The Infidel Pages: A War on Two Fronts; Part II: Son of the Dragon

Blessed be The LORD, my rock,

who trains my hands for war,

and my fingers for battle:

He is my steadfast love and my fortress,

My stronghold and my deliverer,

My shields in whom I take refuge,

who subdues peoples under me.

Psalm 144:1-2

      In my last publication, I introduced us to our first guide in this journey, our Virgil, Christopher Columbus.  Although, unlike Virgil, he would not be in Limbo with the rest of the noble pagans.  His home I think would be the sphere of Mars with the rest of the warriors of the Faith, among Charlemagne, Roland, and Godfrey of Bouillon (had Dante Aligheri created a heavenly sphere for explorers, he doubtless would be its chief soul).  Our second guide Vlad Draculea of Wallachia I referred to as our Cato, another noble pagan who has been granted the position of guarding the mountain of Purgatory.  Though he would no doubt play that role well, Vlad was no pagan, and would probably be placed in the circle of the wrathful on that mountain.  Once his stint there had finished, he would doubtless also join the sphere of warriors. The man himself was and is still of disputed and corrupted reputation, but he is most certainly a far cry from the title character of Bram Stoker’s Victorian melodrama.

     Once the Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire, the last stronghold of Rome, and seized Constantinople “Rome of the East” the powerful kingdom of Hungary to the north began to see itself as the defender of Christendom.  The two countries would spend the next century in sporadic wars, the Ottomans trying to invade Europe, and Hungary (and later Austria also) working to push them back and keep Islam out of The West.  Caught between these two giants was the tiny nation of Wallachia, which struggled to maintain its independence in the midst of both the Hungarian and Ottoman Empires claiming it as their own land. 

     Wallachia actually did start out as part of Hungary.  It was founded as a separate territory when Basarab I rebelled against Charles I of Hungary in the early 14^th century and also founded its dynasty, the House of Basarab.  The name Wallachia stems from the Germanic word walha which was used to describe the Celts, Romanized Celts, and later any Romance-language speaking people (i.e. non-Germans).  This root word is also still preserved in place names like Wales, Cornwall, and Wallonia (a region of Belgium).  The name Wallachia was used even before it seceded from Hungary, but Basarab probably kept it to distinguish his Romanic people from the more Germanic Hungarians (rather like the term “Hoosier” in the U.S. was originally pejorative slang for a backwoods hick, but then was adopted as a title of honor by residents of Indiana).   The dynasty of Basarab would later split into two rival lines, the Danesti and the Draculesti when then Vlad II of Wallachia was inducted into the Order of the Dragon.

     King Sigismund of Hungary founded the Order of the Dragon in 1408 as a chivalric order of Eastern European noblemen, based on the military orders of the Crusades, who were tasked with defending Christendom against its enemies, particularly the Ottoman Turks. Vlad II, then future ruler of Wallachia, was inducted into the order in 1431 the same year his son, also named Vlad, was born.  Vlad had two half-brothers, and a younger brother named Radu.  Both boys were raised in the Wallachian capital of Targoviste, and, as sons of the king, were well-education in combat, geography, mathematics, languages, and philosophy. In 1436, Vlad II ascended the throne of Wallachia, but five years later he was overthrown by rival factions in Hungary.  The elder Vlad was able to gain support from the Ottomans in taking back his kingdom by agreeing to pay them tribute.  As a guarantee of his loyalty, Vlad agreed to allow his two sons, the Vlad Draculea (“Son of the Dragon”) and Radu, to live at the Ottoman court.  Other sources say that Vlad II took his sons to the Ottoman court to meet Sultan Murad and his son Mehmed (who would soon become the famous Sultan Mehmed II) and, because Vlad misunderstood the situation, his sons were captured as hostages and kept at the Ottoman court.  Whatever the truth, what is certain is that the boys were now prisoners of the Turks, and would remain so for the next six years.  During this time, the boys would grow into men and enjoy a rather privileged status, continuing their classical education and also studying the Koran as well as the Turkish language and literature.  Privileged or no, Vlad was not pleased to be a captive of the Turks. Radu was well-behaved and quickly became a favorite at the Ottoman court, he would come to be known as Radu Cel Frumos “Radu the Handsome” and eventually converted to Islam.  Vlad meanwhile was defiant and impudent, and often punished for his disobedience.  He resented his situation, the attention his brother gained as well as his conversion, and he likely resented his father who, after swearing to fight against the enemies of Christendom, sold out to the Ottomans and let his sons be taken hostage. 

   At the end of their captivity, Vlad and Radu were released.  In the meantime, their father Vlad II had died, probably assassinated by his successor, Vladislalv II who was the current ruler of Wallachia.  Upon his release from Ottoman captivity, Vlad Draculea staged a coup with the help of some Turkish allies and overthrew Vladislav. Vlad’s reign lasted two months before he was overthrown himself and escaped to Moldova, where he found refuge with his uncle Prince Bogdan and cousin Prince Stephen. Vlad and Stephen formed a close friendship and swore to help each other in time of need.  Three years later, Prince Bogdan was assassinated, and Vlad had to go into further exile, this time to Transylvania.  There he found refuge with the warlord Janos (John) Hunyadi and the Hungarian King Ladislaus.  In 1456, these two send him back to Wallachia to eliminate the Ottoman-friendly Vladislav II who had taken back the throne after Vlad’s coup to unseat him.  Ladislaus and Hunyadi did not appreciate a Muslim ally so close to their own border, and Vlad was happy to oblige by killing Vladislav himself in hand-to-hand combat.  With the death of his rival and assassin of his father, Vlad III Draculea began his second and longest reign of Wallachia.  This time, Vlad set about improving the kingdom.  Throughout the reigns of Vlad’s father and Vladislav, if not even earlier, the economy of Wallachia had been wasted in the hands of the Boyars, which were the Eastern European ruling aristocracy.  They had been ruining the territory with petty wars against each other to the extent that they even at times held sway over their kings and princes.  When Vlad began his second term, he drove away most of the Boyars in the ruling body of Wallachia, and replaced them with men he knew were loyal only to him.  Some of these replacements were even commoners and foreigners, which further upset the Boyars’ noble sensibilities. The offended nobles would come to plague Vlad as much as his Turkish enemies.

Portrait of Vlad Draculea painted circa 1560, rumored to be a copy of an earlier portrait created during his lifetime.

      A year later Vlad, true to his promise, helped Stephen establish himself as ruler of Moldavia by providing 6,000 horsemen to assist Stephen defeat his rival Petru Aron.  Prince Stephen’s long rein was marked by its strong resistance to Ottoman interference.  Two years after Stephen ascended the throne, in 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans which was to be led by the son of Janos Hunyadi, Matthias Corvinus (“Matthew the Crow”). Vlad quickly allied himself with Matthias, hoping that Matthias would assist him in keeping the Ottomans out of Wallachia, as Mehmed was at the time trying to claim the tiny kingdom as Ottoman territory. That same year, Mehmed sent envoys to Vlad requesting that he pay back-owed tribute in the amount of 10,000 ducats (About $13,000 at the time, if dollars had been around.  This is the 1914 dollar value, which is as far back as I could go.  In modern American dollars, that would have been about $307,483.00, which I believe is a low estimate.).  The envoys also requested that Vlad give 500 men as recruits to the Ottoman army.  This would not only have stressed the already weak economy of Wallachia, which was still recovering from the wastes of the Boyars, but also it would have robbed the country of many of the men that could protect it.  In addition, giving in to such terms would demonstrate public acceptance of Wallachia as a territory of the Ottoman empire.  Vlad absolutely refused and, to literally make his point, he had the Turkish envoys turbans nailed to their heads.  When Mehmed received news of this, he was less than pleased, and in response sent the lord of Nicopolis, Hamza Bey (the son of a prominent Serbian noble family that had become Ottoman Vassals about 70 years prior), to sue for peace and, if that did not work, to eliminate Vlad.  Hamza and his cavalry were ambushed by Vlad in a mountain pass and nearly all captured.  They were executed by impalement, with Hamza placed on the highest stake.  Riding high on this success, Vlad invaded Ottoman territory in Bulgaria and, using the intimate knowledge of Turkish language and culture he gained as a hostage, managed to infiltrate and destroy the Ottoman camps.  He wrote to Matthias about his accomplishments saying “I have killed peasants men and women, old and young,…where the Danube flows into the sea… We killed 23, 884 Turks…Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace.”

    Furious at Vlad's cunning, Mehmed raised an army of 60,000 the following spring and sent them north to crush Vlad and bring Wallachia back under Ottoman control.  Among the commanders of this force was Vlad’s now estranged brother Radu, the “handsome” favorite of the Ottoman court. Mehmed placed Radu at the capital city of Targoviste, hoping that he would raise anti-Vlad sympathies which would eventually lead to Radu becoming ruler of Wallachia. Vlad was originally successful in repelling Mehmed’s forces, and this victory as well as the prior one was celebrated by the Saxons of Transylvania, the Italian states, and the Pope.  Indeed, a group of Genovese personally thanked Vlad, as his war against the Turks kept away a fleet of Ottoman ships that otherwise would have attacked them at Caffa (a Genovese port on the Black Sea coast). Vlad’s victories against the combined forces of Mehmed and Radu was short-lived however.  Radu’s plans succeeded, due in part to the fact that the Boyars Vlad he had alienated earlier were eager to get him out if their way.  This faction managed to pursue Vlad and besiege him in his famed lair at Poinari Castle, which is above a cliff.  Legend says that when the castle was surrounded, a prisoner of the Ottomans who was loyal to Vlad managed to get a message to him, by shooting an arrow through the castle window, saying the Turks would soon attack.  Frightened by what her fate would be at the hands of the Turks, Vlad’s young wife threw herself from the castle walls over the cliff.  Today, the stream that flows through the valley below is still known by locals as The Princess’s River. Poinari was indeed besieged, but Vlad managed to escape to Moldavia and later the protection of Matthias Corvinus in Hungary.  He would never return to Poinari, and the castle fell to ruins.  Radu was quickly crowned Voivode * ("Prince") in his brother’s place.

The ruins of Castle Poenari on Mount Cetatea, overlooking the valley.

   After his rather humiliating defeat, Vlad and Matthias spent five weeks in the Autumn of 1462 forging his alliance and making battle plans. Vlad then headed home to Wallachia, thinking his trust with Hungary had been sealed. To his surprise, Vlad was captured just inside the Wallachian border by Matthias’ own men and taken prisoner back to Hungary.  Even today, no one is quite sure why Matthias’ sympathies changed so quickly.  Recent research has suggested that the ruler of Hungary was tempted by the idea of becoming Holy Roman Emperor, and to do this, he had to abandon his campaigns against the Turks  which included his new alliance with Wallachia, to focus on gaining power in Western and Central Europe.  To justify this move, he had Vlad captured and claimed he was actually in league with the Ottomans and therefore, Wallachia was unworthy of his assistance.  Vlad would be imprisoned in Hungary for approximately four years.  Eventually his dear friend and cousin Stephen the Great of Moldavia would intervene on Vlad’s behalf to have him released.  Around the time of his release, Vlad married Ilona Szilagyi, a cousin of Matthias.  She would give Vlad two sons, Vlad IV Draculea and Mircea.  The elder son's descendants would later marry into the Hungarian royal family.  Even later, A descenant of Vlad and Ilona would marry into the British royal family. 

   In the meantime, Radu died, and his successor to the throne was the Turkish vassal Basarab the Elder, a member of the rival Danesti line of House Basarab.  Vlad was having none of this.  With the aid of some Hungarian forces led by Stephen V Bathory, Voivode of Transylvania (also an ally of Corvinus), forces from Stephen of Moldavia, and some dissatisfied Wallachian Boyars (whom it seems could not be satisfied no matter who was in charge) Vlad invaded Wallachia for a third time.  Basarab and his government fled as soon as rumor of Vlad’s arrival reached them.  Vlad was established as ruler of Wallachia once again for a third and final reign.  Unfortunately, this last rule would be very short.  Once Vlad was crowed, his allies went home, leaving him in a weak position with a very small army.  Before he had time to gain assistance from anyone else, the Turks returned with the intention of placing Basarab back on the throne and eliminating Vlad for good.  They succeeded.  Vlad had declared himself ruler on 26 November, and by early January, he was dead. How he died is not clear even to this day.  Some sources claim he was killed battling the Turks, surrounded by the bodies of Moldavian bodyguards.  Others have claimed he was killed by traitorous Boyars who sided with the Turks in Basarab the Elder’s final coup.  Or, he possibly was killed while hunting, either a tragic accident or an assassination made to look like a hunting calamity.  What is certain is that Vlad, who was notorious in life, would become infamous in death and his name would become synonymous with ruthlessness and bloodlust

     For the next hundred years, legends and stories about Vlad III Draculea, the Dragon’s Son known as Tepes ‘The Impaler”, or “Impaler Lord” would spread across Europe.  His reputation varied throughout.  In Germany he was known as a cruel, evil and bloodthirsty ruler, who killed infants and forced their mothers to eat them, and cut off women’s breasts and fed them to their husbands.  Others claimed he liked to dine within the forests of impaled bodies he created, even collecting the blood of his victims and drinking it.  Yet in Russia and Eastern Europe, he was seen through a more optimistic lens. Yes, he went a bit far at times, but his at times cruel actions were seen as the necessary workings of a strong ruler, and he was also hailed as a great warlord against the encroaching Muslim menace of the Ottoman Empire.  In Romania and Bulgaria, Vlad was and still is hailed as a hero, and a harsh yet fair leader who did what had to be done to rid the kingdom of corruption within, and keep the Ottoman invaders at bay.

    Before we pass final judgment let us consider the times.  It is a favorite saying among historians that you cannot take a man out of his times.  In other words, a person’s tastes and sentiments are dictated by their surroundings.  That is not always the case, but in this instance I believe it is to an extent.  Europe and the Middle East in the 15^th century were very violent by modern standards.  This was the era of the Inquisition (whose own reputation is worse than the actual organization), and in its wake would come the post-Reformation religious struggles where Protestants and Catholics would abuse and destroy each other in ways that no Christian should ever behave toward their brother or sister in Christ. And when Constantinople fell, the Turks spent three days ravishing and killing all they found, even going so far as to rape the altar boys of the Hagia Sophia.  Was Vlad the Lord Impaler cruel? Most certainly, but I doubt he was much more “devilish” than many others were they in his place. 

   And what of Wallachia?  It would be fought over by both Christians and Muslims for the next four hundred years until it united with Moldavia and Transylvania in 1859 to become Romania.  Romania itself would declare its final independence from the now declining Ottoman Empire in 1877.  She was at last free. 

  This is the end of the known territory of our search into Islam, its relation to the Fall of Rome, and its permanent stunting of Christianity en masse, and why Western Civilization has an indescribable fear of it.  From here I must decide which direction to take. Certainly we have touched on the loss of the Rome of the East in Constantinople and will revisit that again.  I must write about a few other things first, but I assure you I shall explore further soon.

   *Voivode is the Wallachian title used by their rulers. This title has no direct English translation, but "Prince" is the closest meaning to the concept. 

(I Didn’t Know I Was Supposed to Care About) Strong Female Characters in Fiction.

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark.  She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.  Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’

~J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings: The Mirror of Galadriel

       Over the past few years in my observances of entertainment media, one discussion point appears without fail, the strong female character or strong female role.  No book can be published, neither movie or television show can be premiered without the question being asked if such story contains at least one strong female character.  I somehow managed to reach adulthood without realizing that the status of a female role in a work of fiction was necessary. There were books, films, and shows I liked and those I didn’t, but I never stopped to think whether or not the females (if any) in those stories had “strong” or “weak” roles.  I don’t know that there is such a thing as a “weak female role” but presumably if there are strong female characters there are weak ones. 

     To determine if a work of fiction contains at least one strong female role, it must pass a thing called the Bechdel Test, so named for its originator Alison Bechdel, who in 1985 laid out the rules for this test in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like).  The rules from the comic strip were later formulated in to a test with three requirements.

1.    The work must have at least two women in it

2.    Who talk to each other

3.    About something besides a man.

A variation on the test requires that the at least two women must be named.  If all such requirements are met, huzzah! the work of fiction has strong female characters.

   So that begs the question, why are strong female characters required these days in fiction?  Such a thing was only seen as a requirement (and the absence of as a problem) within the past 30 years.  Certainly the rise of radical Feminism has a lot to do with it, but the desire for such goes deeper than audiences just wanting more females in literature.  The reason given for this desire is “little girls need a character to look up to” or alternately “women need a character they can relate to”.  As a woman myself, I find that offensive.  Are women really so small-brained they are incapable of relating to or sympathizing with a person of the opposite sex? One (not I) would expect such a sentiment from knuckle-dragging-chauvinist-pig men, but most often it is women that are expressing the fact that women and little girls need female characters to relate to.  It would be bad enough if such a thought were coming from men, but I am staggered and affronted that women who want to feel empowered and feel that they can do anything a man can do claim that females are only able to understand other females.

   Granted, it is not always women that express this opinion, there are some men who concern themselves with the fact of strong female roles in fiction.  This past summer, for example, I read an article by a man who took his eight-year-old daughter to see both Jurassic World and Mad Max: Fury Road. While he expected his daughter to appreciate Jurassic World more (all eight-year-olds love dinosaurs) she was apparently more impressed by Mad Max. The little girl was very interested in the movie and for several days afterward, her Barbies were the wives. His conclusion: his daughter enjoyed Mad Max over Jurassic World because the former had strong female roles while the latter did not.

   First off, I am tempted to launch into a discourse about letting eight-year-olds view PG-13 and R-rated movies, something my parents would have never done and something I myself do not approve of.  But that is a topic for some other time.  Rather than jumping to the conclusion of strong female roles yields child enjoyment, the author perhaps should have asked his daughter what she liked about each movie and why she liked one better than the other. I found both films appealing for different reasons (all thirty-one-year-olds love dinosaurs) but neither one had anything to do with female characters or the lack thereof.  I freely admit to not being a typical female, so I doubt I make a good control group for an experiment, but for the sake of example, I have listed below some of my favorite films and graded them on whether or not they pass this Bechdel test, in following known simply as “the Test”.  

  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies- these really do not pass the Test. Even though most of the female characters are extra-textual and added to interest female audiences (or for male viewing pleasure), there isn’t much talking between women about things other than men, or much of anything.  The lack of female characters is not really the producers’ “fault”, Tolkien only writes about one-third as many women into his works as men, if even that much. But the women he does write are not simpering showpieces, most of them could probably rule Middle-Earth by themselves if the need arose. 

  Tombstone- I admit this is one of my all-time favorite films.  There are a total of five female roles in it, but they mostly stay in the background.  Save for possibly one or two small scenes, this film doesn’t really pass the Test. 

 The Alamo- No, not the one with John Wayne from the 1960s (the less said about the glaring historical inaccuracies of that film the better), the other one made in 2004.  This film has a total of three females in it, maybe four, minus the extras.  And they all have about a total of about three lines.  Certainly does not pass the Test. 

A Man for All Seasons- This one might pass the Test, although the few women in it don’t do much talking about things other than men (1535 was very much a man’s world). But this film should at least get some extra credit for Sir Thomas More’s rather modern (for his era) attitudes toward women.

The Eagle- With the exception of some background extras, this film has zero female characters, so it completely failed the Test.  Despite that, it is an excellent story about Roman Britain and I highly recommend it.

The 13^th Warrior- This film has very few females in it (aside from extras and background characters) but the few that exist are almost as strong as the men, they are Vikings after all. It should at least get some credit for that among the Feminists. 

Mystery Men- Another good story whose lack of females I never noticed until I learned I should care, this band of wannabe superheroes has only one woman, and the few other women don’t talk to each other.  Surprisingly, it fails too.

Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows-  The lack of “strong” women or women in general in these two movies have had Feminist Sherlockians (or “Holmesians” depending which side of the Pond you are on) roiling since they were released in theaters.  Yes, they spectacularly fail the Test, but somehow the BBC series Sherlock fails almost much but doesn’t seem to have the feminists in such a tizzy.

  I could go on and discuss other films like Cowboys and Aliens, Galaxy Quest, Secondhand Lions, Master and Commander:the Far Side of the World, In the Heart of the Sea, The Highwaymen, or John Carter, and I could go into television shows and books that I highly enjoy that are short in the female character department, but I won’t belabor the point.  As an historian, I will say that my bookshelves are crammed with books about men that I admire, emulate, and have no difficulty whatsoever sympathizing with.  The popular saying goes “well behaved women rarely make history”. I disagree with this, but I am not interested in the not-well behaved ones because… they misbehaved. I am far more interested and willing to look up to and follow the moral and upright rather than those that go against convention just to go against something, regardless of their sex.  The reality is, not all women are strong, neither are all men.  People are people, some are weak, some are strong, some good, some bad, others indifferent. No one worries whether or not there are strong male roles, men are written into stories as all types, and no one so much as thinks twice about it.  Perhaps instead of worrying about whether or not a story has enough of each sex in it and make sure there are strong females to check a box, artists should simply write people as they are.

The three non-female leads in my most favorite movie: The Alamo

The Loss of the Endurance

  Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.  Job 38:29-30

   September 4- Temperature, -14.1° Fahr. Light easterly breeze, blue sky, and stratus clouds. During forenoon notice a distant terracotta or biscuit color in the stratus clouds to the north. This traveled from east to west and could have conceivably come from the Graham Land volcanoes, now about 300 miles distance to the northwest.  The upper current of air probably would come from that direction. Heavy rime. Pack unbroken and unchanged as far as visible.  No land for 22 miles.  No animal life observed.  -Ernest Shackleton

    Despite the fact that the ice held Endurance fast, there was little struggle with pressure through most of September.  Indeed, the whole ice pack itself was largely still.  Occasionally the men would hear a the grinding and crashing of ice from far off, and would spot pressure ridges from the crow's nest.  The routines of work and play that had been initially constructed carried on as usual.  The supply of meat for the dogs was running low, and the seals and penguins which could have cushioned the supply had all but disappeared.  Still they were able to kill an occasional seal for meat and also for blubber to use as fuel for the stove.  On September 23rd, Wild, Hurley, Macklin, and McIlroy took their dog teams to the most notable landmark, the Stained Berg.  An iceberg so named due to the streaks of dust and sand on it.  From the top of the berg, at 110 feet, they could sight no land.  On the 26th, the men initiated a daylight-savings system by setting the clock forward one hour.  Shackleton summed up mankind's struggle with daylight savings when he wrote "this is really pandering to the base but universal passion that men, especially seafarers, have for getting up late, otherwise we would be honest and make our routine earlier instead of flogging the clock."
    September 30 was a bad day.  It had started off well enough, as the party was able to add the meat of two penguins and five seals to their supply.  In the afternoon, cracks in the ice that had opened alongside the ship began to work laterally and squeeze the ship.  Heavy pressure was sustained to the hull on the forward port side.  The decks shuddered and jumped, while beams groaned and buckled.  Shackleton ordered all hands to stand by for whatever situation might arise.  But the ship resisted as she always had, and when it was thought her limit had been reached and it was all over, the large floe that was bearing down on her cracked across and the pressure abated.  In describing how many times the ship had come to the breaking point and still managed to withstand the pressure of the ice, Worsley wrote "It will be sad if such a brave little craft should be finally crushed in the remorseless, slowly strangling grip of the Weddell pack after ten months of the bravest and most gallant fight ever put up by a ship."
    Indeed, shipwrights had never done finer work than on Endurance, and most other ships would have succumbed within the first few days or weeks.  But she could not keep up the fight forever. Humanity can only build and prepare so much against the naked edge of the natural world.  It has been said before that nature howls at us through the bars that man has built.  Times like this would cause one to question on which side of the bars mankind sits. Inside our buildings are we perhaps the ones in the cage?
    Endurance was about to meet her fate.  She was headed for the worst part of the worst sea on earth.   The Weddell Sea is constantly churned by the Weddel Gyre, a current that spins clockwise to carry all the ice around to grind and push and pile against the western shore.  In the first days of October, bergs that had not moved for months began changing position; the ice was moving. The current season's ice was now about 230 days old, and was 4 feet, 5 inches thick under 7 or 8 inches of snow. The ice had been slightly thicker in September, so Shackleton theorized some melting had occurred underneath.  Clark had recorded above freezing water temperatures at depths of 150 to 200 fathoms, so that corroborated melting from below. The air temperature, however, was still -25.4 F.
   On October 10, an unexpected thaw made things uncomfortable for everyone. The temperature rose from -10 ° F to +29.8 ° F, the warmest they had experienced since January. Rather like the Arctic thaw we recently had on December 30, 2015 when the temperature was 50 degress above average at 30 ° at the North Pole.  The decks of the ship were clear of ice and snow, and between decks got dripping wet due to the melting. This was a definite sign winter was over, and Shackleton gave orders for reoccupying the cabins and preparing to sail the ship as soon as she got clear.  On the evening of the 13th, the ship broke free of the floe she had been resting against and came upright.  The rudder was free, but the propeller was found to be off to one side, having been forced into that position by the ice.  Meals were served again in the wardroom that day for the first time since March.
    Wind from the south rose to a gale on the 14th, and the temperature dropped from +31° F to -1° F. During the night, the ship broke free of the ice and drifted quickly astern until she lay almost at right angles to the open lead in the ice.  This was a very dangerous position for the rudder and the propeller, as they could easily be smashed as the ice moved.  Fortunately, the weight of the wind on the ship drove the ice further open and Endurance swung around and moved 100 yards along the lead.  By 3  a.m., the ice closed again and they were held fast.  Although the pack had closed again, it was still loose, and on the 17th, topsails and headsails were set in an attempt to force the ship out to open water a few miles away, but she was still stuck.  Later the same day, heavy pressure developed again. Loud crashes, groans, and hammering sounds were heard in the engine room, and the iron plates on the floor began to buckle.  After an hour of torment, to everyone's relief, the ship rose, lifting out of the ice ten inches and three feet, four inches aft.  Unfortunately, Endurance was also heeled over six degrees to port.  Still, she was free, for now.

Crew members working to free the ship from ice

     Another onslaught of ice came the afternoon of the next day.  The two floes began to move laterally, putting great pressure on the ship. In seconds, she heeled over to one side, until she was listing 30 degrees to port. The boats on the lee side were almost touching the ice, dog kennels amidships broke free and crashed into the lee kennels, while everything movable on  deck fell to the lee side. Shackleton had all fires put out, and  battens were nailed to the deck to give dogs and people a foothold.  Hurley, meanwhile, descended to the ice to take pictures of Endurance in her unusual position (thankfully the selfie stick had not yet been invented).  At 8 p.m. that evening the ice opened and the ship righted herself again.
    The following days were not as dire, but certainly there was no delusion that they were out of danger. The next day, the boiler was started in preparation to steam ahead and break through ice again if need arose.  The engines were tested, and everything was in working order, despite being frozen solid for eight months.  The men began thinking about trying to move the ship, getting the engines running, and possibly breaking out of the ice.  But it would be to no avail.
    Sunday, October 24 would be the beginning of the end for Endurance.  With the twenty-two and a half hours of daylight available, they had watched the floes advance until 6:45 p.m. when the ship sustained pressure from three sides, Starboard, Port Forward, and Port Aft.  The force was irresistible. Endurance groaned and shook as the ice moved forward as well as laterally, actually bending and twisting the ship.  She began leaking at once. Quickly, ice was knocked off the pumps, which were then started up to push out the water that was rushing in.  By 8 p.m., the pressure had relaxed.  Over the next two days they had to pump almost constantly while repairing leaks, while the ice pressed in and then released several more times.  Pressure from the ice would help close a few of the leaks in the following days.
    At last, the dreaded day that everyone knew eventually would come, dawned: Wednesday, October 27, 1915. Under clear skies and calm weather, the pressure on the ship increased steadily, By 4 p.m. the ship was stern-up, letting the ice split the rudder, and tear out the stern and rudder posts.  Water began pouring in below decks.  An hour later, Shackleton ordered all hands on the ice as the ship was breaking up under their feet.  Before leaving, they doused the boilers so they would not explode when near-freezing seawater hit them. Essential supplies had already been moved about 100 yards from the ship, and all men and dogs made it safely to an unbroken portion of the ice.  After having to move once due to breaking ice, final camp was pitched around 8 p.m. with five tents.
   Shackleton was not unprepared for this moment.  He knew this was coming and had made plans and contingencies hundreds of times in advance.  He knew that an ordered mind and a clear plan were essential to survive.  The next morning he, Wild, and Hurley went back to the ship to retrieve some tins of petrol for the stove.  Endurance was even worse off than the previous evening, all starboard cabins were demolished, and the whole aft section of the ship had been crushed concertina style. The forecastle and Ritz were underwater, while the wardroom was three-quarters full of ice.

Dogs watching Endurance in its final stages of her sinking, by Frank Hurley

    This first camp would be known as Dump Camp because the men left behind more things than they carried.  They would have to reach land primarily on foot, so nothing unnecessary could be carried, and a rule of two pounds per man was made. Unfortunately, the animals were deemed unnecessary, and a drain on the food supply, an event that is even more grievous than the loss of the ship.  On October 29, three days after Endurance was evacuated, the three youngest puppies and Mrs. Chippy, the carpenter's cat, were shot.  They kept the sled dogs for now, to help pull supplies, but even they would  be unnecessary in the days to come.
   When one can only carry two pounds, what to keep and what to leave behind is a difficult decision.  Letters and other personal belongings of much sentimental value but little intrinsic, were buried in the ice and consigned to oblivion, although often money was thrown away while letters and photographs kept.  Shackleton tore a flyleaf from the Bible that Queen Alexandra had given the ship with her handwriting on it, and a page from the Book of Job containing the quote above.  Alexandra had given another bible for the shore party, but it was now lost in the twisted remains of Endurance. The two boats were loaded with gear not carried by men and fixed with sledges.  Once loaded and outfitted for ice travel, each boat weighed over a ton.  The boats would be pulled by men, the remaining sleds by dogs.  Once that was done, everyone gathered themselves for the journey on foot across the frozen sea in hope to eventually reach land.