Sailing Alone Around the World
  14. ^ a b c Teller, Walter Magnes (1971). Joshua Slocum. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-0700-6.
  15. ^ http://www.valleyweb.com/westport/tsdbrier.html
  16. ^ Newscotland1398.net
  17. ^ "Spray AUV". UC San Diego.
  18. ^ http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/atlantic/status_updates.html
  19. ^ Slocum, J (1899), Chapter XVII
  20. ^ Slocum, J (1899), chapter X
 Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Slocum [27.06.2013]

Kruger_web 

In Pretoria, South Africa, Joshua Had a Chilly Meeting with South African President Paul Kruger. President Kruger Believed that the World was Flat and Couldn't be Sailed "Around."