Lighthouses

We have just traveled all over the impressive engravings of Georg Braun’s and Franz Hogenberg’s Civitates orbis terrarum, published in six volumes from 1572 to 1617, looking for the depictions of the lighthouses which marked at that time the ports or capes. Interestingly, the result has been very poor. In fact, we could clearly identify only those which we see below.

Lighthouse of Messina

Lighthouse of Genoa

Not even the lighthouse of Alexandria deserves a comment or particular attention in Braun’s work. Perhaps the fact that Georg Braun (1541-1622) spent all his life in Cologne, far from the sea, did not allow him to gauge the importance of lighthouses in so many coastal cities.

Lighthouse of Alexandria

Lighthouses and watchtowers of Aden

One of the few commentaries throughout the work of Braun on the role of signal towers to guide the ships on the sea is printed in the cartouche of this engraving: “ADEN, a famous commercial center of Arabia, home to merchants from India, Ethiopia and Persia. Aden is a magnificent city, well fortified both by its location and its walls, famed for the beauty and number of its buildings, protected by cliffs and high mountains, on whose tops burning torches guide the ships towards the bay. Formerly it was a peninsula, but as a result of human industry, is now completely surrounded by water.”


On an island, from the moment it begins to be inhabited, lighthouses, watchtowers and signal towers form a part of the coastal landscape. Some of these constructions serve to guide the vessels of the locals, while others to protect them from the surreptitious arrival of enemy ships. The history of Mallorca, as it cannot be different on an island, is a history of invasions and looting.

The Roman bridge in Pollensa

But the main defense of Mallorca were not the watchtowers, but the steep mountain range that falls abruptly into the sea along the entire northern coast, as if it were a spine holding the whole island. The Serra de Tramuntana also defends the internal flat lands from the northern wind coming powerfully from the Gulf of Lion, which severely torments unprotected Menorca in the winter. This blessed mountain, haven of bandits and smugglers, dotted with ancient olive trees of tormented trunks, worked throughout hard with stone terraces trying to control erosion, studded with hermitages, lime kilns, snow houses, bunkers, oak forests, legends on giants and hidden treasures, has just become part of the UNESCO World Heritage.


At each end of the Serra de Tramuntana there stands a lighthouse. To the north, that of Formentor. To the south, that of Sa Mola in Andratx.


The lighthouse of Formentor is the one standing the highest in the Balearic Islands, and its construction was not easy. The workers had to start from Cala Murta and the climb a steep road for twenty kilometers. Today, when a much more comfortable road leads up to the building, you can still have a fairly accurate picture of the nature and traditional life in this part of the mountain. When the first tourist boom began in the mid-60s, the Hotel Formentor, opened in 1929 became one of the most prestigious institutions of its kind. And still it is to some extent, an example of how Mallorca could host a high quality tourism industry.


Thanks to the presence of this hotel, the guestbook of the Formentor lighthouse keeps track of such illustrious visitors as for example the King of Kings Haile Selassie, a descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who spent here the winter of 1967.


In a no less daunting enclave in the southern corner of the island stands the lighthouse of Sa Mola. However, what we see here is the wild destruction caused by the real estate speculation that ruins this land and cannot be stopped by any law, neither knows anything about the protection of any patrimony. Perhaps the UNESCO statement will help to prevent such devastation, but our hopes are minimal. It is enough to listen to the first, unanimous declarations of the ruling and opposition parties, from across the political spectrum, welcoming the decision because – as they say – now even more tourists will come to Mallorca. Someone must already be imagining a highway from one end of the mountain range to the other so that one can visit in half an hour both lighthouses, and return to dinner at the hotel, or get into the disco club, or take the plane and get home before the sun sets. This kind of enemies are unfortunately not detected by the watchtowers.

Faros

Hemos recorrido todos los grabados impresionantes del Civitates orbis terrarum de Georg Braun y Franz Hogenberg —que se fue publicando progresivamente desde 1572 hasta 1617 en seis volúmenes— buscando las representaciones de los faros que en aquella época pudieran lucir en puertos o cabos. Curiosamente, el resultado ha sido muy pobre. De hecho, solo hemos podido aislar con claridad los que vemos aquí.

Faro de Messina

Faro de Génova

Ni siquiera el faro de Alejandría merece un comentario o una atención especial en la obra de Braun. Puede que el hecho de que Georg Braun (1541-1622) pasara toda su vida en Colonia, lejos del mar, no le permitiera calibrar la importancia que tienen los faros en muchas ciudades costeras.

Faro de Alejandría

Faros y atalayas de Aden

Uno de los pocos comentarios en toda la obra de Braun sobre la función de las torres de señales para guiar a los barcos está en el cartucho de este grabado: «ADEN, famoso centro comercial de Arabia, donde se encuentran mercaderes de India, Etiopía y Persia. Aden es una magnífica ciudad, bien fortificada tanto por su ubicación como construcción, afamada por la belleza y número de sus edificios, protegida por riscos y altas montañas, en cuyas cimas, antorchas encendidas guían a los marinos hacia la bahía. Antiguamente fue una península pero como resultado de la industria humana está ahora completamente rodeada de agua».


En una isla, desde el momento en que empieza a habitarse, los faros, atalayas y torres de señales forman enseguida parte del paisaje costero. Algunas de estas construcciones sirven para guiar a las embarcaciones propias y otras para defenderse de la llegada subrepticia de las naves enemigas. La historia de Mallorca, como no podía ser de otra forma en una isla, es una historia de invasiones y saqueos.

Puente romano de Pollensa

Y la principal defensa de Mallorca no han sido las atalayas sino la cordillera arisca que cae abruptamente sobre el mar a lo largo de toda la vertiente norte, como si fuera el espinazo que aguanta la isla. La Serra de Tramuntana defiende también las tierras llanas del interior del viento del norte que llega con fuerza desde el Golfo de León y que en invierno castiga a la desprotegida Menorca. Esta bendita cordillera, refugio de contrabadistas y bandoleros, sembrada de viejos olivos de tronco atormentado, trabajada con dureza, piedra a piedra, en bancales que intentan contener la erosión, tachonada de ermitas, hornos de cal, casas de nieve, carboneras, encinares, leyendas de gigantes y tesoros ocultos acaba de entrar a formar parte del Patrimonio Mundial de la Unesco.


En cada extremo de la Serra de Tramuntana hay un faro. Al norte, el de Formentor. Al sur, el de Sa Mola, en Andratx.


El faro de Formentor es el que está a mayor altura de Baleares y su construcción no fue sencilla. Había que llegar partiendo de Cala Murta y subir luego por un camino escarpado durante veinte kilómetros. Hoy, al llegar por una carretera mucho más cómoda, aún puede tenerse una imagen bastante exacta de la naturaleza y la vida tradicional en esta parte de la sierra. Cuando empezaba el primer boom turístico, a mediados de los 60, el Hotel Formentor, abierto en 1929, se convertía en uno de los establecimientos más prestigiosos. Y aún es, hasta cierto punto, un ejemplo de cómo Mallorca podría albergar una industria turística de alta calidad.


El caso es que, gracias a la presencia de este hotel, hasta el libro de visitas del faro de Formentor guarda registro de visitantes tan ilustres como el mismísimo Rey de Reyes, Haile Selassie, descendiente del rey Salomón y la reina de Saba, que pasó por allí en el invierno de 1967.


En un enclave no menos sobrecogedor, en la punta sur, está el faro de Sa Mola, pero aquí lo que contemplamos es la destrucción feroz provocada por la especulación urbanística que arruina esta tierra y que no se detiene ante ninguna ley ni entiende nada de protección de patrimonio alguno. Quizá la declaración de la Unesco ayude a que no se repita tanta devastación pero nuestra esperanza es mínima. Basta ver que las primeras manifestaciones, unánimes, de los gobernantes y de la oposición, desde todo el espectro político, han consistido en felicitarse porque así —dicen— vendrán a Mallorca aún más turistas. Alguno ya debe estar imaginando una autopista de lado a lado de la cordillera para poder pisar en media hora los dos faros y volver a cenar al hotel, o meterse en la discoteca, o coger el avión y llegar casa antes de que el sol se ponga. A este tipo de enemigos no los detectan las atalayas.

A killer game

Sam Ehrlich - Con Conrad: There’s nobody home but me. WWI patriotic song, the sheet music published in New York, 1918

A garden gate, a lad of eight dressed in a uniform of brown. Across the way, a troop that day, we’re getting volunteers in town. “Who’s home with you my boy,” they cried. The child saluted and replied: My brother’s over in the trenches And sister’s gone to nurse out there While Daddy’s making ammunition, My Mama also does her share. I’ve got my uniform all ready, A soldier boy, I’d like to be

So if you’re over here For a brave volunteer, There’s nobody home but me. A snow white bed, a curly head, a mother kisses baby dear her sleepy boy awakes with joy and cries, “The soldier boys were here, they came to take us all away, and mother I was proud to say: My brother’s over in the trenches…”

War, like any other product of the government, has to be sold to the public. Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda and successful organizer of the US World War I campaign called propaganda the “engineering of consensus”, and if there are times when consensus is really necessary then war is among them. Hitler in Mein Kampf pointed at poor German propaganda as a main reason of the loss of the First World War, and David Welch complements this in his Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914-18 (2000) by saying that the problem was not so much the quality but rather the seriousness of the propaganda, the fact that the military leadership and the emperor did not give much importance to the pressure of public opinion, and hence neither to the task of its manipulation.

War propaganda persuades the public to assume the burdens of war among others by trivializing the bloodshed. The boys are in a good place, they only went to a little excursion, and they will be back home before the leaves fall. The posters and postcards also represent the soldiers mostly as merry lads happily entertaining in the camp or romantic young men who meditate on the mountain ridges by leaning on their guns.

Among these masking techniques a particular genre is the infantilization of the soldiers, their representation in the form of little boys, such as we have seen on Japanese war kimonos. These pictures are the logical continuation of the propaganda which made up the little boy with paper soldiers for the war. The child only continues his paper soldiers game up there in the Carpathian mountains or in the field of Verdun, he does not hurt anyone and nothing wrong can happen to him either. The dear parents should not worry for him, since all is just a game, a nice patriotic game.

Florence Notter: Soldier Bob guarding Mother’s Land, one of the most popular World War I patriotic children’s book, ca. 1915

In WWI a number of belligerent parties published drawings which depicted children dressed in contemporary soldier’s uniform. The reference of these pictures vary deliberately: one cannot precisely determine whether they are real soldiers represented as charming children, or children imitating contemporary combat operations and by this way also preparing for the role intended for them. Here follows a Russian postcard series by Aleksandr Lavrov from the beginning of World War I.

With the enemy I did not fight in vain, look what a trophy I seized!

At the first, superficial glance one would think that the little Russian soldier holds a Russian flag in the hand, but at a closer look no, this is another eagle, from the other side of the Carpathians.

Nish [Serbia] With a coordinated attack of our forces we managed to reoccupy from the enemy
our capital city, the besieged Belgrade. Our faith in the success and our love for our
king helped us to recapture the capita. Belgrade is ours!

This text, disguised as a Serbian news, but written in Russian, also dates the series. Belgrade was occupied on 30 November 1914 by the Austro-Hungarian army led by General Oskar Potiorek, but the Serbians reoccupied it on 15 December under Marshall Radomir Putnik. On 9 October 1915 it fell again in Austrian and German hands who kept it until 5 November 1918. The series could have been therefore published sometime at the beginning of 1915.

Small rain lays great dust.

Defender of the peaceful population.

Winter cold and summer heat, our guard bears all.

For the soldier the gun is his friend, the cauldron his plate, the smoke his warmth.

Oh, my dear, how do you live without me?

Letter to home.

There’s no worse than to the wife without the husband and to the husband without the wife.

Dreaming about “Him”.

Когда мы были на войне… (When we were at the war). Cossack song, performed by the Русичи. Thanks for the recording to Natasa on The Great War blog!

Когда мы были на войне, Там каждый думал о своей Любимой или о жене. И я, конечно, думать мог, Когда на трубочку глядел, На голубой ее дымок. Но я не думал ни о чем, Я только трубочку курил С турецким горьким табачком. Как ты когда-то мне лгала, Но сердце девичье свое Давно другому отдала. Я только верной пули жду, Чтоб утолить печаль свою И чтоб пресечь нашу вражду. Когда мы будем на войне, Навстречу пулям полечу На вороном своем коне.

when we were at the war each thought of his wife or of his beloved I could have thought, of course at the time when I lit my pipe at the bluish smoke of the pipe but I did not think of anything I just kept smoking the pipe with the bitter Turkish tobacco how you ever lied to me but your heart of maiden has long belonged to someone else I’m just waiting for that bullet to come and to quench my sadness to curb the hatred between us when we will be at the war I will gallop towards the bullet on my crow black steed

It is a pleasure to smoke after the hot battle.

The mahorka on the picture, the typical Russian canaster-tobacco made of Nicotiana rustica includes five or ten times as much nicotine as the noble tobacco, the Nicotiana tabacum, and therefore it was used by the soldiers also as a pain-reliever and a mild drug. During WWI special fundraising were organized to provide the soldiers with it, but it was also popular in the Second World War, both in the Red Army and among the Estonian boys joining the SS.

In three degrees of strength

“On tobacco for the soldiers. Donate on 20-21 May!” In the smoke the inscription “Спасибо – Thank you!” is looming.

To the left: Mahorka produced in Reval (Tallinn), the seat of the German protectorate of Ostland (Estonia) (1941-1944). To the right: “The front is waiting for mahorka! We must give mahorka to the Red Army!”

It was a lot of effort to tinker this machine gun

I even celebrated the feast, I was not left without a Christmas tree.

The experienced soldier is recognized by his holding and stance.

Does not indicate any stone or cross / where we put the Russian flag into a glorious tomb / only the waves of the sea praise / the heroic death of the Varyag.

These four verses are the last strophe of the popular song narrating the destruction of the “Varyag” (Varangian) cruiser which was attacked at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, on 9 February 1904 by the Japanese fleet in the Korean – that is, neutral – port of Chemulpo. The crew confronted the superior force for a long time, and when the defense finally seemed hopeless, they blew up the ship to avoid its getting to enemy hands. In 1946 even a film was made on the battle by Viktor Eisymont, in which the role of the Varyag was played by none less than the Aurora cruiser. In the following video the battle scenes of this film accompany the song performed by the Choir of the Red Army

Apart from the really heroic gesture, the song and the film do not recall some minor circumstances. The one is that only the ship perished, while the crew could safely land on boats. The other is that the Japanese salvaged the Varyag from the sea and they made it a cruiser of the Japanese Navy under the name Soya. What is more, they even found the Russian flag “buried in an unmarked grave”, which was purchased after the defeat of Japan in 1945 from the Americans by the Koreans, who recently gave it on a long-term museum loan to Russia. But what could really not be mentioned in 1915 was that the text of the song was written by an Austrian poet, the pacifist Rudolf Greinz in German language shortly after the battle in a spirit condemning the war, and only in the Russian translation published in April 1904 by Yevgeniya Studenskaya it became the patriotic song as we know it today.

There is also another, earlier hymn on the heroic death of Varyag, whose text beginning as Плещут холодные волны, “Cold waves are rising” was written by Y. Repinsky just two weeks after the battle, and its music was composed by V. Benevsky, the cantor or the Stavropol cathedral together with a student, N. Bogorodicky. It is understandable that the funeral hymn composed in the style of Orthodox church music and reeferring to “the flag with the cross of St. Andrew” fell into disgrace after 1917, so much that on Russian forums even today there are people who look at it astonished, although they also state that “this is the real song of Varyag!”

Both soup and porridge make our guys strong!

Look at this, the terrible Turkish fleet!

The puppy of the bataillon and me are inseparable friends

“I caught a tongue!”.

Inscription: Пожертвуйте, donate! – Why do you all just pass by, dropping nothing into my box?

Those avaricious people surely thought twice to pass by without donation when Crown Prince Aleksey Nikolaevich himself stood out to collect with his little box for the army!

A pike in the pond keeps the little fishes awake.

And what do the boys do there in the far distance? Maybe something wrong to the boys next door, as this image suggests? Not at all! They are just playing, please, it’s all just for fun!

Only for what I have just seen I will be surely awarded with the cross.

For the brave Cossack the attack is just an entertainment.

The enemy will find only grief here, both on land and on water.

The cannon does not stop thundering, the enemy is getting less and less.

In the trench.

In fact, they specifically went to the borderland to make friends with the boys next door.

His coat is of sheep, but his heart of a man!

Narrow, but in peace.

And even if they fall out with each other sometimes, it is not so bloody serious.

Little Willy bitterly cries, he was soundly beaten.

Unexpected host, worse than the Tatars.

He falls into the pit which he digs for another.

Don’t fraternize with the sky and the winds, be faithful to Mother Earth.

Long live our brave sons, the fearless Russian pilots!

And of course the main attraction of the battlefield is the nurse romance!

The eyes, not the bullet pierce the heart.

Endure, Cossack, you’ll be an ataman.

It’s better not to get used to him who will have to leave.

A consolation is for me to walk with the nurse after the battle.

The look of the nurse is a consolation after the hot battle.

The nurse consoles us on the battlefield.

The children-nurses attending on children-soldiers on the last pictures also highlight what the starting song emphasized in the respective verse: that is, what the homeland expects of women and which role is intended for the little girls who play with such images. As Celia Malone Kingsbury writes it in her For Home and Country: World War I Propaganda on the Home Front (2010):

Young girls are taught to nurture and comfort the soldiers who fight for glory. Once again the primary unit, the family, is served in the children’s service to the state. These girls will marry and become the mothers of tomorrow who will hold the family unit together while father goes off to work or to war, and later when the state demands more aid, she will send her sons, the boy soldiers off to war and her daughters to nurse them.

And this is how the world is going along.

British, French, Belgian and American front nurses. A cut-and-fold toy published for girls. Reilly and Britton Company, 1918