Zenitar 16mm F/2.8

dont know what is inside...

The ERC Sport Mercedes -AMG GT3 of Lee Mowle and Yelmer Buurman at Silverstone for the British GT Championship.

so these are some outside photos

I do like the complicated "granny knots" people use - here on a narrowboat on the Macclesfield Canal near Bosley, Cheshire.

 

It looks good in monochrome - but detracts attention from the green nylon knot.

Pararescuemen with the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron secure the area after being lowered from an HH-60 Pave Hawk during a mission in Afghanistan on Nov. 7, 2012. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)

Auto Mamiya/Sekor 55mm 1.4 @ f/2.8

 

 

A safe height and distance from me'nthedogs.

Odda is a town and administrative center in Ullensvang municipality in Vestland county in Norway. The town is located deep in the Sørfjorden in Hardanger , and has 4,764 inhabitants as of 1 January 2023 . Odda was the administrative center of Odda municipality , which on 1 January 2020 was merged with Jondal and Ullensvang to form the new Ullensvang municipality.

 

In 2009 , the industrial heritage in Odda-Tyssedal was listed on Norway's tentative list for UNESCO's World Heritage List , together with the Rjukan–Notodden industrial heritage .

 

Public services

Odda hospital is a local hospital for the municipalities of Eidfjord, Jondal, Odda and Ullensvang.

Odda secondary school offers both vocational and study specialist educations.

Business

Odda is known as an industrial location, with companies such as Odda Smelteverk , Boliden Odda (formerly Norzink ) and Tinfos Titan & Iron (TTI).

 

History

Tourism and hotel management

Before industrial activity in Odda began around 1910, Odda was a popular tourist destination which, among other things, attracted many foreigners who wanted to experience the scenic area with glaciers, fjords and waterfalls. This laid the foundation for several people to start hotel operations on the site.

 

Some of the most popular destinations for tourists visiting Odda were Låtefossen and Espelandsfossen .

 

Shuttle station, steamship wharf and steamship expedition

Baard Jakobsen Aga (1812–1895) received a merchant license in Odda in 1861, and in 1864 took over the shuttle station that was in operation in Odda. Then he secured a new plot of land where he built a hotel which was called alternately Prestegårds Hotel and Agas Hotel. In 1868 he became a post opener and steamship dispatcher, and he then had a steamship wharf and dispatch house built at Almerket. He had previously expanded the hotel business, but in 1888 he inaugurated a new hotel building, the "new Agas Hotel". In the 20th century, the large hotel building was used for other purposes, including Rita's bakery, which led to the building being called "Ritagården" colloquially. Agas Hotel/Ritagården was demolished in 1978.

 

From guest house to Hotel Hardanger

The start of hotel operations at Odda occurred around 1845, when a man named Monsen started an inn on the site. Monsen went bankrupt in the 1860s, and the inn was bought by a man named Wetshus. He continued to run the hotel business. After Wetshus had died, the two brothers Sven and Mikal Tollefsen became his successors in the early 1880s, with financial support from a rich Englishman. The Tollefsen brothers carried out a major renovation of the former guest house. When Sven Tollefsen died, Mikal Tollefsen became the hotel's sole owner.

 

Tollefsen also bought Agas Hotel, which Baard Jakobsen Aga had started.

 

On 9 August 1895, the then Hotel Hardanger was completely damaged in a fire. The fire started in Hotel Hardanger, but 7–8 neighboring buildings also caught fire. It was said that the fire was caused by the maid of an English hotel guest having left a candle or a kerosene lamp by an open window, and that the curtain had caught fire - as it was very hot most of the windows in the hotel were open, and this caused the fire to spread with great speed. The fire started at 12 o'clock in the morning.

 

The commander and crew of the steamship "Vega" - which happened to be docked in Odda when the fire started - managed to put out the fire(s) within three hours using fire-fighting equipment from the ship. Among other things, they managed to save the post office, while the telegraph building was lost. The competing Jordals Hotel, which was run by Jacob Jordal, was also saved.

 

Hotel Hardanger was insured, and Bergens Tidende wrote that the insurance sum was NOK 90,000, but also published an anonymous source's assessment that the hotel complex was worth NOK 200,000–250,000, and that the owner - Mikal Tollefsen - had probably suffered a significant financial loss due to underinsurance. No people were injured in the fire.

 

Shortly after the fire in 1895, Tollefsen started building a new and larger hotel on the site of the fire. The new hotel was completed on 24 June 1896, and had 170 hotel beds in 110 guest rooms. Architecturally, it was a mixture of Swiss style and dragon style, with towers and projections.

 

Hardanger Hotel is mentioned, among other things, in a French travelogue published in 1897.

 

In 1913, the owner of Hotel Hardanger filed a claim for damages against the two factories - a cyanamide factory and a carbide factory - which had started up in Odda a few years earlier, because the factory operation caused such great pollution and bad odors that it affected the hotel operation. The provisions of the Neighborhood Act were the legal basis for the lawsuit. The court agreed with the plaintiff that the two factories were obliged to pay compensation for inconvenience and losses that the hotel had suffered after 2 August 1911, but not because Odda had become less idyllic and thus attractive to tourists. The compensation sum was to be determined after an appraisal had been carried out , and the result of the appraisal was not available until 1922. By then both factories had gone bankrupt, and hotel owner Mikal Tollefsen had died.

 

Hotel Hardanger becomes a town hall

In 1917, the municipality bought the Hotel Hardanger, to convert the building into a town hall . The hotel had then been almost empty all year round, because the industrial activity on the site had meant that the tourists did not show up. [9]

 

The hotel's so-called "Kongerom" was converted into a chairman's office and lord's boardroom. Eventually, the new town hall also accommodated a number of other businesses, such as a cinema, police station, doctor's office and bank. The old hotel was in use as Odda Town Hall until a new building was inaugurated in 1957; from then on, the former Hotel Hardanger was referred to as Odda old town hall . This building was demolished in 1976.

 

Jordals Hotel becomes Hardanger Hotel

In 1917, Jordals Hotel was bought by the Melkeraaen family, who continued to run the hotel for 68 years. Along the way, they changed the name of the hotel to Hardanger Hotel.

 

The Hardanger Hotel, which was a wooden Swiss-style building, was demolished in 1962, and a new five-story hotel building was inaugurated on 1 July 1963.

 

From tourism to industrial site

Factories and smelters

At the beginning of the 20th century, two factories were started in Odda. On one, cyanamide was produced, and on the other, carbide was produced .

 

In 1908, the operation of the first factory that was to be part of Odda Smelteverk , a carbide factory owned by a British company, began. In 1909, another British company started production of calcium cyanamide in the same area as the first factory. The reason why Odda was interesting for the foreign companies was the access to large amounts of hydropower and ice-free ports.

 

Both factories went bankrupt in 1921 , in connection with the worldwide economic crisis that occurred in the early 1920s. The bankruptcies led to thousands of people becoming unemployed. Both factories started up again in 1924, with Odda Smelteverk A/S as the new owner. This operating company was established by the power company Tyssefaldene and the Hafslund/Meraker group.

 

The cyanamide factory was built on in the 1930s.

 

At the smelter, the so-called Odda process was developed by chief chemist Erling Johnson in 1927–1928; it is a chemical process based on nitric acid for the industrial production of three-sided artificial fertilizer with the sub-components nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium .

 

Preservation decision and dispute over conservation value

In 2011 , the National Archives decided to protect several of the smelter's buildings and facilities, and to include the smelter in the Norwegian application to UNESCO for world heritage status for Norwegian industrial monuments. In 2013, however, the Ministry of the Environment decided that the series nomination should be split into two phases, 1. application for Rjukan/Notodden to be submitted to UNESCO in January 2014, and phase 2, that work be continued on expanding the nomination to include Odda/ Tyssedal with eventual submission to UNESCO in January 2016.

 

The owners of the smelter site objected to the conservation decision made in 2011, but the decision was upheld in 2012. The conservation included the cyanamide factory, the cable car, the Linde house (named after the German inventor Carl von Linde ) and the limestone silo on the import quay. Over the years, there has been much controversy in Odda about whether the smelter's buildings and facilities should be preserved or removed.

 

Cultural life

Music and theater

Tyssedalkoret and Odda Songlag are two choirs that come from Odda municipality. The water power and industrial history of the area here was documented in the performance and the DVD ``Arven'', performed by Tyssedalkoret with band and soloists in autumn 2004 and released on DVD in Christmas 2005. In addition these two choirs have the bands Odda Musikklag , Odda Skolekorps and Røldal Skolemusiklag. The blues team Lokst Utøve has 272 members. The Blueslaget received the culture award for 2009 for their great work as concert/festival organisers, volunteer workers and inspirers for bands and soloists. In 2011, Erlend Garatun Huus published the book Rock og Røyk , which is about the history of rock in Odda.

 

At the closed smelter (2001), the old "Lindehuset" has been used for theater and concert activities. The theater play Bikebubesong , based on the Oddingen Frode Grytten's novel Bikubesong , was performed in this venue in 2003 with great success. The play's performance in Oslo has been the most watched contemporary drama in Norwegian history.

 

A key cultural player in Odda is the company Oddakonsertene, led by Gunn Gravdal Elton. In April 2019, the Odda concerts staged the musical Albert og Leonie , a story about how Odda arose as an industrial community. The musical was a huge success with sold-out houses. 2,600 people queued to see and hear the story. The director was Martine Bakken Lundberg. The main roles were played by André Søfteland and Lene Kokai Flage. Over 60 amateurs were on stage. Albert and Leonie was planned to be staged again in 2020 and 2021, but had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic .

 

The odd concerts started in 2005 and as of 2019 have staged more than 60 concerts. All have been sold out. The most popular concerts are the annual Christmas concerts, which gather over 1,000 listeners. The traditional Christmas concert in Odda church with a large ensemble and two to three concerts in a row officially ended in 2019, but a simplified version was arranged in 2020, with concerts in Skare and Odda churches.

 

The Literature Symposium

From 2005, a festival called the Literature Symposium in Odda has been organized every autumn . The Linden house at the defunct Smelteverket, Odda cinema, Sentralbadet, Odda church are some of the venues at the symposium. Previously, there was every year "Bikubegang" with Frode Grytten , where he told about the story behind the book "Bikubesong", while he wandered around Odda. The literary symposium also has concerts, often in connection with an author/musician or individual artists. During the Literary Symposium 2011, the Sentralbadet Litteraturhus opened in the old bathroom at the closed Smelteverket, and this has become headquarters for the symposium, as well as a permanent house for literary events all year round.

 

As of 2010, a major rehabilitation/remodeling of Lindehuset was planned, so that the building would be better suited for events such as concerts and theater performances.

 

The National Antiquities' "Value creation project"

Odda is one of the pilot projects in the Value Creation Project for the National Archives.

 

TV shows

The actions in the TV series RIP Henry and Ragnarok have been added to Odda, and are recorded there. In Ragnarok, on the other hand, the city goes by the name Edda .

 

Known oddities

Samson Isberg (1795–1873), sharpshooter

Knud Knudsen (photographer) (1832–1915)

Gro Holm , born Prestgarden (1878–1949), writer

Alfred Hagn (1882–1958), painter, writer and spy.

Claes Gill (1910–1973), writer, actor and theater manager

Torbjørn Mork (1928–1992), doctor, politician ( Ap ), director of health 1972–1992

Walther Aas (1928–1990), artist

Roger Albertsen , (1957–2003), footballer

Anne B. Ragde (born 1957), writer, (raised in Trondheim)

Arne Borgstrøm (born 1959), elite long-distance swimmer

Frode Grytten (born 1960), author

Lars Ove Seljestad (born 1961), author

Bjørn Ingvaldsen (born 1962), author, leader of Norwegian Children's and Young People's Book Writers

Hallgeir Opedal (born 1965), writer and journalist

Børge Brende (born 1965), politician ( H ), former secretary general of the Norwegian Red Cross , minister of foreign affairs

Ida Melbo Øystese (born 1968), chief of police in Oslo from 2023.

Knut Olav Åmås (born 1968), author, editor, director of the foundation Fritt Ord

Leif Einar Lothe (born 1969), entrepreneur, singer, TV profile

Marit Eikemo (born 1971), writer

Tore Aurstad (born 1972), author

Ingvill Måkestad Bovim (born 1981), athlete

Håkon Opdal (born 1982), footballer

Ingvild Skare Thygesen (born 1993), TV profile

 

The Sognefjord is Norway's longest and deepest fjord with its 205 km and 1303 m at its deepest (SNL states 1308), including Sognesjøen which is at the far end towards the North Sea. The Sognefjord has the deepest point on Norway's coast. The fjord is 176–180 km from the innermost Lusterfjorden ( Skjolden ) to Sognefest , and 206 km to the outermost reef (then Lake Sognesjøen is also included). The width varies from around 1 to 2 km in Lusterfjorden to 4–5 km from Leikanger and beyond. Measured from the threshold to Skjolden, the fjord is 174 km. The middle part of the fjord is surrounded by mountains of around 1000 meters and in the inner part the height difference between the bottom of the fjord and the mountain tops is 3500 metres. The highest peak right by the fjord is Bleia at 1,721 metres, which gives a 2,850 meter height difference. Around the inner part of the fjord, the landscape is alpine with pointed mountain peaks, steep mountain sides and glaciers. As an extension of the fjord arms, long and deep valleys extend in all directions, including Jostedalen , Lærdalen and Årdal with Utladalen . The Sognefjord is the world's longest open (ice-free) fjord. The Sognefjord is the world's third longest fjord.

 

It is located in the middle of Vestland county (formerly Sogn og Fjordane county to which it helped give its name) and stretches from Solund on the coast in the west to Skjolden at the foot of Jotunheimen in the east (northeast), where the fjord arm is called Lustrafjorden . The fjord and the land around it make up the Sogn region, often divided into Outer, Midtre and Indre Sogn. The length from Rutletangen to Skjolden is 186 km . Sogn makes up almost 60% of the area in Sogn and Fjordane, or around 11,000 km 2 . The twelve municipalities in Sogn have a total area of ​​10,671.55 km² and 37,063 inhabitants (1 January 2014). The land around the inner part of the fjord is called Indre Sogn and includes the long fjord arms. From Leikanger onwards, the country is called Ytre Sogn . The outer part of the fjord has few and small fjord arms. The fjord arms are like hanging valleys under water in that the bottom in the side fjords is often much shallower than the main fjord with a height difference of over 1,000 meters in some cases. The main fjord has a threshold at its mouth to the sea, while several of the side fjords have thresholds at the mouth of the main fjord.

 

The Sognefjord cuts so deeply into the country that it is only 15 km from the innermost arm at Skjolden to mountain peaks such as Store Skagastølstind in Jotunheimen. The water flow usually exits the fjord. The rivers create sandbanks where they run into the fjord, for example at Gudvangen, in Lærdal and in Gaupne. These sandbars are constantly expanding and changing shape.

 

The Sognefjord, especially the inner part, is surrounded by mountain massifs which are alpine in the inner part and more rounded in the outer part. The innermost arms of the fjord continue as deep and sometimes long valleys, including Lærdal , Årdal with Utladalen , Nærøydalen , Sogndalsdalen , Fjærland , Fortunsdalen , Aurlandsdalen and Jostedalen . The transition between the fjord and these valleys is determined by sea level, and the boundary has moved outwards at the uplift. Some of the side valleys, such as Vik and Fresvik, would have been hanging valleys in the same way as the Feigedalen if the Sognefjord was drained.

 

Name

Amund Helland writes " The Sognefjord's real name is Sogn , while Sogn is now used only for the surrounding landscape, and was thus already used in the Middle Ages. As a landscape name, the name is a masculine word and has undoubtedly been so as a fjord name as well." The name is connected to the word "suction", which probably refers to the suction or the difficult current conditions that are created when the water flows through the fjord mouth and over the threshold.

 

Geography

Large parts of the fjord are surrounded by steep mountains. Kvamsøy at Balestrand is a small island separated from the mainland by a short, shallow strait. Outside Balestrand there are small fjord arms and at Veganes ( Dragsvik ferry quay ) there is a significant branching with the Fjærlandsfjorden .

 

Municipalities

Municipalities with shoreline to the fjord, counted from west to east:

Solund

Hyllestad (north side)

Gulen (south side)

Høyanger (on both sides of the main fjord)

Vik (south side)

Sogndal (north side)

Aurland (south side, around the Aurlandsfjord)

Lærdal (south side)

Luster (north side, around Lustrafjorden)

Årdal (around the Årdalsfjord)

 

Depths

The Sognefjord has only one threshold which is at the mouth and the threshold is around 165 meters deep. The area beyond the threshold is called Sognesjøen , which is sheltered by islands to the north and south; there is no threshold outside Sognesjøen that has free circulation towards the ocean.

 

From the inner parts at Årdal or Skjolden, the fjord gradually deepens outwards (westwards). Between Fodnes-Mannheller and Rutledal-Rysjedalsvika, the bottom is at least 800 metres. The deepest part is approximately at Åkrestrand and Vadheim. The outer part of the fjord (at Losna and Sula ) has a marked threshold with depths of 100 to 200 metres, where the fjord bed rises abruptly from a depth of 1,200 meters to around 100 meters over a stretch of 5 km at Rutledal. In Lake Sognesjøen there are several small troughs (with depths down to 400-500 metres) with thresholds between them. Across the fjord, the bottom is partly completely flat with less than 1 meter variation in depth over a 2 km cross-section. The bottom is covered by fine material (clay) which at Vangsnes is up to 300 meters thick. Seismic shows that the greatest depth to the bedrock is approximately 1,600 m, but loose masses with a thickness of 200–400 m mean that the fjord bottom is nevertheless flat. Seismic surveys at Vangsnes have revealed a 300 meter thick layer of clay at the bottom.

 

Between 50 and 180 km from the mouth, the fjord bed is relatively flat. Almost all side fjords form hanging valleys to the main fjord. For example, the mouth of the Fjærlandsfjord is well over 400 meters deep, while the main fjord is close to 1,200 meters deep just outside the mouth. Vadheimfjord's mouth is 400 meters deep, here the greatest depth is over 1300 m. Ikjefjord's mouth is only 50 meters deep close to where the main fjord is at its deepest. In large parts of the fjord, it is "abruptly deep" in that the steep mountain sides continue just as steeply underwater.

 

In contrast to a number of other fjords, not every single part of the Sognefjord has its own name. Only the outermost part has its own name - Sognesjøen . However, there are many fjord arms. From west to east these are:

 

Sognesjøen

Straumsfjorden

Bjørnefjorden

Nessefjord

The Sognefjord

Lifjorden

Bøfjorden

The Risnefjord

The Ikjefjord

Vadheimsfjorden

Fuglsetfjorden

Høyangsfjorden

Lånefjorden

The Finnafjord

The Arnafjord

The Inner Fjord

Framfjorden

Vikbukti

The Esefjord

Fjærlandsfjorden

The Vetlefjord

Sværefjorden

The Norafjord

Sogndalsfjorden

Barsnes Fjord

The Eidsfjord

Aurlandsfjorden

The Nærøyfjord

Amla Bay

Lærdalsfjorden

Årdalsfjorden

The Lustrafjord

The Gaupnefjord

Climate and fresh water

 

The fjord colored by meltwater from the glacier.

Terrain formations and distance to the sea lead to great variations in climate along the fjord. The outer part has a mild and humid coastal climate, while the innermost part has an inland climate with cold and dry winters.

 

The amount of precipitation decreases strongly inwards into the fjord. Lærdal lies in the rain shadow and has very little rainfall, while west-facing slopes further out have a lot of rainfall and there the rainfall often increases with altitude. Brekke and Takle in Ytre Parish are among the places in Norway with the most rainfall. North of the Sognefjord lies the Jostedalsbreen, Norway's largest glacier, and parts of the meltwater drain into the Sognefjord. Wind conditions are strongly influenced by terrain formations. In winter, the dominant wind direction is out the fjord or out the side valleys in the form of so-called downwinds . Fall winds can be very strong and have a major impact on cooling and icing. The slopes and valleys along the inner parts of the fjord have a partially mild climate and are fertile, which makes the area suitable for growing fruit and berries, among other things. The slopes along the fjord partly have large conifer forests, including in the roadless area of ​​Frønningen .

 

The fjord receives fresh water mainly from the rivers and very little precipitation directly on the fjord's water surface. In the inner part of the Sognefjord, the total supply of fresh water during one year corresponds to a depth of 33 meters if it were distributed over the entire area of ​​the fjord. In spring and partly in autumn, the top 2-3 meters of the fjord are brackish water , especially in the side fjords. The salt content in the surface is lowest in summer and autumn. In June 1954, for example, 5 ‰ salt was measured in the uppermost meters of the Lustrafjord, while at great depths it was 34.5 ‰. Regulation of the waterways for power production has led to a larger proportion of fresh water flowing into the fjord in the winter. The most extensive regulation is in Aurland, Lærdal, Årdal and Jostedal. Regulations affect temperature in the surface layer and icing. In the inner part of the fjord, the rivers are fed by high mountains and glaciers.

 

The rivers Lærdalselvi , Aurlandselvi , Flåmselvi , Mørkridselvi , Henjaelvi , Grindselvi , Hamreelvi , Njøsaelvi , Kvinnafossen , Sogndalselvi and Jostedøla flow into the Sognefjord and normally have spring floods in June. [3] Lærdalselva has the largest catchment, followed by Jostedøla and Aurlandselva, and these three have roughly the same water flow (around 40 m 3 /second). The Årdalsvatnet drains to the Sognefjord through the short Åreidselva or Hæreidselvi through the Årdalstangen . The Eidsvatnet in Luster drains into the Sognefjord just by Mørkridselvi in ​​Skjolden . Regulation of the waterways for hydropower has resulted in a more steady supply of fresh water throughout the year. Without regulation, 92% of the fresh water would have been supplied in the summer half-year from May to October. Several of the large rivers flow into fjord arms.

 

Geology

The bedrock along the outer and middle part of the fjord consists mostly of Precambrian gneiss with orientation east-west and northeast-southwest. The islands of Solund consist mostly of Devonian sandstone and conglomerates , while the interior (eastern part) consists mostly of Caledonian gabbro , anorthosite , granite and phyllite .

 

Jostedøla's material transport (in the form of sludge) involves sedimentation in the Gaupnefjord of 10 to 20 cm/year near the river basin, and 1 cm/year 2 km from the river basin. The river transports 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of silt annually. The sludge concentration from Jostedøla is at most 1 g/litre. It is particularly at Gaupne that the meltwater from the glaciers is marked by the color of the water.

 

Icing

According to Helland, it was common for the ice to settle on several of the fjord arms every winter, including on Aurlandsfjorden, Nærøyfjorden and Årdalsfjorden. In the winter of 1888–1889, Lusterfjorden was iced over for six months straight. In the deepest parts of the Sognefjord, there is a year-round temperature of around 6.5 °C, according to Helland. Outer parts are almost never iced over, not even the side fjords. The inner parts can be frozen for several weeks at a stretch. Among other things, inner parts of the Aurlandsfjorden and the Nærøyfjorden freeze easily. Lærdalsfjorden is usually ice-free except for the very innermost part, while it has happened that Årdalsfjorden has been iced up to Ofredal and has been an obstacle to ship traffic. Historically, Lustrafjorden has often been iced over as far as Urnes. The Barsnesfjorden has often been covered with ice. In the Nærøyfjord it happened (among other things in the 1920s and in 1962) that the liner was unable to enter the fjord due to ice and had to dispatch at the ice edge.

 

Streams

In the Sognefjord, incoming current is hardly noticeable and is most noticeable in strong westerly winds. Outgoing current dominates and is particularly strong in spring and summer. At strong tides, the tidal flow can reach over 1 m/s (2 knots ) around the pier and headland. The Sognefjord is covered by a layer or stream of brackish water of up to 10 meters (varying with the seasons and supply from the rivers). Beneath the brackish water, a current or intermediate layer at a depth of 150 meters goes in and out of the fjord and below this lies the main basin, which has some connection with the ocean beyond the threshold. Together, these three currents contribute to the fact that the water in the fjord is replaced on average within 8-10 years, so that the fjord has life right down to the bottom. The brackish water layer has less density and therefore does not mix easily with the deeper layers. The brackish water that flows out of the fjord slowly mixes with the layer below so that the salt content increases at the same time as the brackish water layer increases up to 10 times the amount of fresh water supplied. The brackish water that flows towards the mouth must be replaced and sets up an incoming current in a slightly deeper layer.

 

Fish

The Sognefjord has herring and good sprat fishing . In the outer parts of the fjord, salmon has traditionally been fished with wedge nets . Salmon warp or "sitjenet" is a traditional method of salmon fishing and skilled players could catch a lot of fish with this method. Hook nets and drift nets have dominated in modern times and do not require the same active fishing as warp . The salmon's migration in the fjord is controlled by currents on the surface and the warps are placed where there are favorable current conditions where, due to the current, the salmon are driven close to land on their way into the fjord. In Leikanger and Balestrand there are many good places for sitejnot with Suppham being by far the best. Good salmon rivers such as Lærdalselva, Aurlandselva and Årøyelva flow into the Sognefjorden.

 

In the outer part of the fjord (Gulen and Solund) there is some fish farming. Several of the waterways are known for good salmon and sea trout fishing , and five of the rivers have been designated as national salmon rivers. Lærdalselva has a salmon-carrying stretch and has had by far the largest population. Aurlandselva has historically had a good catch of sea trout. The Sognefjord is among the most important in Norway for anadromous fish species. Norwegian spring-spawning herring are fished in the fjord, especially in the outer parts, as well as some coastal sprat.

 

In the Sognefjord there are plankton algae which in other Norwegian waters and the occurrence follows the seasons. In general, there is little occurrence in winter due to low light, diatoms bloom in March-April and are dependent on the supply of nutrient salts, in May-June diatoms and flagellates bloom in connection with the spring flood, in summer there is a varying population, new blooms in the autumn in connection with, among other things, floods, and married species can occur all year round.

 

Tourism

The Sognefjord was established as a tourist destination in the 19th century, among other things, with the establishment of Fylkesbåtane. One of the targets was Gudvangen, which in 1889 received 79 large tourist ships with a total of over 10,000 passengers. In 1889, 4,500 travelers came with the county boats. The German Emperor Wilhelm visited the Sognefjord and Balestrand for the first time in 1890. The emperor subsequently visited the Sognefjord 25 times. The fjord itself and the surrounding area with Jotunheimen, Jostedalsbreen and several stave churches have made the Sognefjord one of Norway's most prominent tourist destinations. Balestrand, Vangsnes, Aurland and Fjærland were among the early destinations for English tourists in the 19th century.

 

History

It has been the Guest of Death

It has sailed on a Torden

It is christened in Rædsler vorden

that has plowed the Sognefjord

from Forthun to Sognefæst.

 

If you have forgotten your Lord's Prayer,

do you remember a prayer to pray:

learn it from the wrath of God!

imagine, Sinder, then present

in a Bath on Sognefjord!

 

Henrik Wergeland

The Sognefjord has been an important transport artery since ancient times. The gulation was probably held near the mouth of the Sognefjord and probably because it was practical to hold the meeting where the ship lay along the coast met the great fjord. From the innermost arms of the fjord it is a relatively short distance to the inland villages of Eastern Norway, particularly through Lærdal to Valdres over the moderate mountain pass Filefjell . Lærdalsøyri was from the 17th century an important market and meeting place. There, farmers from Valdres, Hallingdal and Gudbrandsdalen sold slaughter, tar and other products from the interior and bought fish, salt, hemp and iron from the fjords and from Bergen. Around 1300, the authorities established a shuttle station at Maristova at the entrance to Filefjell. The first drivable road between east and west was built over Filefjell in 1792. From 1843 the paddle steamer "Constitutionen" plyed the route between Bergen and Lærdal, the county boats took over the route in 1857. The road over the Sognefjellet was built as a carriageway in 1938. The Flåmsbana connected the Sognefjord to the railway network in 1940. Stalheimskleivi , between Voss and Sogn, was built in 1850 and turned into a road in 1937. It has made it possible to transport agricultural products , fruit , berries and fish between the villages in Sogn and Bergen .

 

From 1785, the Trondhjem postal route crossed the Sognefjord by boat between Rutledal and Leirvik in Hyllestad . In 1647, a postal route was established between Bergen and Christiania. The post then took 7-8 days via Gudvangen, Lærdal and Valdres.

 

It was difficult to get to the Sognefjord by sailboat and the yachts could lie for many days or several weeks at the mouth waiting for favorable wind conditions. East wind was favorable out of the fjord, while south to Bergen, wind from the north or north-west was needed. To enter the fjord, a wind from the west was necessary. The steam and motor boats revolutionized transport on the fjord and these had completely taken over in the early 20th century The county boats were established in 1858 with boat routes on the Sognefjord and to Bergen as an important activity.

 

In 1934, a ferry route was established along the fjord from Vadheim to Lærdal. From 1939 until the Lærdal tunnel opened, there was a car ferry between Gudvangen and Lærdal - first the ferry went to Lærdalsøyri itself, from 1966 to Revsnes when a road was built there to shorten the ferry route. In the 1990s, the ferry connection Revsnes-Kaupanger was replaced by Mannheller-Fodnes , and after this Kaupanger has only been used by the tourist route Gudvangen-Kaupanger-Lærdal. The road system between Sogndal and Jølster on national highway 5 , including the Fjærlands tunnel , created a ferry-free road connection on the north side of the fjord.

 

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of ​​385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .

 

Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .

 

Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.

 

In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.

 

The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .

 

Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).

 

Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .

For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.

 

Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.

 

The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.

 

The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .

 

Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.

 

More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.

 

Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .

 

In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.

 

Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .

 

Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .

 

Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.

 

Stone Age (before 1700 BC)

When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.

 

Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.

 

The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.

 

In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .

It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.

 

Finnmark

In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.

 

According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.

 

From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.

 

According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.

 

Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)

Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:

 

Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)

Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)

For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.

 

Finnmark

In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.

 

Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)

 

The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century

 

Simultaneous production of Vikings

Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages ​​developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:

 

Early Iron Age

Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)

Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)

Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.

Younger Iron Age

Merovingian period (500–800)

 

The Viking Age (793–1066)

Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .

 

Sources of prehistoric times

Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.

 

Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.

 

Settlement in prehistoric times

Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.

 

It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.

 

Norwegian expansion northwards

From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.

 

North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.

 

From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.

 

On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.

 

The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".

 

State formation

The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.

 

According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.

 

According to Sverre Steen

HM69 Nike Missile Base, Everglades National Park, Florida, USA.

So I missed last months entry into the group. I have been so busy moving house the past few weeks, and to make things harder Missy hasn't been living with me since the move until I can get my garden more secure. But hopefully it won't be to long until she can come home :)

SAC Museum, Ashland Nebraska.

digital art

digital art

 

View On Black

205_GHP_EconomicOutlook2018.JPG - Greater Houston Partnership Houston Region Economic Outlook featuring Ellen Zentner, Managing Director and Chief U.S. Economist with Morgan Stanley Research, on the national economy. In addition, the following panel of local experts will share their perspectives on the region's economyDecember 5, 2018. (Photo by Donna Carson)

 

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do you know that feeling? it was not your day, everything is a bit to much for you. you need some rest, some scureness, some love.

Lano and me are friends since more than 4 years in sl. this is just a normal snapshot - thats what we do all the day when we have time to met: sit together, chat, tell each other about our days and we try do give each other a feeling of secureness, some power, just a bit love. all the things friends do, you know.

i´m blessed. because i do not only have friends in rl. i also have a real friend in a virtual world :).

(near that we of course talk all the day about cute avatars, shopping, our business, ugly hair, wonderful sims, what the heck we have to wear tomorrow, because there is a party and we both have NOTHING to wear and such..... for the ladies - yes. men talk about thinks like that. for the gents: no, you do not need to be gay to do so. but it helps ^^. gay men have more fun GRINS.

The fire station provided a secure reprieve.

 

I kicked down a metal locker into the stairway,and blocked it off with chairs. Nothing could make it through without a lot of noise and a fair amount of trouble, while i mended myself. a small, almost useless medical kit was all that was left. After cleaning and trying to stop the bleeding, i couldn't find anything worth making stitches with .. so i pinched my skin together, and filled it with super glue.

 

Once that pleasant process was done,and the stinging was subdued enough i could keep my eyes open .. i searched for something to drink and eat. A lunchbox in the rec room contained several rotten items,but 3 cans of spam, a can of sprite and some Saltine crackers. It was a veritable feast.

 

Repairing the gas mask seems useless. I taped up the eye hole and made it as tight as possible.. but it limits my vision. And the filter quit working right awhile ago, i just kept it on because it made me feel less .. diseased, i think. Less like I'm dying. The things i try to ignore and not think about at all...

 

I found some dust masks in a bedroom ... i drew a frowning face on it .. something resembling a sense of humor must still exist in me... at least a spark. I packed up my things and took one last look around before i went out a window and back onto the street. The air everywhere was saturated with that stench. The dead. The rotting. I didn't even have time to try and remove my mask when my stomach decided to eject a mouthful of bile and blood. I coughed and gagged, a panicked chill coming over me. The front door to a Cafe was locked, which could mean a lot of things, but i decided to not break it, and instead find another way in. As i inspected and prodded at the alley entrance, a sound caught my attention... I put my hands out, palms down .. as if instructing the world to be very quiet and listened for more ...

 

Silence ... then a crack ... it .. it sounded like gunfire. After several minutes it happened again, and this time i was sure. It had to be gunfire. A rifle maybe.

 

And gunfire meant other survivors.

 

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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.

 

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.

 

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.

 

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.

 

The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.

 

While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.

 

In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

 

In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.

 

The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.

 

The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.

 

Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.

 

The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.

 

World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.

 

In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.

 

The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.

 

Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.

 

On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.

 

On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.

 

A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.

 

The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.

 

Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.

 

Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.

 

A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.

 

With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.

 

The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.

 

Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.

 

With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.

 

Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.

 

Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.

 

The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.

 

On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.

 

Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.

 

At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.

 

Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.

 

Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.

 

The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.

 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.

 

Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.

 

On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.

 

By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.

 

Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.

 

Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.

 

By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.

 

In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.

 

Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.

 

Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.

 

On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.

 

From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.

 

Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.

 

As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.

 

An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.

 

Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".

 

On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.

 

The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.

 

Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.

 

Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.

 

On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.

 

Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.

 

The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.

 

The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.

 

Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.

 

However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.

 

Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.

 

In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.

 

The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.

 

Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.

 

Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.

 

Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

 

Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

 

On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.

 

The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.

 

Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.

 

Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.

 

In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.

Taken by a Pentax K1 with a Tokina 28mm f2.8 (M42) lens.

 

Day 21 in Pentax Forum's Daily in February 2017 Challenge.

A self portrait... kind of!

;-)

 

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St. Benedict founded the Benedictine order around the year 526. Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Cathedral and Norwich Cathedral were Benedictine houses, and others included Bury St. Edmunds, Glastonbury and St. Albans. Binham Priory was founded as a cell of St. Albans Abbey in 1091 by Peter de Valoines. He was a nephew of William the Conqueror who gave him the land at Binham, which according to the Domesday Book originally belonged to a freeman named Esket.

The priory was endowed in the reign of Henry I, probably about 1104, although the building was not finished until the middle of the thirteenth century. The list of priors starts with Osgod in 1106. The Abbot of St Albans was allowed to stay for eight days a year, unless invited to stay longer, and to have no more than thirteen horses in his train. The number of monks was to be no less than eight, and the heirs and successors of the founder were to remain patrons and protectors. With the notable exception of Richard de Parco, Binham suffered much from unscrupulous and irresponsible priors, who quarrelled with St Albans, sold the priory silver, wasted money on lawsuits and even indulged in scandalous behaviour.

About 1212, the priory was besieged by Robert Fitzwalter. The Abbot of St Albans had removed the prior so Fitzwalter produced a forged deed of patronage stating that the prior could not be moved without his consent, and laid siege to the Priory. The monks were forced to eat bran and drink water from the drain-pipes. When King John heard about it he swore 'By God's feet, either I or Fitzwalter must be King of England' and he sent an armed force to relieve the priory. Fitzwalter fled for his life.

The deaths of about twelve monks of Binham are recorded in an obituary of St Albans from 1216 to 1253, which includes the story of Alexander de Langley one-time Prior of Wymondham who became insane through overstudy. When his outbursts of frenzy could no longer be tolerated, he was flogged and kept in solitary confinement at Binham until his death. He was buried in the churchyard in chains to prevent him escaping from his grave.

Richard de Parco was prior from 1227 to 1244. He was honourable and diligent, and acquired property from which he secured income. Richard de Parco also covered the cloister with lead, rebuilt the larder, added a new stable and a stone wall from the gate to the chapel of St. Thomas. His most important and ambitious work was to construct the west front, and yet in spite of all his building activities there was a balance of £20 when he left.

In 1317 William de Somerton became prior. He spent vast sums on the pursuit of alchemy, and sold two chalices, six copes, three chasubles, seven gold rings, silk cloths, silver cups and spoons and the silver cup and crown in which the Host was suspended before the altar. Also the Abbot, Hugh of St Albans was making exorbitant demands, so that it was difficult to buy food for the monks. In 1335 when William de Somerton left he had built up a priory debt of £600.

Benedictines were generally richer than the other orders, and so interested Henry VIII and his minister Thomas Cromwell. Binham Priory was suppressed in 1539, but by then had only six monks (the community at Binham was always small, with 14 monks at its peak in 1320, dropping to 11 in 1381) and its annual income had dropped to £140.

In the 33rd. year of the reign of Henry VIII, four hundred and fifty years after the priory's foundation it was given to Sir Thomas Paston, a local man and an important royal servant, who dismantled most of the buildings in order to build a new house at Wells-next-the-sea. Stone from the priory was sold and reused in many local houses, particularly around doors and windows.

Thomas Paston’s grandson, Edward, began to carry out further demolition works, with the intention of building a new house on the site. These plans were brought to an abrupt end when a workman was killed by falling masonry. This was considered a bad omen and the workmen refused to work and the project was abandoned.

The seven western bays of the nave were later sealed off from the rest of the building and continued in use to this day as The Priory Church of St Mary and the Holy Cross, Binham's parish church.

The priory ruins are managed and cared for by English Heritage.

The church of St. Mary gained Grade: 1 listed building status on 6th. March 1959

The gatehouse at Binham Priory gained Grade: 1 listed building status on 30th. November 1951.

How to anchor your mooring. On the wharf.

 

Man! That chain is also heavy! And those two barrels were filled with the same type of chain and were not going anywhere. For the whole, detailed story, see my first, long comment, below.

lock company

July 19, 2018

9:00 am - 10:00 am

Doerr-Hosier Center

 

Kirstjen Nielsen, Peter Alexander

 

Property of the Aspen Institute / Photo Credit: Dan Bayer

"Landshut Castle is the ruins of a hilltop castle in Bernkastel-Kues in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate.

 

Landshut Castle is located on the western slope of the Hunsrück above Bernkastel, a district of Bernkastel-Kues. It stands at around 235 m above sea level. NHN high Burgberg, a northern extension of Mount Olympus (415 m above sea level). The Moselle, which flows towards the castle from the southwest, turns below the castle (approx. 107 m above sea level) in a northwesterly direction. This means that travelers up and down the Moselle can see the castle appearing on the horizon from afar.

 

In the 4th century, a late Roman fort was located on the site of the later Landshut Castle to secure military supplies along the Moselle to the Rhine border of the Roman Empire. The rectangular complex has a circumference of 60 m by 30 m with 1.8 m thick walls made of quartzite stones. The system was reinforced by six to seven towers, each with a circumference of 6 m by 6 m.

 

The hilltop castle that now stands on the foundations of the Roman fortifications was built at the end of the 13th century by the Archbishop of Trier, Heinrich von Finstingen . According to written sources, there was already a Bernkastel castle around 1000. Another castle complex belonging to the Counts of Blieskastel is attested in the 12th century and was destroyed by the Archbishop of Trier.

 

After the Counts of Blieskastel died out, their heirs, the Counts of Salm, sold the castle and bailiwick to Kurtrier in 1280. In 1505 the Electorate of Trier Castle was first referred to as “Landshut”. It was the seat of a bailiff who administered the Trier office of the same name. On January 8, 1692, Landshut was destroyed by an unfortunate fire and has never been rebuilt since. It has been owned by the city since 1920. The ruins are also used as a restaurant and rest stop. The accessible keep offers a view of the Moselle valley. During routine maintenance work in 2012, remains were discovered that could date back to the 5th or 6th century. It is possibly one of the oldest castles in the Moselle valley.

 

Bernkastel-Kues (German pronunciation: [ˌbɛɐ̯nkastəlˈkuːs]) is a town on the Middle Moselle in the Bernkastel-Wittlich district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a well-known winegrowing centre. The town is a state-recognized health resort (Erholungsort), seat of the Verbandsgemeinde of Bernkastel-Kues and birthplace of one of the most famous German polymaths, the mediaeval churchman and philosopher Nikolaus von Kues (Cusanus).

 

Bernkastel-Kues is located in the Moselle valley, about 50 kilometers from Trier. The highest elevation is Mount Olympus (415 m above sea level), the lowest point (107 m above sea level) is on the banks of the Moselle. The urban area covers a total area of ​​23.71 km², of which 5.93 km² is used for agriculture. This makes Bernkastel-Kues one of the largest cities in the Middle Moselle in terms of area. Immediately neighboring local communities are (clockwise, starting from the north) Zeltingen-Rachtig, Graach an der Mosel, Longkamp, ​​Monzelfeld, Mülheim an der Mosel, Lieser, Maring-Noviand and Platten.

 

Left tributaries of the Moselle are Heldengraben, Thelengraben, Waldgraben, Krausbach and the stream from the Wehlener Forest. The right tributaries of the Moselle are Goldbach, Heidesheimgraben, Tiefenbach and Schadbach.

 

Archaeologists discovered the first evidence of human settlement (3000 BC) in Cusa. Around 370, Decimus Magnus Ausonius, Roman poet and teacher at the imperial court, wrote his poem Mosella. Adalbero of Luxembourg, provost of the Trier Monastery of St. Paulin, became Lord of Bernkastel. The first documented mention of Bernkastel dates back to the first half of the 11th century. At the turn of the 7th and 8th centuries a geographer named a place Princastellum. This is considered evidence of a Roman fort in the 4th century near today's Landshut castle ruins; This is indicated, among other things, by fittings, ceramics and iron finds below the castle. The form of the name in the 12th century Beronis castellum was a learned relatinization that referred to the Trier provost Adalbero of Luxembourg (11th century). The third castle construction began in 1277 under the rule of Trier Archbishop Heinrich II von Finstingen . On May 29, 1291, King Rudolf I of Habsburg granted Berrincastel city rights. The Landshut Castle, which was built at that time, only received this name in the 16th century. In 1332 the city rights were reconfirmed by Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria's collecting privilege. Archbishop Boemund II became elector through the Golden Bull. According to legend, he was cured of a serious illness by a glass of wine - the legend of the Berncastler Doctor began. In 1401, Nicolaus Cusanus was born in the house of the Moselle boatman Henne Cryfftz (Krebs), which can be visited. In 1451, the St. Nicholas Hospital (Cusanusstift), a hospital for the poor, was built. In 1505, the name Landshut appeared for the first time for the archbishop's castle in a sovereign decree from James II. In 1512, Emperor Maximilian stayed in Bernkastel on his way to the Reichstag in Trier. The plague raged in Bernkastel in 1627 and in Kues in 1641. In 1692, Landshut Castle fell victim to a fire and has been in ruins ever since. In 1787 the Electorate of Berncastel had 4,743 inhabitants. From 1794 to 1814 Bernkastel was a cantonal town under French rule; at the Congress of Vienna (1815) Bernkastel and Kues were added to the Kingdom of Prussia. Bernkastel became the seat of the Bernkastel mayor's office and in 1821 the seat of the Bernkastel district . In 1848 the revolution also came to Bernkastel: the black, red and gold flag was hoisted at the town hall and a vigilante group was formed. The first road bridge between Bernkastel and Kues was built in 1872/74, and the first rail connection in 1882/83.

 

The town in its current form was created on April 1, 1905 through the merger of the town of Bernkastel with the wine-growing village of Kues opposite. In 1926 there were major wine unrests on the Moselle, the tax office in Bernkastel and the customs office in Kues were stormed. During the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938, there were serious riots against Jewish fellow citizens; the synagogue was destroyed. Towards the end of the Second World War, the city was bombed several times. On February 19, 1945, numerous houses around the market square in Bernkastel were destroyed and 41 people were killed. In an attack on March 2nd, large parts of the old town hall and other buildings were destroyed and 29 people were killed. On March 11th the Moselle bridge was blown up and the bombardment by American artillery began the following day. On March 15th the Americans moved into Kues and on the 16th into Bernkastel.

 

The first democratic elections after the war took place in 1946; Hans Weber became city mayor. On November 7, 1970, Andel and Wehlen were incorporated. As a result of the Rhineland-Palatinate administrative reform, the Verbandsgemeinde of Bernkastel-Kues was formed through the merger of the offices of Bernkastel-Land, Lieser, Mülheim, Zeltingen and the city of Bernkastel-Kues. The Burgberg Tunnel was officially opened in 1997. In 2000 the partnership between Bernkastel-Kues and Karlovy Vary (Karlovy Vary) began. In 2005 the city celebrated the 100th anniversary of the merger of Bernkastel and Kues; The community became a climatic health resort.

 

Mosel (German: [ˈmoːzl̩]) is one of 13 German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) for quality wines (Qualitätswein, formerly QbA and Prädikatswein), and takes its name from the Mosel River (French: Moselle; Luxembourgish: Musel). Before 1 August 2007 the region was called Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, but changed to a name that was considered more consumer-friendly. The wine region is Germany's third largest in terms of production but some consider it the leading region in terms of international prestige.

 

The region covers the valleys of the rivers Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer from near the mouth of the Mosel at Koblenz and upstream to the vicinity of Trier in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The area is known for the steep slopes of the region's vineyards overlooking the river. At 65° degrees incline, the steepest recorded vineyard in the world is the Calmont vineyard located on the Mosel and belonging to the village of Bremm, and therefore referred to as Bremmer Calmont. The Mosel is mainly famous for its wines made from the Riesling grape, but Elbling and Müller-Thurgau also contribute to the production, among others.

 

In the past two decades red wine production, especially from the Spätburgunder (Pinot noir), has increased in the Mosel and throughout the German vignoble and has become of increasing interest to the international wine community. Because of the northerly location of the Mosel, the Riesling wines are often light, tending to lower alcohol, crisp and high in acidity, and often exhibit "flowery" rather than or in addition to "fruity" aromas. Its most common vineyard soil is derived in the main from various kinds of slate deposits, which tend to give the wines a transparent, mineralic aspect, that often exhibit great depth of flavor. In the current era of climate change much work has been done to improve and gain acceptance for completely dry ("Trocken") Rieslings in this region, so that most of the more famous makers have found acceptance for such wines, particularly in Europe." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

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“Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament, and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.” -Amos Bronson Alcott

As soon as I secured my historic shot I dashed over the footbridge & positioned myself at the front drop light for a singularly unique event-departing my home town behind a Tractor. 37093 gets into it's stride passing Leicester North Box & the impressive array of signals with the 1ZXX 0815 Hinckley-Whitby 'Merrymaker' adex on Sunday 3rd July 1983. The sheer volume of mechanical signalling hardware on the ground is staggering. Over on the right Leicester MPD hosts another relatively rare English Electric product in the shape of a Class 40.

Julia has made several comments about being nervous about her upcoming ballet, jazz and tap recital -- which is in April. Despite the reassurances and the extra lessons to catch her up with her classmates who have been dancing together since they were 3 or 4, she has continued to express worry over remembering the routine... the steps... the turns...

 

Today, the class invited the parents in to watch the jazz routine. Julia was so focused on her routine that she seemed to barely notice all the adults in the room. The girls did great but I don't think any were as excited while simultaneously being relieved as Julia was.

 

She looked as if she had been dancing with these girls all along. The look of satisfaction in her face lets me know that she is secure in at least one of the dance routines coming up in April. We have plenty of time to practice and learn the others.

The gantry arms close around the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft to secure the rocket, as seen in this long exposure photograph taken on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 at launch pad 1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Expedition 47 crew is scheduled for 5:26 p.m. EDT Friday, March 18. via NASA ift.tt/1SYozdh

Well placed rollers in neat rows, secured with piks. A few of the rollers even have two piks, so the set was probably quite tight. This is a great example of an almost perfect classic wetset.

View Large On Black

View Large On White

 

Thanks go to my Flickr friend goose3five for pointing out that this is a bow shackle and that they can frequently be found on sailboats - thanks! Please check out his cool photostream!

 

If you look in the background of this shot you can see the structure that I photographed in Pavillion.

 

Part of my architecture (Set)

Airman 1st Class Nicholas Zimmer secures the perimeter around a U.S. Air Force C-130J Super Hercules at a forward operating base in Afghanistan, on Dec. 2, 2012. When an aircraft lands at locations with little to no security on the landing strip, fly-away security teams come along to provide additional protection for the aircraft and crew. Zimmer's hometown is Havelock, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)

Securely Decaying - The entrance of an old home in south-central Phoenix is still secure but… Grant Park neighborhood.

Security gate, Oakland, California

Protect those who travel the see

Saltwell Park is a Victorian park in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. Opened in 1876, the park was designed by Edward Kemp and incorporates the mansion and associated grounds of the Saltwellgate estate owner, William Wailes, who sold his estate to Gateshead Council for £35,000. Upon opening, it became known as "The People's Park". The park was expanded in 1920 when the council purchased the adjacent gardens to the Saltwell Grove estate and added these to the park. This extended the park's total size to 55 acres (22 ha). Towards the end of the 20th century, the park had fallen into disrepair, but between 1999 and 2005, it was subject to a £9.6 million restoration project, funded collaboratively by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Gateshead Council and is now host to around 2 million visitors per year.

 

The park is split broadly into three sections. Saltwell Grove, the southern section, is an area of grassed open space with a bandstand to the western corner. The central area contains the centrepiece of the park – Wailes's former home, the Grade II listed Saltwell Towers and its surrounding belvedere walls. These have been fully restored and are now a visitor centre. There are also three war memorials, a yew-tree maze, a dene and an area containing several species of caged animals known as Pet's Corner. The largest section of the park is the Northern Fields section which contains a four-acre boating lake with a wooded island at its centre, as well as three bowling greens and two pavilions.

 

Saltwell Park has been presented with numerous awards in recent years, including being named "Britain's Best Park" in 2005 and Civic Trust Park of the Year in 2006. It has won a Green Flag award every year since 2006 and in 2013 it was re-listed as one of fifty-five Green Heritage sites in the UK. The park has been a social hub for over a century; an annual public bonfire night display was first held in 1883, a circus in 1886 and the park hosted the Holidays at Home programme during World War II. Today the bonfire display has grown into one of the largest in Tyne and Wear and is attended by thousands of people every year. In October 2012, Saltwell Park was the site of the first British Legion Field of Remembrance in North East England. It also plays a role in local sport and recreation; it has hosted a fundraising day in support of Sport Relief, a Race for Life for a number of years and in November 2012 a "green gym" was installed at the park – one of only two in Gateshead.

 

Conception and opening

At the turn of the 19th century, Gateshead was beginning to expand but, save a smattering of industrial elements mainly at Sheriff Hill and at the south shore of the River Tyne, the town and its surrounds were mostly agricultural and most of the town was covered by large, private estates. The largest of these was the Saltwell estate, which consisted of around 500 acres (200 ha) of land in a broad quadrangle between the Team Valley and the villages of Bensham and Low Fell. In 1805 this estate was broken up into a number of smaller properties including Saltwell Cottage. By 1856 Saltwell Cottage had become the Saltwellside estate and was in the hands of William Wailes, a native of Newcastle upon Tyne who had become one of the leading exponents of stained glass in England. In 1856 Wailes commissioned the design of a grand Victorian mansion for his family to live at Saltwellside. Work began in 1859 and continued until 1871 when Wailes' Saltwell Towers was finally completed. Saltwell Towers was a large, eclectic mansion in red brick with Gothic turrets and mock battlements.

 

While Wailes was building Saltwell Towers, Gateshead was expanding and industrialising. The resultant air pollution, poor social conditions and general shortage of clean drinking water in the town led to concern about public health and gave rise to calls for the creation of public parks. One such call was made in 1857 when the editorial of the local newspaper, the Gateshead Observer, demanded that a park be built at Windmill Hills. In 1861, the owners of ten acres of land at Windmill Hills approached the town council and offered the land free of charge so long as it was used as a place of recreation for the people of Gateshead. The land was formally conveyed on 18 November 1861 and the opening of the first public park in Gateshead was celebrated by the closing of workplaces and a day of holiday in the town.

 

Gateshead Council subsequently considered other sites for a second park, but it was discouraged by the high prices being asked by the estate owners at Redheugh and Shipcote. The Shipcote estate was owned by Sir Walter James, who was approached by a council park committee in 1874 and asked how much would be required to purchase at least part of his estate. Whilst negotiations were ongoing, James' offer to sell part of his estate at £650 per acre was met by fierce criticism from members of the public and the council began to seek an alternative to the Shipcote proposal. The town clerk wrote to William Wailes to ask if he would be willing to sell his 37 acres (15 ha) Saltwellside estate. On 11 November 1874, Wailes replied that the council could have his entire estate for £32,000, and in March 1875 James told the park committee that he did not wish to compete with Wailes but that he would offer a subscription if the council went ahead at Saltwellgate. Later that month the park committee formally opened talks with Wailes and, after various proposals were considered and rejected, in September 1875 the council decided to buy the entire Saltwellgate estate for an increased total price of £35,000 after securing a loan for the full amount from the Local Government Board. The agreement was formalised two months later and included a provision to lease Saltwell Towers back to Wailes for the remainder of his life.

 

Having obtained the Saltwellgate estate, the council contacted local ornithologist and landscaper John Hancock and asked him to submit designs for the new park. When Hancock refused, citing the pressure of his existing work, the park committee retained Edward Kemp at four guineas a day until his plans were submitted and approved in February 1876. Kemp's plans were implemented over a period of years by borough surveyor James Bowyer at a cost of around £11,000. Original plans to officially open the park on Whit Monday 1876 were not realised, and the park was never officially opened, but nonetheless, public usage began in late 1876.

 

Design and layout

Saltwell Park is located within a residential area around 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) south of Gateshead town centre on land which slopes towards the Team Valley in the west. It is a broad rectangle with boundaries at East and West Park Roads, Saltwell View and Saltwell Road South. The original site purchased from Wailes was joined by the gardens of a late 19th century villa at East Park Road known as Saltwell Grove (or "The Grove") after these were purchased by Gateshead Council in 1920. The park today constitutes around 55 acres (22 ha) of land in total.

 

The park is split into three sections – southern, central and northern areas – and the entire park is bordered by perimeter shrubs, plants and trees. The southern Saltwell Grove area is demarcated from the central section by an old stone wall running in a west–east direction which formed the park's original southern boundary and is, according to a Gateshead Council document, an "important feature in the history and development of the park". This section consists largely of open space, meandering pathways skirting the perimeter, a bandstand and some flowerbeds. Entrances to this section of the park are to the west at Saltwell Road and to the extreme south-east corner.

 

The central section comprises Saltwell Towers and its grounds and is some 17 acres (6.9 ha) in total area. Saltwell Towers is located in the middle of the central section of the park and it is surrounded to the south by its accompanying walls, walkways and ha-ha. An enclosed rose garden lies to the east of the building and to the west there is a maze and a dene through which a stream runs into a lily-pond at an entrance to the park at Saltwell Road South. The approach from the southern section is a large grassed area replete with paths which wind towards a footbridge to the Towers, which is used for general leisure activities and picnicking and is home to a stone-built war memorial. The entrance to the footbridge is the site of a bronze war memorial which sits in the centre of a roundabout surrounded by bedding flowers. The footbridge was built in 2003 and is also a war memorial.

 

The northern section of the park constitutes 19 acres (7.7 ha) of land and can be accessed either by external entrances at the north-eastern corner of the park and West Park Road or internally from the central section through the dene or from Pets Corner. The north-eastern entrance consists of a pair of imposing gateposts and the view from this access point sweeps across the entire northern section of the park. The eastern perimeter of this section is a terraced walkway known as the Broadwalk with adjacent, banked bedded planting. A central path from the Broadwalk splits a large grassed area almost neatly in half and leads to a lake and two child's play areas. A path circles the perimeter of the lake and seating is placed at the fringe of the lake at various points. To the south of the lake are three bowling greens and to the north are tennis courts. These cannot be seen from the lake due to a screen of plants. The plants within the screen are typical of those bedded throughout the park, which include French marigolds, roses, tulips, phlomis, sedum and silver dust.

 

Principal attractions

There are eleven listed buildings in Saltwell Park. Saltwell Towers, former home of William Wailes and later to lawyer Joseph Shipley (founder of the nearby Shipley Art Gallery), was the seat of the former Saltwellgate estate and has been described by a BBC report as a "fairytale mansion". The building is a dark red and yellow brick construction with asymmetrical towers, tall chimney stacks and corner turrets. It has been used for a number of purposes, including as a hospital during the First World War and as a museum from 1933 to 1969, but was then abandoned and fell into considerable disrepair. However, after a £3 million, five-year refurbishment programme was completed in 2004, the building was officially reopened as a visitors centre in the presence of Wailes' great-great-grandson. Saltwell Towers today includes a cafe, some pieces of local art, an exhibition on the history of the park and also a stained glass centrepiece commissioned from a local artist. A Gateshead Blue Plaque in commemoration of Wailes was installed in 2005. The mansion was protected in 1973 as a Grade II listed building, along with the two storey, sandstone belvedere walls which surround the west and south of the mansion. These are replete with stairs and corner battlements and the entire walls are conjoined by a walkway which is open to the public.

 

A stable block is at the north-west of Saltwell Towers, built in 1871 in the same style as the mansion in red brick and with a slate roof. This is a Grade II listed building and is now an educational area for schools and local community groups. Also to the north-west of Saltwell Towers is the Charlton Memorial Drinking Fountain, a stone and granite fountain inscribed in memory of George Charlton, the mayor of Gateshead between 1874 and 1875. This is Grade II listed, as is the 'Salte Well' at the west entrance to the central section of the park. The latter is dated 1872 and is a sandstone construction with a basin in the central alcove. Midway along the Broadwalk in the north section of the park is a Grade II listed bronze statue of Alderman John Lucas, mounted on a sandstone plinth and granite base. Built in 1902, it was paid for by public subscription. The wrought iron gates and accompanying stone piers which greet visitors at the north-eastern entrance to the park are also Grade II listed.

 

There are three war memorials in the park. There is a Boer War memorial in the central section of the park around 100 metres south of Saltwell Towers. This consists of a bronze angel perched on a granite plinth and dated 1905. A modern Durham Light Infantry memorial was unveiled on 12 July 1981 by the mayor of Newcastle. This takes the form of a sandstone wall with adjoining flanking walls which create a small ornamental garden. There are three plaques and a description commemorating men of the battalion who died in battle between 1900 and 1945. The third war memorial is the bridge adjoining the lawned, central gardens to the belvedere walls of Saltwell Towers. This timber footbridge, 22 feet (6.7 m) long and 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, is named the Primosole Bridge and is a copy of the original Edwardian bridge which once crossed the ha-ha. The name is carved onto a low stone wall which runs alongside and an inscription commemorates the men of the Durham Light Infantry who died whilst crossing the original Primosole Bridge during Operation Fustian in the Second World War.

 

The principal feature of the northern section of the park is a boating lake. This has been in situ since a tender to install a 4 acres (1.6 ha) lake with an island in the centre was accepted in August 1880. An approach to Joseph Swan to illuminate the lake received no response, but a further approach to John Hancock to design the lake edge was more successful; the lake edge today still follows Hancock's original design. Model boating has been a fixture of the lake since 1886 and the Saltwell Park Model Boat Club is the latest organisation to use the lake for this purpose. The island in the centre of the lake was in 1909 home to a bandstand, and visiting performers were required to travel by boat to the island, but the bandstand was moved to the Saltwell Grove section of the park in 1921. During the summer months, visitors can hire rowing boats and pedalos for use on the lake. The lake has long been inhabited by mallards and tufted ducks and it is also home to several other species of wildfowl, including swans, Canada and barnacle geese, coots and moorhens. Common pochard and grebe also inhabit the lake in winter after migrating from Russia and central Europe. Kingfishers are also reported to have returned to the lake after a lengthy absence.

 

There have been animals kept in Saltwell Park since June 1877 – initially, these included monkeys, deer and a raccoon. Caged animals are still kept in the north-east of the park in an area called "Pets Corner", where there are a peacock and peahen, pheasants, rabbits and guinea pigs kept in a pair of aviaries built in 1880 and paid for by John Elliot, then chief constable of Gateshead The aviaries are stone and wrought iron, octagonal constructions which were listed at Grade II by English Heritage in 1973. A bandstand was erected in 1876 and was subsequently replaced in May 1895 by an octagonal, red-brick, cast-iron and wood structure which was first sited in the northern fields. This was then moved to the island in the lake and moved again to Saltwell Grove. It was taken down and rebuilt at Beamish Museum in 1978, where it remains in use and has been designated a Grade II listed building. The present bandstand is in the Saltwell Grove area and is used every Sunday during the summer months by brass bands.

 

In the western shadow of Saltwell Towers there is a maze, built in 1877 by Wailes for his family's use. The maze was replanted with yew trees as part of the 2005 regeneration project to the original plans laid by Wailes. Also renovated was Saltwell Dene, a picturesque wooded area with a stream, bridges, cascades and a lily pond which inspired local artist Thomas Miles Richardson to paint a watercolour of it in the 19th century. Saltwell Dene was the final part of the 21st century restoration project to be completed, reopening to the public in March 2005. At either end of the Broadwalk there are two wooden shelters whilst the centre of the Broadwalk is marked by the Almond Pavilion. The pavilion was opened in 1881 and was a refreshment pavilion for decades before it fell into disrepair; by the 1980s it was derelict and it was then completely destroyed by fire. It has been fully reconstructed, including a replica of the original clock tower, and is once more a refreshment kiosk with new toilet facilities. It offers panoramic views into the northern fields and across the boating lake. An oriental garden was opened in 2011 to mark the twenty-year anniversary of the twinning arrangement between Gateshead and Komatsu. This includes a gravel pond, waterfalls and stone lanterns. The park is also host to three well-used bowling greens, replete with their own pavilion (the Avenue Green Pavilion) and a rose garden.

 

Various other attractions have been installed and subsequently removed from the park, including a paddling pool, a museum and, from 1982 to 1993, a retired and modified Vickers Viscount 701 airplane. The aircraft had its wings cut short and was marked "Saltwell Airways".

 

Awards and usage

Upon opening, Saltwell Park was also called 'The People's Park' and the name is still used locally today. Today, the park is a green lung in the centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead which attracts over two million visitors a year. In 2005 it was named "Britain's Best Park". In 2006 the park was chosen as Civic Trust Park of the Year and received a Gold Laurel Award from the Institute of Maintenance and Building Management. The park has won a Green Flag Award every year since 2006 and was in 2013 re-listed as one of fifty-five Green Heritage sites in the UK.

 

The park has long been a hub of local social activities and events. A public firework display was first held in 1883, the first circus was hosted in 1886 and the Holidays at Home programme was conducted there during World War II – from September 1942 to the end of the war, families and American G.I.s could enjoy donkey rides, dancing, brass bands and gymnastic events. A bonfire night fireworks display has been held at the park for many years, one of three public displays in Gateshead (the other two are at Barmoor in Ryton and Oliver Henderson Park in Leam Lane). This event has grown into one of the largest displays in Tyne and Wear and is attended by thousands of people. In October 2012, Saltwell Park was the site of the first British Legion Field of Remembrance in North East England. Around ten thousand crosses were planted in Saltwell Grove. An Enchanted Parks event was hosted for the seventh consecutive year in December 2012. This is a collection of winter-themed visual arts, sculpture and interactive features which attracts around 14,000 visitors every year. An annual sculpture day has been held at the park for twenty-seven years and members of the public are invited to build themed sculptures under the supervision of local professionals. The 2012 renewal, themed "Wonders of the World", was held in Saltwell Grove and attracted hundreds of families.

 

Saltwell Park has hosted a Race for Life – a national fundraising event for women only, organised by Cancer Research UK – for a number of years. The 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) course has been attempted by over 8,000 competitors in the last three years, with the latest renewal held in May 2012. On 21 March 2010 the park hosted a fundraising day in support of Sport Relief, a bi-annual charity event organised by the BBC. Three fun runs around the boating lake attracted over 4,000 participants in total, including Jayne Middlemiss, Andrew Hayden Smith and Futureheads guitarist David Craig. Local athletics club Saltwell Harriers have hosted an annual 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) race in and around Saltwell Park since 1911. Named the Ronnie Walker Saltwell Road Race since 2010 in honour of the long-standing club president, it is the oldest road race in England. 1984 Olympic silver medallist Mike McLeod won the race for 16 consecutive years between 1974 and 1990. In November 2012 a "green gym" was opened at the park. Fitness equipment was installed near the tennis courts in the Northern Fields section of the park and is available for use by the public free of charge. This is one of only two such outdoor public gyms in Gateshead, the other being opened simultaneously at Windy Nook Nature Reserve. A Parkrun takes place every Saturday morning at 9 am starting and finishing at the South Pavilion. As well as physical health, the park is now home to the Recovery College Collective, a peer led mental health charity offering informal drop ins and creative workshops.

 

Gateshead is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The town shares the Millennium Bridge, Tyne Bridge and multiple other bridges with Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Historically part of County Durham, under the Local Government Act 1888 the town was made a county borough, meaning it was administered independently of the county council.

 

In the 2011 Census, the town had a population of 120,046 while the wider borough had 200,214.

 

History

Gateshead is first mentioned in Latin translation in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People as ad caput caprae ("at the goat's head"). This interpretation is consistent with the later English attestations of the name, among them Gatesheued (c. 1190), literally "goat's head" but in the context of a place-name meaning 'headland or hill frequented by (wild) goats'. Although other derivations have been mooted, it is this that is given by the standard authorities.

 

A Brittonic predecessor, named with the element *gabro-, 'goat' (c.f. Welsh gafr), may underlie the name. Gateshead might have been the Roman-British fort of Gabrosentum.

 

Early

There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times.

 

The first recorded mention of Gateshead is in the writings of the Venerable Bede who referred to an Abbot of Gateshead called Utta in 623. In 1068 William the Conqueror defeated the forces of Edgar the Ætheling and Malcolm king of Scotland (Shakespeare's Malcolm) on Gateshead Fell (now Low Fell and Sheriff Hill).

 

During medieval times Gateshead was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Durham. At this time the area was largely forest with some agricultural land. The forest was the subject of Gateshead's first charter, granted in the 12th century by Hugh du Puiset, Bishop of Durham. An alternative spelling may be "Gatishevede", as seen in a legal record, dated 1430.

 

Industrial revolution

Throughout the Industrial Revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town.

 

In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's medieval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.

 

Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhill, Low Fell, Gateshead from 1869 to 1883, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.

 

In the 1889 one of the largest employers (Hawks, Crawshay and Company) closed down and unemployment has since been a burden. Up to the Second World War there were repeated newspaper reports of the unemployed sending deputations to the council to provide work. The depression years of the 1920s and 1930s created even more joblessness and the Team Valley Trading Estate was built in the mid-1930s to alleviate the situation.

 

Regeneration

In the late noughties, Gateshead Council started to regenerate the town, with the long-term aim of making Gateshead a city. The most extensive transformation occurred in the Quayside, with almost all the structures there being constructed or refurbished in this time.

 

In the early 2010s, regeneration refocused on the town centre. The £150 million Trinity Square development opened in May 2013, it incorporates student accommodation, a cinema, health centre and shops. It was nominated for the Carbuncle Cup in September 2014. The cup was however awarded to another development which involved Tesco, Woolwich Central.