GURKHAS

 My other strongest memory of Pyawbwe is of getting to know the Gurkhas, whose pits were close to ours, and to whom I made regular visits to trade rations. As Grandarse said, they would have sold their souls for tinned herrings in tomato sauce, or for sardines, and I only had to stroll across to their positions with a couple of the oval tins in my hand to be greeted with huge smiles and squeals of “Hey, Jock—chappatti, dood, cheeny! Shabash!” And out would come the sugar and condensed milk, or the big flat chappattis which they baked on their company fire, by way of exchange, the deal being cemented by the offer of cigarettes on my part and the acceptance of a huge mug of their sickly sweet tea, to be drunk sitting in the middle of a grinning chattering group of those wonderful little men. There is nothing like tea in the afternoon, whether it is in snug comfort at home on a winter’s day, or on the terrace of Reid’s or in the cool white peace of the old Raffles in Singapore, or the Hong Kong Peninsula (even if they did put onion with the salmon sandwiches), or in an English tea-shop—but having tea with the Gurkhas is something special, for they radiate a cheer and good fellowship that has to be experienced, and once you have, you understand why British soldiers have always held them in an affection that is pretty close to love.

    Exuberance is a poor word for their social behaviour. Except for a few exchanges in broken Urdu we could not converse, but having heard me addressed as Jock they knew I was Scotch, which sent them into peals of delight, with half a dozen of them scurrying away to bring their company piper, who regaled me with “Scotland the Brave” and “Cock o’ the North” while sundry of his comrades marched up and down, scowling horribly in what I took to be Caledonian imitation. One of them got so carried away that he suddenly leaped in front of me, grimacing and yelling: “Hey, Jock—Japanni mat karo!” (which very loosely translates as “Death to the Japanese!”) and went into a violent pantomime in which he clove the air with his kukri, to enthusiastic applause, and then enacted the dying enemy, writhing on the ground screaming “Banzai bus! Banzai bus!” and feigning death while his friends sat round and hurled abuse at his corpse. After which they all collapsed in laughter, and we had some more tea.

    A Gurkha subaltern whom I met later told me that commanding a platoon of them was like leading a group of perfectly-disciplined ten-year-olds, and I believe him. Watching them play football, for example, was like watching very small children, for they had not the least idea of playing the game; they had no interest in teams or goals or anything of the sort. Their one idea was to chase the ball in a screaming, laughing mob, booting it as far as possible and running after it with their little skulls gleaming and pigtails bobbing, to boot it again. Unless chance directed the ball back to where they started, they were liable to vanish into the distance, yelling: “Futtbal! Futtbal!”—and the extraordinary thing was that they did it properly dressed, with their puttees on and shirts buttoned at the wrists.

    Their only other recreation that I saw was the catapult—the Y-and-elastic toy which the Americans call a slingshot. Many Gurkhas carried them in their hip-pockets, and if you were suddenly stung a tergo and heard a smothered giggle from behind a tree, it was worth stopping and shouting: “Idderao, Johnny! Ham dekko, you little bugger!” just for the pleasure of seeing the small face come peeping cautiously out, followed by the marksman himself, wearing a sheepish grin and holding up his catapult by way of explanation, as if you didn’t know. So far as I could see they confined themselves to British targets (there seemed to be no great love lost between them and the Indian regiments, especially the Sikhs), and we took it as a compliment. No one would have dreamed of taking offence; it would have been downright cruel, for the Gurkha was as eager to please as a playful grandchild. The thought of quarrelling with one of them never even occurred—for one thing, you’d be better picking a fight with a king cobra.

    That was a thing that was often hard to remember: that this delightful little man, with his ungainly walk and protruding backside and impish grin, who barely came up to your shoulder and was one of nature’s born comedians, was also probably the most fatal fighting man on earth.


George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here
London: Harper Collins, 1995, 130-132

HISTORY PAPERS

 [We asked ChatGPT for an op-ed on the importance of history research papers for HS students. This is the result.]

 Why High School Students Should Write Serious History Research Papers

In recent years, American high schools have placed increasing emphasis on test preparation, digital fluency, and curriculum coverage. While these goals have value, they often come at the expense of something deeper: sustained, independent thinking. Among the casualties of this shift is the long-form history research paper—a rigorous academic challenge that may be one of the best tools we have for cultivating intellectual maturity in young people.

Asking a high school student to write a 5,000- to 8,000-word research paper on a historical topic is not a common practice. In many schools, assignments are becoming shorter, writing more fragmented, and deadlines compressed into busy academic calendars. The history research paper, which once served as a kind of academic rite of passage, is now often seen as impractical, even obsolete.

But this is a mistake.

A serious history paper demands far more than writing ability. It begins with a question—often one the student must formulate on their own. It requires reading books and scholarly articles, sorting through primary sources, and learning to evaluate competing interpretations. It calls for planning, revising, and constructing an argument based not on personal opinion, but on evidence. It is, in short, a complete intellectual process. And it is precisely that process that students are missing when they are never asked to attempt such work.

In writing a long-form history paper, students gain more than knowledge about the past—they gain the habits of thinking that prepare them for the future. They learn to slow down and think clearly. They confront complexity and develop the patience to work through it. They learn that opinions are easy to state but hard to justify, and that writing is not typing—it is thinking, refined and reshaped over time.
These are not only academic skills. They are civic ones.

In a democracy, informed citizens must be able to analyze information, understand multiple perspectives, and weigh historical context. Quick judgments and emotional reactions are no substitute for the kind of deep, disciplined reasoning that historical thinking encourages. When students research and write about the past, they begin to see how today's events are shaped by choices made long ago—and how their own choices will shape the future.

Moreover, this kind of writing helps students understand the relationship between freedom and responsibility. They are free to choose a topic, but they must take responsibility for understanding it well. They are free to argue a position, but they must back it with evidence. In this way, the history research paper models what it means to be a thoughtful participant in public life: to speak with purpose, to listen with care, and to argue with reason rather than outrage.

Some may object that this is asking too much of teenagers. But experience proves otherwise. When students are given time, encouragement, and support, many rise to the challenge with surprising maturity. They don’t just complete a school assignment—they produce something they are proud of. And that pride, earned through real intellectual effort, cannot be replicated by grades alone.

Not every student will become a historian. But every student can benefit from learning to think historically. That means knowing how to examine sources, question narratives, and understand how context shapes events and decisions. These are not just skills for the classroom. They are tools for life.

If we want to educate not just competent students but capable citizens, we must offer more than short-answer tests and timed essays. We must give young people the opportunity to read difficult texts, write at length, and struggle through the process of clarifying their own thinking. A well-crafted history paper does all of this—and more.

Bringing back the research paper may not be easy. It requires time, commitment, and a belief that students are capable of more than the bare minimum. But the rewards—for students, teachers, and society—are well worth the effort.

We underestimate teenagers when we assume they cannot think deeply. Let’s challenge them to prove us wrong.

HISTORY BOOKS

 
[We asked Chat GPT to write an op-ed on the importance of complete history books for high school students—this is the result…4-28-2025]———

The Enduring Importance of Reading Complete History Books in High School

In an educational culture increasingly dominated by abbreviated materials and digital summaries, the case for reading complete history books has become urgent. High school students, in particular, stand to gain immeasurably from the discipline, knowledge, and perspective that only full-length historical works can provide. While short excerpts may offer convenience, they deprive students of the depth of engagement that true historical inquiry demands.

The reading of entire history books cultivates a set of intellectual habits that no substitute can replicate. Chief among these is the capacity for sustained attention. In following an argument across chapters—rather than a few isolated pages—students must confront complexity, weigh evidence, and trace the evolution of ideas over time. They are invited into a serious dialogue with the author and the material, developing habits of critical inquiry that are essential not only for academic success but for informed citizenship.

Moreover, full-length works provide a coherent narrative structure that allows students to perceive causality, contingency, and consequence—elements central to understanding history as a discipline. In contrast, piecemeal readings encourage fragmented thinking, obscuring the interconnectedness that historical study seeks to illuminate. Students who engage deeply with complete works are better prepared to write persuasively, to analyze rigorously, and to recognize the moral and political complexities inherent in the human past.

The character formation that results from such engagement is equally significant. Reading complete history books requires patience, discipline, and humility—virtues rarely fostered by rapid consumption of information. Students must wrestle with ambiguity and develop empathy for people whose lives and choices differed profoundly from their own. In doing so, they cultivate a maturity of perspective badly needed in an era of polarization and superficial judgments.

There is, too, the question of ambition. When we ask students to read only excerpts, we subtly communicate that they are incapable of more demanding work. When we assign whole books, we affirm our confidence in their intellectual capacities. We give them the opportunity to see themselves as serious scholars, capable of engaging with complex arguments and contributing thoughtfully to ongoing conversations about the past.

The benefits extend beyond history itself. Students trained to read whole books bring those habits to every area of study—and ultimately to the public sphere. They learn that understanding requires effort, that easy answers are usually insufficient, and that responsible judgment depends on careful, informed inquiry.
Practical concerns should not deter us. It is true that reading complete works demands more time and careful curricular planning. Yet the long-term payoff—in student writing, thinking, and character—is undeniable. Teachers must be equipped to support students through these readings, offering guidance without diluting the challenge. Schools must defend the value of deep learning against the pressures of expediency.

At a time when attention spans are shrinking and historical ignorance is widespread, reading complete history books is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It reminds students that the past is not a series of disconnected facts but a living, contested, and richly textured reality. It prepares them not merely for examinations, but for the demands of thoughtful adulthood.

In short, reading full-length history works is an education in seriousness itself. It is an apprenticeship to careful thought, honest inquiry, and the love of truth. As we consider how best to educate the next generation, let us remember that easy shortcuts produce only shallow understanding. If we wish to form citizens capable of sustaining a free and thoughtful society, we must begin by asking them to read—really read— the full, complicated stories of those who came before them.
 

Russia in the 19th

In the first half of the nineteenth century, this isolation and Russia’s own imperial ambitions helped turn the country, in the West’s estimation, into a mortal threat. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, it didn’t take Britain long to substitute Russia in his place as the tyrant du jour. From Whitehall to the popular press and streets of London came the image of the Russian bear threatening to claw its way through Europe—but with none of the French emperor’s enlightened mindset. Instead, the only gift Russia could offer its victims was Eastern despotism and enslavement. 

By mid-century its imperial drive seemed to confirm this as it marched through the Caucasus and Central Asia en route to ruling nearly a sixth of the world. Certainly the oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe, such as the Poles, could attest to Russia’s implacable predatory nature. It did not take much for Britain—while still fearing French invasion—to see that expansion as a direct threat to its own empire, in particular its terrestrial links to India. 

Ironically it was Karl Marx, certainly no friend of capitalist Britain, who gave voice to the fears of many in the West. One could never trust Russia, he warned at the time, since “its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers may change, but the polar star of its policy—world domination—is a fixed star.” Russia did little to assuage such fears. With pride it stood solidly and stubbornly as the “gendarme of Europe,” its army always ready to pounce on any expression of freedom or liberty no matter where such sentiments might be found—even outside its borders. 

The latest to discover this had been the Hungarian nationalists in their struggle for independence from their Austrian overlords. When revolution flared across Europe in 1848, including in Budapest, Russia had sent an army across its border to quash them since it could not countenance any threats to Europe’s political order.
 

Gregory Carleton, Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare (6-7). (Function). Kindle Edition.

COMMUNISM AT WORK: POLAND 1939

This fate proved as terrible as any Stalin had yet imposed on his own people. Almost overnight Soviet liberators became Soviet jailers. Over one million Soviet troops poured into the seven provinces of Poland in the Soviet sphere. By September 24, [1939] following brief skirmishes, the whole area was pacified. On September 28 Ribbentrop again flew to Moscow to arrange the partition. The predominantly non-Polish areas were granted to the Soviet Union; the rest went to Germany. The provisional frontier agreed in August was adjusted. In a second secret protocol Hitler now gave up his claim to Lithuania as part of the German sphere. It was this second pact that formally divided the spoils. Stalin now had a free hand to extend the fruits of his revolution to the peoples of Belorussia and the western Ukraine who had escaped Soviet rule following the Polish victory in 1920. On 29 November 1939 the inhabitants of the new lands became by decree Soviet citizens.

This meant nothing less than the extension of the revolution from above by thousands of NKVD troops and Soviet officials. In the first weeks of occupation the Soviet authorities permitted the law of the jungle to prevail. Thousands of the richer landowners and peasants, local officials and policemen, businessmen and politicians were rounded up and shot or imprisoned. The NKVD quickly established a network of informers who gave them lists of known nationalists and anti-Communists. Private wealth was seized by the state; the possessions of those deemed to be enemies of the revolution were stolen by neighbours or corrupt officials. Instructions from Moscow defining ‘anti-Soviet’ elements included stamp collectors and Esperanto speakers because they had foreign contacts. The NKVD brought in notorious thugs to run the new prisons that sprang up all across the region, where they routinely tortured everyone who fell into their hands to force out the names of yet other victims. When the usual instruments of interrogation were lacking, they improvised. Prisoners were beaten with railings broken from fences; their hands were crushed in the doors of their cells; thin books were placed on their heads, which were then beaten with hammers to induce concussion rather than fracture. When they were dragged, crushed in body and spirit, before NKVD kangaroo courts they were subjected to further indignities. One prisoner had his penis wrapped in paper and then ignited.

For ethnic Poles in the new Soviet provinces the descent into hell had one more staircase. In October a long and detailed set of instructions on deportations was drawn up. By February 1940 the authorities were ready. Two million Polish families were moved in four major deportation actions, ending in June 1941. They were sent to the bleakest areas of Siberia or to the harsh landscape of central Asia. They were allowed to take very little, and the male heads of the family were separated from their wives and children when they arrived at the railheads for deportation. They were destined for Russia’s concentration camps. Their families were herded into cattle cars, with a tiny grille for ventilation and no water. At each stop along the line the dead were flung out onto the platform. The exact death toll may never be known. Thousands died of malnutrition and disease. Thousands more died at their destination, where they were left without shelter or food at the side of the track. They were forced to live in holes dug in the mud or huts of straw and branches, in temperatures of minus 40 degrees, or worse. Those who survived were used as forced labourers.

Polish prisoners of war followed the deportees, except for the officers, for whom there was a different fate in store. By late September 1939 the Red Army had 230,000 Polish soldiers in captivity. Most suffered deportation and a regime of hard labour. But for the officers, military officials, gendarmes and border guards who fell into Soviet hands separate camps were set up in the former monasteries of Kozelsk, Starabelski and Ostashkov. They held over half of the Polish officer corps. On 3 April 1940 the first contingent of 300 officers was taken to a station near Smolensk and loaded into buses. A diary later found on one of the prisoners ended with the words: ‘They took us to a small wood. They took away rings, my watch, belts, knives. What will they do to us?’ A few minutes later the soldiers had their hands tied behind them, were led to a large pit dug among the trees near an NKVD rest home and were shot in the back of the head. They were laid in ten to twelve layers in the pits, the feet of one by the head of the next. The murders were over by May 2. The forest of Katyn where the Polish officers lay was restored; young birches and fir trees were planted above the mass graves and the dirt tracks which the buses had made on the grass were covered over. They were the victims of an order from Stalin himself. The death of Poland’s military cadres was part of a calculated strategy to rid the occupied areas of any elements capable of raising the flag of national resurgence against the Soviet invader. When the graves were discovered in 1943 by the German army, the Soviet authorities insisted that they were the work of German killing squads.

Richard Overy, Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945 (51-53). (Function). Kindle Edition.

GREAT FAMINE

Although the Central Committee under Maos leadership made various adjustments to extreme leftist policies, it failed to adopt measures on major issues. It ignored the obvious distress of starving peasants while maintaining elevated procurement targets and food exports, and it persisted with the Great Leap Forward and delayed adjustment of economic targets.

The State Council secretariat on April 6, 1959, reported on food shortages in Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Hebei, and Anhui, and on April 9 sent up a statistical table showing 25.17 million people were going without food in fifteen provinces. Mao wrote a memo requesting that the secretaries of each of the fifteen provinces promptly address the issue. Mao believed that this was a “temporary (two month) urgent crisis,” and he made no effort to relax food supply policies.

Lower level officials continued to send up reports meant to deceive Mao. In April 1959, as the famine deepened, a report claimed that Henan and Hebei has arrested the spread of the spring famine, that the outward migration of Shandong peasants had been largely brought to a halt, and that the overall evidence of edema had begun to decline. On April 26, Mao wrote in a memo, “Plant more melons and vegetables and pay attention to both eating and economizing in food, eating less during quiet times and more during busy times.”

On October 26, 1960, Mao read a report stating that hundreds of thousands of people had starved to death in Xinyang Prefecture, He responded with a bland memo of a dozen words: “Lu (Shaoqui) and Zhou (Enlai) please read today and discuss ways to deal with this.” He treated the Xinyang Incident as an isolated incident to be handled as routine work, and made no move to relax policies on supplying or procuring grain.

In respect to grain procurement and the sale of grain back to rural households, procurement for the 1958/1959 grain year increased by 22.32 percent. In 1959, when the Great Famine had become pervasive, procurement levels continued to rise, while sale of grain back to the countryside increased only marginally This is to say, during the height of the Great Famine in 1959-1960, the state provided no relief aid to the countryside, but rather extracted an additional 3.378 billion kilos of grain. Snatching grain from the mouths of starving peasants was no easy matter, and resulted in the horrendous violence and tragedy described elsewhere in this book.

Yang Jisheng, Tombstone, The Great Chinese Famine 1858-1962
New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2008 (457-458)

ROME RETREATS

But the period was now come, when that enormous fabric of the Roman empire, which had diffused slavery and oppression, together with peace and civility, over so considerable a part of the globe, was approaching towards its final dissolution. Italy, and the centre of the empire, removed during so many ages from all concern in the wars, had entirely lost the military spirit, and were peopled by an enervated race, equally disposed to submit to a foreign yoke, or to the tyranny of their own rulers. The emperors found themselves obliged to recruit their legions from the frontier provinces, where the genius of war, though languishing, was not totally extinct; and these mercenary forces, careless of laws and civil institutions, established a military government no less dangerous to the sovereign than to the people.

The further progress of the same disorders introduced the bordering barbarians into the service of the Romans; and those fierce nations, having now added discipline to their native bravery, could no longer be restrained by the impotent policy of the emperors, who were accustomed to employ one in the destruction of the others. Sensible of their own force, and allured by the prospect of so rich a prize, the northern barbarians, in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius, assailed at once all the frontiers of the Roman empire; and having first satiated their avidity by plunder, began to think of fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces.

The more distant barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former, advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could repose confidence; and collected the whole military force for the defence of the capital and centre of the empire. The necessity of self-preservation had superseded the ambition of power; and the ancient point of honor, never to contract the limits of the empire, could no longer be attended to in this desperate extremity.

Britain by its situation was removed from the fury of these barbarous incursions; and being also a remote province, not much valued by the Romans, the legions which defended it were carried over to the protection of Italy and Gaul. But that province, though secured by the sea against the inroads of the greater tribes of barbarians, found enemies on its frontiers, who took advantage of its present defenceless situation. The Picts and Scots, who dwelt in the northern parts, beyond the wall of Antoninus, made incursions upon their peaceable and effeminate neighbors; and besides the temporary depredations which they committed, these combined nations threatened the whole province with subjection, or, what the inhabitants more dreaded, with plunder and devastation,

The Picts seem to have been a tribe of the native British race, who, having been chased into the northern parts by the conquests of Agricola, had there intermingled with the ancient inhabitants: the Scots were derived from the same Celtic origin, had first been established in Ireland, had migrated to the north-west coasts of this island, and had long been accustomed, as well from their old as their new seats, to infest the Roman province by piracy and rapine.

These tribes finding their more opulent neighbors exposed to invasion, soon broke over the Roman wall, no longer defended by the Roman arms; and, though a contemptible enemy in themselves, met with no resistance from the unwarlike inhabitants. The Britons, accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to Rome: and one legion was sent over for their protection. This force was an overmatch for the barbarians, repelled their invasion, touted them in every engagement, and having chased them into their ancient limits, returned in triumph to the defence of the southern provinces of the empire. Their retreat brought on a new invasion of the enemy.

The Britons made again an application to Rome, and again obtained the assistance of a legion, which proved effectual for their relief: but the Romans, reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succor, exhorted them to arm in their own defence, and urged, that, as they were now their own masters, it became them to protect by their valor that independence which their ancient lords had conferred upon them. That they might leave the island with the better grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful enough to repair. And having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bade a final adieu to Britain, about the year 448, after being masters of the more considerable part of it during the course of near four centuries.

David Hume, The History of England (Vol. 1-6): Illustrated (26-29). e-artnow. Kindle Edition. [1754-1761]