Punic Wars: Part 2 - The Adventures of Hannibal

We left off with Carthage in financial peril after losing miserably to the Romans, despite many of the battles taking place on their favoured place of battle, the open waters. Tail between their legs and treaty in their hands (or paws, to keep with the metaphor) Carthage establishes itself as the leader of the Iberian Peninsula. Rome allows this, as this is part of the treaty. However, Saguntum, an Iberian coastal city with Roman diplomats within it, is just about right on the border, and... well, I'm beginning to realize a lot of wartime disputes sound painfully close to schoolyard arguments. Basically, the Romans claimed that in spite of the treaty made between Rome and Carthage claiming the political independence of Saguntum, Rome said it was theirs to do as they pleased and killed all of the Carthage supporters within the city; Carthage claimed the age old "no take backsies" clause, Rome refuting their argument with a well-timed "nuh-uh".

The result was much less schoolyard-ish, resulting in the new up-and-coming leader Hannibal to led Carthage in a siege of the city and Rome saying they didn't want it badly enough to bother going in and helping. Rome is really not trying for any honourable accolades as it seems. It took quite some time but Carthage eventually took Saguntum, much to the dismay of the inhabitants, many of which took their lives rather than face the Carthaginians. I suppose Carthage wasn't earning those accolades either.

I really can't get enough of the war elephants. In the words of
Futurama... they have "elephants that never forget... to kill!"

It's important to remember that Carthage was in crippling economic pain due to reparations from the treaty after losing the first Punic War, but they weren't without their forces. In Iberia alone (bear in mind they had a whole load of men in Africa as well) they had 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 37 war elephants, an army that would rival any one in the world. This time instead of fighting Rome on the ocean they were going to fight on land, at least for the majority of the time. This initially sounds peculiar; a city-state that is almost entirely coastal, fighting another that's primarily focussed on land, and actively choosing to fight on the relatively less familiar turf. The reason for this choice was Rome was having some troubles with rebellions with some pesky Gauls who just so happened to be sympathetic to the Carthaginian cause. The tribes of Boii and Insurbres, already revolting, sent word to a northbound Hannibal at the foot of the Alps, informing him that with their guides he would be able to cross them and help support their cause, uniting them both against the Roman force.

Meanwhile, Rome was anticipating the arrival of the moving land-mass of elephants, horses and men that was bent on their annihilation and deemed it appropriate to consider doing something about it. They sent out a force to meet the Carthaginians before they left the Iberian Peninsula, knowing that if they struck them before meeting up with the uprising Gauls they had a better chance at victory. Unfortunately, the Carthaginians proved elusive and they were unable to meet them on the field of battle. How they missed 100,000+ soldiers is beyond me, but it's important to remember that this was well before the days of GPS, and I took not one but two wrong busses on the way home today. I suppose I can sympathize.

Hannibal crossing the Alps. At the top right you
can see a particularly clumsy elephant. He wasn't
going to win the war anyway.

Regardless of how it happened, they sent one of the Roman commanders back to Italy to help defend while leaving the other general, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus (or Skippy for short, I assume) to bring the fight to Carthage. There were plenty of native tribes that were obviously harbouring some negative feelings towards the ruling Carthage, but were wary of joining the group that allied with Saguntum just prior to letting it completely burn to the ground. For whatever reason, they joined together regardless. Seeing the rising powers at his doorstep, Hanno, a brother of Hannibal who you'll learn certainly did not have the same natural mind for battle, thought it was best to fight the Romans mounting a force in Iberia before they became too large. He was so eager that he declined to wait on his reinforcements that were well on their way to support him, and challenged the Romans to a pitched battle (one which both sides agree to meet on a set field and fight it out, a la West Side Story except with less dancing and certainly less 60s fashion). Hanno was outnumbered two to one, resulting in what you would have to expect was a pretty predictable victory for the Romans. The reinforcements arrived but after a journey to meet them, and were obviously in no position to fight.

Further compounding the troubles back home for Carthage, Hasdrubal (the leader of the reinforcements that came too late) was about to find himself in another painful loss to Rome. Hoping to weaken the naval fleet of his enemy, but keenly remembering the many losses from the previous Punic war out on sea, he decided to move both his army and navy close together in a consolidated force. The purpose was to provide both moral support and a safe place to dock if need be. However, the army was hopelessly disorganized, and to put it as softly as I can, they were slaughtered. The most crippling result was a blockade between Roman soldiers and Hannibal, meaning the latter was off on his own without backup as no reinforcements could make their way to him. A few naval assaults were made over in Sicily, but bad weather and advanced knowledge on behalf of the Romans thwarted the attacks. Basically all eyes, and all Carthage hopes, were on their ruler with an admittedly giant army walking his way towards Italy.

Where everyone else in Carthage seemed like hopeless commanders, Hannibal was busy winning it almost single-handedly - along with, you know, his entire army. The Gallic tribes rose up against Rome and supported Carthage as was expected, the uprising being helped by Hannibal's army in the first place. Rome attempted to counter, but well timed ambushes slowed the Roman advance. The greatest accomplishment for Hannibal was yet to come, however; his next move involved crossing the Alps to catch the Romans by surprise, arriving much sooner than would be anticipated. Scoffing at the obvious difficulties, he brought 28,000 men, 6,000 cavalry and a number of elephants over the Alps with the help of native tribes and the Gauls. Rome has previously planning on moving on Africa, but the unprecedented speed on which they arrived set the entire plan back.

Carthage continued to fight (and win) in Roman territory, and as a result their army actually grew instead of dwindled; being unable to rely on the crappy leaders back home, he recruited more of the uprising Gauls to join him. The northern half of Italy was effectively in open revolt, seeing Hannibal as their leader. Wins kept on rolling in due to his exceptional military strategy; luring the Romans into an a trap at the battle of Trebia in which the defenders fought without breakfast and after crossing a cold river, also with the adding weight of a planned battlefield in which Carthage attacked with flanking forces as well, Rome lost 20,000 of the 40,000 that were in the fight. More and more Gauls joined, bringing the army to 60,000.

Hannibal was seemingly unstoppable, and rapidly approaching Rome. Tactically brilliant and with the force of the people on his side, the Romans prepared for the worst (the worst being losing the city of Rome - also dying). They heavily defended fortifications on the path towards Rome, but Hannibal simply moved around the flank and turned the tables on them, slipping past the enemy and effectively cutting off the Romans from their own city. Knowing that at this point they had to give chase and attack, the Romans moved right into the waiting hands of Hannibal's armies, ready and waiting in an ambush. They were slaughtered; cavalry was sent in afterwards but they as well were quickly defeated. A great number of prisoners were taken, the Roman ones being kept and the non-Romans were set free to spread "Carthage is saving you" propaganda to everyone that would listen. Rome at this point was a possible target, but ignoring his advisors Hannibal decided it would be too risky, the smarter move being to continue his plan of building up soldiers and biding his time. Hannibal was brilliant, but careful.

A well-preserved road that was actually used by the
armies of Fabius. I know it's just a road, but still...
when you really think about it, it's pretty amazing.

At this point Rome was freaking out about as hard as you could expect. A number of their generals were indisposed (you know, dead) and they chose to appoint somewhat of a military dictator to control the troops. The name of the man was Quintus Fabius Maximus, well known for his Fabian strategy he would employ on the armies of Hannibal. It consisted of open refusal of large scale battles, instead favouring skirmishes with small groups to weaken the greater force. Despite the fact that Rome as a whole pretty well hated it (they nicknamed him Cunctator, meaning delayer) as they thought it was a cowardly way to fight, it was effective. Hannibal was weakening due to the constant shots from the Fabian strategy. Rome was also slightly peeved at the fact that they weren't directly assaulting the army that was wandering around ravaging their homeland - admittedly a reasonable complaint. At one point a commander rose up and called Fabius a coward and moved to attack Hannibal. His traditional method resulted in Hannibal ambushing his force, and the commander didn't speak up too much against him after that.

Well, the commander didn't... but the rest of Rome certainly did. They were eager for a large scale assault, and decided to double the army supply and take the force to Hannibal's door. Eager for battle, they charged the Carthaginians on a ground that was much better suited for Hannibal who once again planned his defence flawlessly. In the battle of Cannae, 50-70,000 Romans died or were captured, a colossal loss. The shaming resulted in Greek cities in Sicily being induced to riots as well, and several southern Italian allies moving towards the way of Hannibal. Directly after the battle, there was a brief path to Rome in which Hannibal would be relatively unimpeded, but the careful, tactical manner in which Hannibal attacked proved to work against him this time. He waited too long and missed his opportunity, much the way when one has to defecate but decides to wait for the commercial and then no longer has to go. Both result in the most profound of regrets.

The caption on Wikipedia said
it was Hannibal counting the signet
rings of fallen Roman generals
(which is really cool) but it just looks
like he's standing there...

Hannibal's army, separated from his home and lacking reinforcements, eventually began to dwindle. They won some battles here and there, but Rome was retaking her cities and pestilence began to plague his numbers. It soon drew to a stalemate, and generally speaking the one closer to home is the one that is going to hold out. Meanwhile, Iberia was faring no better, and they were routed in Africa as well. The world was crumbling around Hannibal, and while he almost made peace with Scipio, breaches of conduct on either side prevented peace; Scipio was angry over the ambush tactics used by Hannibal, Hannibal angry over how Rome dealt with Saguntum. A final large scale battle between the two, in which Hannibal didn't want to lead because he was certain they would not hold their ground, resulted in Carthage reluctantly accepting their losses and taking a peace offering.

Once again, Carthage was pitted with a massive war indemnity to slap around their economy even further than before. Their navy was limited to only ten ships, just enough to ward off pirates. Hannibal, meanwhile, became a businessman for several years until he was exiled to Asia where he continued to fight the Romans until he was cornered and committed suicide. It was not a fitting end for such a tremendous military tactician. But hey, he still lost, so... he couldn't have been that good.

What made the second Punic war seemed to be when an army chose to attack: if Hanno had waited for reinforcements, the Iberian front could have ended entirely differently; Hannibal's ambushes and luring armies worked wonders throughout his campaign; the Fabian strategy of persistent waiting was critical in Rome's eventual success, with the traditional run-up-and-fight strategy failing time and time again; lastly, Hannibal dropping the ball just one time meant that he missed his opportunity to take Rome. The second war really just came down to a matter of timing.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "Carthage must be destroyed." The words of Cato the Elder. It sounds like it's not that great of a quote, but it's all about context. Cato would say this at the end of every speech, believing that Carthage would rise again if not entirely crushed. Yes, every speech, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with Carthage. 
2. "Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death." Hannibal's last words, apparently realizing Rome was not particularly fond of him. He was not to be later reunited with Scipio on some ancient version of Maury.

Punic Wars: Part 1 - Fighting for Sicily

The Punic Wars were three battles fought between the Roman Republic (but back before they were all-powerful and more than a little frightening, the Roman Republic was the child of the Roman Empire) and Carthage, a city-state with an particularly strong talent for naval warfare. The term "Punic" stems from a latin word related to the Phoenicians, of whom the Carthaginians claim lineage from. It has a better ring to it than "The Carthaginian Wars", but less so than "Carthaginian Crucible of Carnage and Conflict".

Carthage is the greyish blobs, Rome the red. That's
all you need to know.

At the time of the beginning of the Punic Wars, 264 B.C., Carthage controlled much of the coastal land of the Mediterranean. They were seen as the naval power of the time, and didn't have so much in the way of opposition. Rome, on the other hand, was an increasingly threatening power but at this point contained within the Italian Peninsula. The war they were about to fight would last twenty three years, and may have just been the largest wars that have occurred up until that time. Here, I'll be writing about the first of the three wars, readily admitting that I now know only of this one and very little of the following, save for the fact that (spoiler) Rome wins out.

What led up to the war was a group of Italian mercenaries mucking about in Sicily, hired by a Greek in Syracuse. They went by the name of the Mamertines, and they quickly earned a pretty negative reputation by killing a great number of people in the city of Messana, with all the looting and pillaging that is associated with sacking a city. The leader of Syracuse, Hiero II, feared the Mamertines further causing trouble and defeated them in battle - but not entirely. They were left with enough to appeal to both Rome and Carthage for some much needed help, to stem the tide of dying and whatnot. Carthage quickly took the charge, but in a "beggars can be choosers" plot twist they continued to appeal to the love of raiding and pillaging they shared with Rome in order to become allies.

The reaction in Rome was mixed; they thought it would be poor form to join forces with a marauding group of mercenaries that had ever so recently taken a city unjustly, but on the other hand, Carthage was becoming a powerful force and if they joined forces with the Mamertines they would surely take the whole island. Fearing the latter, and likely finding some sort of tenuous moral justification in order to not sound so sleazy, Rome reluctantly agreed to help the mercenaries. Unfortunately, this wasn't just picking some schoolyard chum - a rivalry was growing between Carthage and Rome, and an alliance with both simply wouldn't fly. They picked their side and they were about to live or die by it.

Agrigentum, a rather important dot
on a map.

Rome felt it was time for war, but a war that was in unfamiliar territory and circumstances. The Romans fought with great numbers of infantry, lacking prowess on the seas. The island of Sicily did not lend itself to that variety of warfare, however; hills, difficult to traverse terrain, and the obvious fact that Rome was not connected by land to the place of battle meant that they were about to be taken rather quickly out of their comfort zone. Land battles were to be limited to small battles and raids on supplies, typically centred around hitting ports and blockading pretty much whatever they could - far from the Roman way. What they did have going in their favour was the element of surprise, and by that I mean landing quickly with as many troops as they could and beating the crap out of the Carthaginians attacking the Mamertines in Messana. The crap-beating successful, they turned their eye on Syracuse, besieging that, too, and forcing them to take a critical peace deal that also had the stipulation of supplying the lower quality Roman navy with supplies. Considering both armies were away from home, an immediate source was extremely important in the battles to come.

Carthage, meanwhile, was not ill-prepared. Their rule stretched over the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, including large sections of the northern part of Africa. Seeking assistance, they hired mercenary groups from the territory, composed of fifty thousand infantry, six thousand cavalry, and - get this - sixty elephants. Can you believe that? Elephants! Perhaps they just wanted to match the Romans using trumpets to sound off the start of battle, and they thought it was cheaper.

The first major battle was in Agrigentum. A Roman assault of four legions (typically comprised of 5,400 men in each) attacked the city, but was oh so rudely interrupted by Carthaginians coming to ruin the raiding party. Surrounded and with supplies cut off, the Roman force began to fall to disease, and had to act quickly and effectively - but a Roman battle on land and in the open (open battle was actually something the Carthaginians wanted as well) resulted in a victory for Rome, taking the city. The Carthage army was damaged, but they had yet to fight on their turf - the open sea.

The expert technology used by the Romans on the sea.
1. Add nail to ladder  2. Hit other ship with nail
3. Kill people on ship  4. Repeat

The next major stage for war was the Battle of Mylae, one that Carthage thought was going to be a sure victory. Their navy outnumbered the Romans, although not by much; They had 130 ships to what is likely about 100 for Rome. Inexperienced shipbuilders, the Romans likely could have received help from Syracuse, or from taking ideas from shipwrecked Carthaginian vessels. Or, they could have learned incredibly fast. Or their ships could have completely sucked, but they went out anyways. The point is, it's not too clear. What matters is the manner in which the Romans fought: they placed a bridge-like structure that was used to board the enemy boats, allowing them to fight as if on land, a terrain much more familiar. The invention led them to a victory, forcing Carthage to retreat with a loss of both ships and likely a loss of pride after being schooled by an amateur on what they thought was kind of their thing.

Feeling confident, and in all fairness justly so, Rome ventured south to Africa to muck about in Carthaginian territory. Once again, they were successful - they won out, and began to write up terms for peace with the defeated armies. However, their terms were too heavy - perhaps they wanted too many elephants - and it forced the defenders to hire Xanthippus, a Spartan mercenary to reorganize their army. Since he's a Spartan, he obviously got the job done, likely while dropping one liners, and forced the Romans back. Needing retreat, Rome sent a great number of ships to Africa to save their men, but on the return trip a great storm (perhaps summoned by the sheer will of a single angry Spartan mercenary) killed nearly 90,000 men.

Damaged but not defeated, the Romans continued to rebuild. Carthage, however, was running short on financial abilities to fuel the war effort, whereas Rome found a way to consistently bleed investors enough to continue building ships and finding supplies. It became a slow and steady takeover, leaving the Romans as the victors but both financially in peril. A great number of casualties hit both sides, but Rome emerged as the new hot shot in the Mediterranean. To ensure their new status, they imposed a number of economic demands on Carthage, preventing them from recovering and becoming the power they once were. This also marked the first time Rome decided to expand out of the Italian Peninsula, and if we check the history books, it turns out they were really fond of this whole "expand their borders and gain power" deal. So after twenty three years of war, everything was all gravy. Carthage is safely economically shattered, Rome is the new high school bully of the seas, and they have more elephants than they know what to do with.

What could possibly go wrong?

Famous Historical Battles Give the Darndest Statistics!

1. Once again, it's darn near impossible to find a decent quote for events that long ago, so... have some stats. Part of the peace treaty to cripple Carthage economically included 145,000 pounds of silver to be paid in ten annual instalments. I think even the cost of transporting that much would cost enough to mess things up quite a lot.
2. Almost 300,000 men died in the battle.
3. 150 Roman ships were lost in a single storm. Someone forgot to pray to Neptune!

Building the Canadian Pacific Railway: Part 2 - The Pacific Scandal

I don't know what's happening, but...
yeah, it shows that things were bad.

While this isn't a true "part 2" as it doesn't follow in chronological order, I thought the Pacific Scandal warranted its own entry all to itself. Imagine the situation: Canada just becomes a country, and already the very first leader is thrown into a massive corruption scandal and is kicked out of office. While I can't seem to find any information about it, I can only imagine how heavily the anti-Confederationists were gloating - "Ha-ha, good show, old sport! Surely our Dominion will be as long lasting as my fifth cup of tea prior to dining!". Bear in mind we were still very much British at the time. That's why the tea thing made sense. Ahem.

To set the scene: Americans were interested in buying the contract for the railroad, many with the idea in mind that Canada would eventually be left open to annexation as the U.S. would effectively control the land west of the Great Lakes through the monopoly on transportation. That, and a lot of the money would naturally funnel back to America. As well, the Yankees were hoping to have the railroad also swing through the States, further Americanizing what is meant to be a massive Canadian endeavour. Obviously, every true Canadian wanted to oppose this with every maple syruped covered first they had. Keep in mind, especially at the time, anti-American sentiments were pretty well engrained in Canadians. If they had made the flag then, it would likely have a middle finger pointed towards the south.

His political dealings were as wild as his hairstyle.

So in walks Hugh Allan, a Canadian known to have a great number of American economic backers. The government most certainly knew this, but strapped for cash and seeing an opportunity to build the darn railroad that was seemingly working harder to work towards crushing Macdonald's soul than actually getting built, they had to take a look at every option that came forward. Allan had the means and the capital, but it was the American aspect of it that really threw a wrench in the works.

Now, obviously, dealing with Americans isn't a crime - at least not something you can be convicted of in court. The criminal aspect came in when Allan started to throw a few dollars Macdonald's way, and that money was in turn spent on campaigning. Except it wasn't just a few dollars - it was $300,000. In exchange for the capital, Macdonald hinted he would provide Allan (and thus his American backers) with the contract to build the CPR. If you're thinking this sounds familiar, it's because the Chretien government actually did something rather similar, with taking funds from a program meant to quiet Quebec separatism by advocating Canada and using it to fund their political campaigns. When it came out, it worked to pretty much kill the Liberals in Quebec for many, many years to come. Whoops.

Apparently, the $300,000 was spent
on making cool posters like this.
Money well spent.

Anyways, Macdonald eventually backed out of the deal, which pissed off the Americans just about as much as you would imagine. All of it came out in the press eventually, and Macdonald was quite literally sick with worry. His health started to deteriorate heavily knowing he will most certainly be kicked out of office and his legacy would be severely damaged. This is all in addition to the fact that Macdonald was a high functioning alcoholic. A few tidbits about John A. - he once was at a debate in which he was so drunk he puked during the thing. His response when he got up to speak was his opposition's words made his stomach turn. He was a great speaker, undoubtedly. While he was in the senate defending himself, he was so drunk when he gave his speech in his own defence he had to be helped up in order to speak - and then gave a rousing, fantastic speech the likes of which Canada has yet to hear. In fact, during that time, it was said that he had two people filling his drinks; one was giving him water, the other gin. However, it may have been that both were giving him gin thinking the other was providing the water. Whoops.

Macdonald was actually so stressed during this time, he got up and left. Yes. He left. For weeks. He may have simply gone fishing, but people didn't know. Picture this in nowadays time - a Prime Minister is caught up in a massive scandal, and it stresses him out so he decides to leave the public eye for a few weeks, nowhere to be found. It would be world-wide news, absolutely. The problem for Macdonald is he was without question guilty, and there wasn't really so much they could do about it but delay - and delay they most certainly did. It sure took quite some time, most certainly taking more time to break down poor Macdonalds fragile mind at this point, but eventually he was kicked out and the Liberals moved in shortly after. He then came back a few years later to once again take up the role of Prime Minister, demonstrating that people have a very short memory of political dealings in both modern day and at the time of Confederation.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. The government "trafficked with foreigners in Canada's most precious interests in order to debauch the constituents of the Dominion with the gold obtained at the price of their treachery!" Words spoken by Lord Dufferin. People sure did hate things more eloquently back then.
2. "[Macdonald is the] greatest corruptionist America had produced." 
3. After hearing words that the government shall rise again... "Rise again! But that resurrection shall not be until the last trump shall sound - when the graves shall give up their dead an death and hell shall give up the dead that are in them!" Well, actually, it would be a few years down the line, but either one.

Building the Canadian Pacific Railroad: Part 1 - "Insane Recklessness"

The logo for the CPR. The
beaver is such a nobel animal; a
beautiful furry rodent-thing.

People say Canadian history isn't interesting, and quite frankly, a fair few times they're correct. I place most of the blame on the manner in which it's taught in schools and how that breeds total disregard for the mixed bag of interesting and mind numbingly boring Canadian facts as if they're all the latter and none of the former. There's plenty of absolutely insane stuff that happens in our past, much of which is covered by Canada's own Pierre Berton, a leading historical author that has been praised for making the subject matter almost as if it's a story, making it readable and lively. He's also been criticized for making the subject matter almost as if it's a story, playing a touch fast and loose with the facts. Regardless of opinions, I read what turned out to be a fairly arduous journey through The National Dream, Berton's book on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway and all the politics leading up to it. It wasn't a a bad read, but it did have the tendency of many passionate historians to overwhelm you with facts that are only relevant if you're reading so in depth on the topic as to base your life around it. What I'm trying to say is I found little interest in the colour of the wagon that crossed the street on July 14th, 1869 - it was likely just brown, anyways.

Regardless of being perhaps a touch too well researched, falling much the way of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, the subject matter in and of itself is actually fascinating. Canada decided it was going to build the greatest railroad of all time when the country is only four - a mere toddler learning to walk and crawl, we should have practised building a few models first. In addition to that, it's not like it was linking a massive amount of people - Canada was only holding three and a half million at the time, and for comparisons sake, the U.S. was sitting with well over ten times that amount. They had just finished their largest railroad undertaking, one that was a thousand miles shorter than the would-be CPR. Nevertheless, the railway was to be built as it was a political promise to some of the provinces to join Confederation, thus linking the country together. Fortunately, never once has a politician been known to break their word.

A CPR train with a few of the workers. Those darn kids,
always using their filters on their photographs...

Unfortunately for Canada, building the rail wasn't exactly just a little bit of elbow grease and olde-timey work ethic. It required several pantloads of money - one hundred million to be exact, which is certainly a great number of pantloads. To put that in perspective, a dollar a day was a decent wage at the time. So where was Canada going to snatch up all this money? John A. Macdonald, the man largely behind the idea in the first place, decided that it was a great idea to go against every Canadian ideal ever and get in bed with the Yankees. He took a great deal of money from an American backer for funding his political campaigns and in turn he was meant to give the man the contract for the railway. Naturally this is comically corrupt, and was later named the Pacific Scandal. I will be detailing this in the exciting part two of this blog.

What you need to know is he was kicked out of office pretty quick, and replaced by Alexander Mackenzie and the Liberal party. During this great political mess, surveyors were sent out to find the right trail for the railway. It's difficult to express just how tough these poor guys had it. They would be traversing land never before seen by white dudes, plowing through ridiculously cold winters, moving through clouds of mosquitoes so thick they would look simply like a black mass of intense frustration and all the while they don't really have all that great an idea of where they are or where they're going. One of the most famous crews was out on the trail for one hundred and sixteen days and travelled 1,887 miles. Of those, 932 were on show-shoes and 332 of them with all their goods on their backs. Their dogs had died sometime back, presumedly from consciously deciding that death was a much more enjoyable alternative. Honestly, I would have sided with the dogs.

Some of the engineers that worked on the
railway. The mutton chops on the guy
at the top left represent the majesty
of the grand, Canadian rail.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the surveyors, they had somewhat of a plan as to where they wanted the railway to move. However, the issue of how they'd pay for the darn thing was yet unsolved. They began selling contracts to builders, but even that was rife with political corruption, a problem that apparently was a cornerstone of early Canada. Keep in mind secret ballots weren't introduced until 1874, and the previous way of voting was to publicly call out who you wanted in. Voter intimidation and bribery was about as prominent as you'd believe, as you can clearly see if the dude you bought a sandwich for actually voted the way you wanted him to. What I don't get is how secret ballots weren't introduced earlier, as folding a sheet of paper and putting it in a box was not groundbreaking technology... but anyway, I digress. The corruption with the contracts was related to the Liberals giving the contracts to, well, Liberals. $5,257,336 worth of contracts were sold, and $4,986,659 went to prominent Liberals, a number of which would later have spots in government.

Running on a hilariously hypocritical platform of accusing the Liberals of corruption, John A. returns to office with 133 seats to 73. How a man who had so clearly screwed the voters got voted back in so quickly is almost as baffling as Rob Ford still being allowed to be in office. You have to hand it to Macdonald - he had a way with speeches. This time, to his credit, he changed his ways and brought in a much more effective way of moving the railway forward. Instead of paying the lowest bidder on the contract to build the section, (in and of itself creating a number of problems with shoddy worksmanship) he changed it to promising the builders land according to how much they've built. This lowered the cost to the government substantially and promoted building the western provinces that would build up shortly after. Way to go, John.

So the building of the railway begins. In addition to the obvious problems (massive expense, vast territory, tons of work, Irish workers, etc.) they had to deal with a whole pantload (a different unit of measurement than the previous usage of pantload) of muskegs and sinkholes. The terrain was absolutely brutal. That, and they'd have to blow up large chunks of mountains in order to build the railway through them using nitroglycerin. Unfortunately, they didn't have the same safety precautions as we would nowadays. There were small spills, meaning there would be little black spots you'd have to keep your eye out for while walking the trail or you very well might lose a leg in a small explosion. They also put the nitroglycerin in their backpacks, meaning it would shake around and occasionally, well... explode. It was pretty brutal work.

What ended up being the saving grace for the railway was a group of Montreal men that decided to purchase a vast amount of the railway, much of the expense coming through subsidies of the government. It was a massive risk for the men that would soon be called the Syndicate, as they were actually boring money form a bank they owned in order to finance the expedition. If it fell through, it would essentially ruin them all. However, it worked out just fine and the people of Canada sure were happy for it because of one main fact - these guys weren't American. True north strong and free!

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "If ever our bones will be discovered, when and by whom. If our friends will mourn long for us or do as is often done, forget us as soon as possible. In short, I have been looking death in the face..." A quote from one of the surveyors, written down in his journal. Seriously, things got bleak.
2. "Until this great work is completed, our Dominion is nothing more than a 'geographical expression'. We have as much interest in British Columbia as in Australia, and no more. The railway, once finished, we become one great united country with a large interprovincial trade and a common interest." Governor of the HBC, Sir Stafford Northcote