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From Nation, For Nation - Pulse of the Nation
When Nostalgia Was Considered a Deadly Illness
The Train Crash That Scared the Dickens out of Charles Dickens
Most people think about A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist when they hear the name Charles Dickens. Thanks to characters like Scrooge and Tiny Tim, some even credit the Victorian author with inventing Christmas. There’s even a movie about it, 2017’s The Man Who Invented Christmas. But there’s a lot more to the British literary giant than Yuletide imaginings.
The Industrial Revolution heavily influenced his life. It affected everything, from his impoverished childhood to his charitable giving later in life. It even impacted the way he traveled. During Dickens’s lifetime, trains became the preferred mode of transportation, despite being overcrowded, uncomfortable, and prone to accidents.
On June 9, 1865, the novelist discovered this firsthand while traveling the rails near Staplehurst in Kent, England. Here’s what you need to know about the train crash that scared the dickens out of Charles Dickens.
Rail Travel? Bah Humbug!
Born February 7, 1812, Charles Dickens rose to acclaim as one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. His life and writings were shaped by the First Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain around 1760 with a string of impressive economic developments.
Chief among these? Harnessing steam power. No invention better epitomized where steam power would take the world than Stephenson’s Rocket, an early steam-powered locomotive. Eighteen years old when the Rocket made its celebrated trip on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Dickens could’ve never guessed how much trains would change his life.
When he died in 1870, more than 15,000 miles of track crisscrossed Britain! The impact of railway systems proved massive in terms of Victorian transportation. Dickens documented the transformation in his writing. Early novels like Nicholas Nickleby still featured characters getting around by horse.
But by the 1846 through 1848 serial publication of Dombey and Son, the author mentioned railway construction and trains liberally. Newspaper articles he penned lamented the lack of comfort associated with travel by rail. Not only did passengers often get packed in like sardines, but an absence of air conditioning made rides more like Dante’s Inferno than Great Expectations.
The Event That Changed Dickens’s Life
As one of the British Isles’ most talented and famed authors, Dickens traveled extensively. And he stuck to train transport despite complaints about basic amenities. But crowding and warm temperatures proved minor trifles compared to what happened on June 9, 1865.
On a lovely summer day, Dickens sat in a first-class car at the front of the train as it passed through Kent. Returning from a stay abroad in France, two women accompanied Dickens, a famed actress and his rumored love interest, Ellen Ternan and her mother.
A perfect storm of mistakes occurred near Staplehurst that day, making a train accident all but inevitable. For starters, Henry Benge, work crew chief of the railway, looked at the Saturday train schedule instead of the Friday one. As a result, he scheduled construction work on the track, assuming no trains would show up until 5 pm. But the Friday schedule meant Dickens’ train would arrive by 3:19 pm.
A workman sent up the tracks to warn any approaching rail traffic also made a fatal error. Instead of setting up his post 1,000 yards from the construction work, he did so closer to 600 feet. This didn’t give the conductor of Dickens’s train enough time to brake.
Hanging by a Coupling
In the end, Dickens’s train barreled across a bridge with a 42-foot-long gap. Due to the failed warning, the engineer could do little more than attempt to force the cars over the gap. A few cars made it, including the first-class one holding Dickens and the Ternans. But the car got pulled backwards by others unable to clear the gap.
Fortunately for Dickens and the Ternans, the coupling holding their car to the rest broke, leaving passengers suspended mid-air. What happened to the cars connected to the fractured coupling? They plunged ten feet to the muddy river bottom. Cars that landed upside down flattened beneath their robust iron undercarriages, and shattered glass, metal, and wood sliced through everything.
Apart from minor injuries sustained by Ellen Ternan, Dickens and his guests proved unharmed. After helping his female companions climb out a window to the bridge. Dickens helped others to safety. He used his hat to carry water to the injured and dying. And he offered a brandy flask to a handful of fatally wounded men and women.
Passengers later praised Dickens’s bravery throughout the event. He saved lives and comforted others as they died. Recounting the accident later, Dickens wrote, “No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water.”
A Train Accident to Remember
All told, ten people perished in the Staplehurst Rail Crash, and another 40 got injured. While Dickens showed mental fortitude and heroism that day, the train accident left a permanent scar on his psyche. For the next half-decade of his life, Dickens experienced extreme anxiety when traveling, especially by train.
He declared himself “quite shattered and broken up.” And his children Henry and Mary “Mamie” described episodes of terror betrayed by their father’s clenched hands and panicked demeanor. In one of the strangest coincidences associated with the accident, Dickens died five years to the day of the Staplehurst Train Accident.
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From Globe, For Globe - Pulse of the Planet
The Greek sacrifice at “The Hot Gates” proved greater than history remembers it.
Who can forget the tale of the 300 Spartans who held the pass of Thermopylae for three days against Persian hordes from the east? Movies such as 2006’s 300 continue to bring this landmark moment in ancient Greek history to life. They emphasize themes central to the fight, including freedom against oppression and courage in the face of insurmountable odds.
But did 300 Spartans really make a final stand against King Xerxes’s massive army of millions? Here’s what we now know about the Spartan and Greek sacrifice that occurred that day.
The Persian Invasion of Greece
In 480 B.C., King Xerxes I of Persia had an axe to grind with the Greek city-states. His father King Darius invaded what is modern-day Greece in 492 B.C. This invasion involved two campaigns, resulting in a decisive Athenian (Greek) victory during the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.
Darius had hoped to kill two birds with one stone during the invasion. First, he wished to punish the Greeks for their support of the cities of Ionia (in modern-day Turkey) during a revolt against Persian rule. Second, he saw an opportunity to expand his empire westward.
After the final defeat of the Persians at Marathon, however, Darius died before he could lay siege to the Greek Peloponnese and mainland again. After Xerxes succeeded him, the son took up his father’s grudge and was determined to conquer the Greeks once and for all.
The Greeks Unite
Although the residents of the various Greek city-states shared some basic cultural similarities, they also fought and vied for power amongst themselves. These differences led to competitions such as the Olympics as well as outright warfare. Among the most often contrasted city-states were those of Athens and Sparta.
The Athenians were capable warriors with a distinguished Navy, yet they also fostered a deep appreciation for philosophy, poetry, and art. The Spartans found these pursuits unappealing, embracing a far more single-minded approach to life. The result? One of the most brutal, militaristic cultures in history.
However, as the Persians advanced on Greece, the Greeks set aside all differences to defend their homeland. As allies, they quickly determined the best place to hold off the advancing Persian army was the land pass of Thermopylae-“The Hot Gates”.
Located just 40 miles from the narrow strait between Euboea and the mainland, local geography naturally fortified the spot, making it nearly impenetrable save for a small footpath. This footpath could allow an enemy force to outflank the defenders, but the Greeks wagered that this vulnerability would remain a secret.
The Last Stand at Thermopylae
Because of the size of the force, the Persian advance moved at a leisurely pace. By the time they reached Mount Olympus, months had passed. August was an inconvenient time of year for the Spartans to engage in a fight.
Sparta held both their Carneia and Olympics during this month, and believed forgoing these events would offend the gods. With the advance of a foreign force, offending the gods was the last thing the Spartans wanted to do. They had to reach a compromise.
As a result, the full Spartan army could not advance towards Thermopylae. Instead, their king, Leonidas, took small force of 300 combat-hardened veterans. With this compromise reached, the veterans set out along with 300 Helots, or slaves.
The 300 Spartan hoplites never intended to hold the pass alone. They relied on 700 warriors from Thespiae and 440 from Thebes to fill their ranks. When combined with other Greek forces that met up with them at Thermopylae, Leonidas commanded thousands of troops.
A Numbers Game
How many soldiers actually fought and died at Thermopylae? The earliest source material about the last stand of the Spartans comes from Herodotus in the 4th century B.C. He claimed that the Persian forces numbered about two million strong, but historians today suggest Xerxes’s forces were only between 100,000 and 300,000.
As for the Greeks? The combined troops likely numbered between 4,000 and 7,000. On the last day of the battle, however, Leonidas dismissed most of the army after learning that the Persians had discovered the “secret” path.
According to legend, Ephialtes betrayed his countrymen to the Persians. Forming a rearguard of about 1,500 men, Leonidas and his troops fought bravely to the death, sacrificing their forces in a stall tactic that would allow the bulk of the retreating Greek army to escape. Even at its lowest estimates, the Persians still outnumbered them nearly 100 to one.
Thermopylae became a rallying cry for Greek forces who later defeated the Persians and sent them eastward once more at the Battles of Salamis and Plataea in 479 B.C.
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