Digging Hill 80 - Hazards and Hocum

I try to do my homework before any travel, and my hitch doing WWI archaeology six weeks from now being slightly odder than most of my jaunts, the research is more extensive. 

For instance, a few thoughts on potential hazards....

1. Unexploded ordnance. 

Well, there's gonna be some.  This part of the Western Front had continuous warfare for four long years.  World War I simply defies our ability to comprehend it.  It has been estimated that each square meter of the front got a ton of explosives dropped on it.  And in the Ypres Salient it is even worse.  Given the basic figure of one shell in three being a dud, there are still millions of live rounds buried.  Some were removed in the post war period.  I'm not sure if it is still standard procedure but tractors in this part of the world used to have armor plating on the the bottom.

We will have a bomb disposal team on site full time.  I suspect there will be limited use of indiscriminate tools like the pick axe and mattock.   

2. Poison gas.

You don't want to clobber high explosive shells, but to be honest they turn up all the time and cause fewer problems than you'd expect.  Farmers just pile them by the road side each spring and the army comes along to pick them up.   Gas shells are another matter.  They usually have distinctive markings.  Giving it a good shake to see if it sloshes would be a very bad idea.  If one is found a special unit from the Belgian army turns up.  They take it away to a facility they have which works full time to neutralize gas shells.  I'm told they have great job security, given their deliberate pace and the back log of nasties they already have, it will take three decades to deal with the poison gas.... unrealistically assuming no more turn up.

I've seen video of a similar salvage dig a few miles away.  The first thing that is done every morning is to put up the "gas flag".  It tells you which way the wind is blowing, which under certain unlikely circumstances might be handy info.

3. Gigantic, hill destroying mines. 

The nature of trench warfare is static.  Modern weaponry favored the defense so much that a breakthrough attack was in general impossible.  Not that this reality did not get tested again, and again, and again by generals convinced that this time for sure their troops could wade through knee deep mud, through the multiple belts of barbed wire, through the artillery barrage and the fire of massed machine guns. In the Ypres Salient alone perhaps 500,000 men died in this fashion.  

It did eventually encourage a bit of innovation.  

One thing both sides did was dig deep tunnels under enemy lines, fill up galleries with many tons of high explosives then fire them off just before an attack.  Just south and west of where I will be digging is Messine Ridge, or what is left of it.  In 1917 the British set off a series of mines in one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever touched off by mankind.  It was heard in London.

10,000 German soldiers died instantly when the 19 mines went off.   In true First War fashion this caused a breakthrough....of about two miles.

Four mines were not detonated.  One went off in 1956, making a big bang but not hurting anyone.  Stories that the other three could go at any time are supposedly just made up to alarm the tourists.   I'll be several miles away from them in any case.  The one on the edge of the village I'll be working in went off right on schedule leaving a big hole in the ground..

This is from a site called WW1battlefields, with a UK orientation.  It gives a good overview of action in this part of the Ypres salient.  In the distance beyond the big crater you can see the steeple of the village church in Wytschaete.  That's where our excavation will be happening.  Had the front lines been a mile further over in 1917 there would be nothing left to excavate.

Cancelling the Plant Sale.....

Spring is here at last.  The baseball seasons starts tomorrow, the local birds are melodiously yelling at each other, Friday 5pm cocktail hour in the neighbor's side yard could happen any day now.  Ahhh...

But one thing will be missing.  This year there will be no Garden Club Plant Sale.

This worthy fundraising endeavor has been around for a long time, and the last few years we have hosted the "after sale".  That means once the good stuff has been sold at the well advertised down town location all the leftovers get hauled up the hill to our front yard.   A few cardboard signs go up.  It gets mentioned on social media.  And for the rest of the weekend we are running a botanical used car lot.  Why I even get to make "crazy deals, 'cause the boss is away", when my wife turns the watch over to me for a few hours.  In the end almost everything gets sold.

This year.........no.    The sale is cancelled.  The villain in this little tragedy is:

The Jumping Worm.  

As the Department of Natural Resources link says, they are an invasive species that has caused no end of trouble.  Frankly there is not that much positive you can say about any worms, but even those few things don't apply to the Jumpers.  Let's see:

Food for birds?  Nope, seem to taste bad.  And their tendency to violently thrash and hop about is likely off putting.

Use them to go fishing?  Bad idea, not just bad tasting but if you drop one somewhere these very modern critters are parthenogenic.  Meaning, no need for two genders, each worm is quite capable of starting a family all on its own.

Good for your lawn and garden?  Oh my no.  Earthworms in general are not that great, you just think they are.  Who knew that they had such effective public relations?  At least the normal kind aerated the soil a bit and leave worm dropping that enrich the soil a little.  Jumping worms strip all the nutrients clean away and absorb them so efficiently that their droppings are sterile, worthless slag.  A serious infestation will give you dead plants clinging to the ground by shallow damaged roots.

And they are sneaky.  Jumping worm eggs look like specks of dirt.  The main reason the plant sale is off - and not just here but soon in lots of places - is that purchased plants have been a major means of spread.  I mean, yes, if you knock all the dirt off the roots and dip them in bleach you might be OK.  But the labor involved is ridiculous.

So short term the Garden Club is taking on a tree sale.  The effort involved in making sure saplings are worm free being manageable.  

And on the long term front?  As with any organization the Garden Club needs to parlay its strengths into tangible assets.  They are a swell bunch, mostly sweet older ladies. They know how to grow all kinds of plants and in general can bake up a mean batch of brownies.

So, when Wisconsin goes the way of Colorado and legalizes marijuana I figure we'll be in great shape.  We'll get the downtown Sale space again.  On the left will be rows of healthy looking plants with verdant green leaves.  On the right - just in case any of the expected wave of new customers have the "munchies" - the most profitable bake sale in Wisconsin history.....

I could show you a video of the Jumping Worms.  When disturbed they writhe around like crazed patrons of some nematode disco, even being able to hop clear off the ground.  When you get a whole bunch of them all in one place it is very disturbing.  I'll spare you that but if you really want to get creeped out go to Youtube and look up Jumping Worms Wisconsin.   Ewww....

Gladstone versus Disraeli

Perhaps in my post from last Friday I assumed a knowledge of British politics that is not common on this side of the Atlantic and perhaps even not universal on the other side.  So a brief explanation.

William Gladstone was one of the great British statesmen of the Victorian age.  He was what we'd now think of as a Progressive.  His opposite number, at least equally great, was Benjamin Disraeli, a conservative.  

They apparently had a genuine dislike for each other and this made for some ferociously personal insults going back and forth.  Disraeli was always a little better at this.  A few classics:

"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity."

"Inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination."

"He has not one single redeeming defect."
 

And there is that great, if apocryphal exchange between Disraeli and an unnamed Member of Parliament:*

"You sir, will certainly die either on the gallows or of the pox."

"That depends, sir, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

You just have to wonder how that sort of political language would have gone over in other times, in other places.  In America of the contemporary mid 1800s it may well have resulted in an invitation to meet with pistols at dawn.  In America of the current day it would have made Disraeli the King of Twitter.

But Gladstone had his moments too.  Here's  a cartoon of him showing Disraeli the door when replacing him as Prime Minister:

(image from the Hathi Digital Library Trust, Princeton University)
http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/fun/2pms/11.html
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*It is a humorous quotation that had been kicking around for quite a while, and while Disraeli is certainly the kind of guy who would say things like this it is pretty clear that he was not the first one to do so....

Archeology Spring Training Part Six - The Difficulties of Buttons

Distinctive buttons have been a part of military uniforms for several hundred years.  So being at least conversant with them will be important when excavating in Flanders this spring.

Of course in the general sense it is well known which regiments were in the line at any given time.  And with the condition of the battlefield you can't always learn much from a button.  It could have come off a uniform at any time, or been post war surplus, or have been lost in 1914 and tossed about a hundred times since then by the explosion of shells.  But sometimes buttons can help you a great deal.  It is important that soldiers who died in battle get a respectful burial.  And while it probably does not matter much to them, it is important to us, that they get put into the proper cemetery.  Buttons are one of the best indicators of where that should be.

So context is rather important.  And one difficulty of today's examples is that these two were just down in the bottom of a box.  One or both might have been buttons I have found over the years.  One or both might have been in a batch that my wife recalls getting from some British detectorists.  In terms of studying them I suppose it does not matter today, but I shall make a pitch here for meticulous record keeping!

Oh, there are other issues with buttons.  They were produced in massive quantities and were exported all over the world.  They often imitated each other and cribbed from any source of culture that was then current.  They are extensively documented but there are always more variants and small time producers out there.  The cheaper ones tend to have a thin wash of brass that easily rubs off.

But for what it is worth here are a couple to get me thinking....

This guy is obviously a Cupid.  He's pretty generic, no identifying marks on front or back.  Nicely executed.  I rather doubt I'll be finding anything like this in the trenches of the Ypres Salient but I suppose one never knows.  After all, many soldiers got clothing parcels from home to help them through the winter months.   

The button below led me a merry chase indeed.  With a griffin on it you'd assume it was Welsh.  The back has what can faintly be made out as the marking HRH SUPERIOR QUALITY.  This is the kind of mark you often found on 19th century military buttons both in England, and by way of export, here in the U.S. in the Civil War era.  So, has to be a button from a Welsh regiment or militia, yes?

No.

It took some sleuthing but I eventually figured out that this is what is called in the UK a "Livery Button".  That is, the kind of button servants would wear when employed by nobility.  Think Downton Abbey and all that.

The inscription is "FIDES ET VIRTUTE" meaning "Faith and Virtue".  And it was referenced with the name Gladstone.

Surely not THAT Gladstone?

Actually, yes.  Or, pretty much.  Gladstone the Prime Minister was the younger son of John Gladstone, who was named Baronette of Fasque and Balfour in 1846. His older brother therefore was the second in the line. This is the family crest, one no doubt still displayed proudly by the current Baronette, who is the 7th.

As to why it has a Griffin, usually associated with Wales, sometimes there is no explaining the arcane ways of Heraldry.

Pretty cool though, presumably a button from a servant's coat.  Age is indeterminate but certainly could have been contemporary with THE Gladstone.

I'm pretty sure this did not originate from Wisconsin, must have been in that stuff from the detectorists.
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An addendum courtesy of the marvels of the internet.  I can probably identify what day of the week this button would have been worn and what garment it came off of.

In a book called Keeping Their Place: Domestic Service in The Country House 1700-1920 I found the following account by a man who was in service to the Gladstones...

"During the week I wore a full-dress suit of dark grey wool which had six silver buttons on the coat, three on each side.  With it I wore a bat wing collar, stiff shirt and white bow tie.  The Sunday livery was cut exactly like the regular suit but it was made of plum colored-wool and trimmed with gold buttons."

Archeology Spring Training Part Five - Why is it?

Travelers have always been interested in souvenirs.  Back in my digging days up at Hadrian's Wall I admit to a wild fantasy that involved finding one of the contemporary enameled cups that Roman soldiers seem to have bought as mementos.  The best known example is the Rudge Cup but there are at least two other similar vessels, showing a stylized depiction of the Wall and listing the series of forts built there.  Yowza.

But in the theme of dialing in my eye and brain for more modern artifacts I present this little oddity.  It is a glass paperweight.  It is full of shells that sure did not come from Wisconsin.  It says "Souvenir of Eau Claire, Wis"

I'd make it circa 1910 and the peculiar thing is that Eau Claire, while certainly a nice little city, was really never a tourist destination.  Those who wanted to hang out at the lake headed further north.  Eau Claire at this time was a faded lumbering town with a variety of manufacturing plants.  The surrounding area was and remains the pastoral home of many slowly munching dairy cows.

But, somebody must have had a little business selling trinkets.  I hope they did OK in it.

Robot Larceny and Play

With competition season behind us we have free reign to show off our robot to sponsors, interested parties and the world at large.

The other night we went to the high school's "STEAM" night.  This rather unlovely acronym used to be STEM and stood for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The artsy folks are trying to horn in on the current wave of tech popularity by adding Arts to it.  Silly, but I have no problem personally with tech having a bit of creative panache to it.

A FIRST robot is designed to run for a series of three minute matches.  It really is not supposed to run on a continual basis from 4:30pm to 8.  We blew one pneumatic fitting from overheating, dropped a couple of bolts on the floor and have a slightly bent part in our grabber claw.  Nothing that our pit crew can't keep running in other words.  A few pictures from the evening.

The Army had a couple of bomb disposal robots on hand for display.  We had a lot of fun with them.  Here our robot has been wandering about with a box full of candy (see the sign?).  We'd drive up to people and when they reached for a piece drop the elevator down to tease them.  Eventually the Army robot - which by now was being driven by our kids - decided to reach in and grab some.  This quickly became tug of war for the whole box!  There were also robot races, we dropped the yellow box on top of their $250,000 machine repeatedly and so forth.  Good robot fun.

Our team and the military guys.  Plus assorted spectators.   

You always keep an eye to the future in this business.  Here an intense grade schooler tries his hand.  He was not bad.....we'll see him in a few years.

Archeology Spring Training Part Four - What is it?

Today an instance where I ask a question but have no answer.

This is a ceramic knob of some sort.  It is on a wooden shaft with a copper alloy band on its top.  Similar things are sometimes beer tap pulls - which are usually larger - or faucet handles.  Those of course would be smaller.

It has a stenciled image on the top.  I don't find it particularly helpful but I suppose we can exclude beer.

Theories?  A Lady's cane has been proposed.  Or perhaps a faucet handle for something bigger like a fancy bath tub.  The wooden part bothers me in that regard.

Your theories - probably being better anyway - are welcomed.