WEBVTT - Part One: Robert Baden-Powell: Founder Of The Boy Scouts 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:08.119 Based in record recording, test test test test print all 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:14.440 of this christ topic. We've already introduced the show. It 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.919 started behind the bastards. We have we we we we 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.440 we have a dark one today. We have a bad 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.480 one today. I'm Robert Evans, Matt Leeb my guest, Matt. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.720 How are you doing today? You know I was doing 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.800 well until you guys started talking real ominous about what 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.519 the subject. Boy, Matt, you are going to be a 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.440 very unhappy person. Oh fun, I love Yeah, as we 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.160 as we get into this three hours, Yeah, that's about right, Matt. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.680 So let me let me start this with a simple, 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.479 humble question, Matt, a very simple question. How do you 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:55.320 feel about the Boy Scouts of America? Oh? Fuck, I 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.480 have very like I don't have feelings one way or 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:01.360 the other because I never I never did it. I 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.120 know you weren't. Yeah, I know people who did, like, 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.479 uh you know they there was like a jew Scouts, um, 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.440 but they were that's a funny name for something to be. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.320 but I and I knew some people were like Cub 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.520 Scouts and Eagle Scouts and stuff like that, but I never, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.240 I never was in that club. So I feel excluded 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.600 That's how I feel about it. You know, as a kid, 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.280 I wanted to be a part of it. Why couldn't you, Um, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.440 I think, because like you know, you have to like 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.280 apply and stuff, and then you know, you know, you 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.360 gotta like tell your dad and he's got to not 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.000 be he's got to be in a good mood and 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.640 you know. Yeah, I mean yeah, so you know, I 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:42.679 never I never got a chance to do it. So 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.840 it's weird. I mean, so this is gonna be a 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:47.720 weird one for me because like I was in the 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.960 Boy Scouts for years and years and years and I 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.720 loved it. I had a really good time. I learned 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.040 where I learned a lot of like the first lessons 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.360 I learned about like woodcraft and like hiking, and I 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.480 had a lot of relief when I'm like a twenty 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.160 mile river rafting trip on the Brasos for days and 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:07.120 it's like, you know, uh, like primitive kind of like 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.240 you have like the contents of a matchbox and a 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.560 pocket knife and I have to go for two days 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.560 or whatever like some really cool shit. UM had some 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.480 great experiences, like I really to be like I personally 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.920 have nothing but positive memories of the Boy Scouts of 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.400 America and my time in them. End of podcast for listening. 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.400 So it's it's it's fucked up, Like I played like 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.760 my very first games of Dungeons and Dragons, I played 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.080 it like Cub Scouts Campouts, which is like a huge 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.640 part of my my life, and like, yeah, it's it's 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.359 it's weird. Um, I can confidently say my life would 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:43.919 have been very different if I had not been a 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.000 Boy Scout, and I can also confidently say that that 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.600 is true of a hundred thousands or so other boys 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.880 for a much worse reason. Um, because as we're going 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.520 to discuss the Boy Scouts of America, despite you know, 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:57.760 my and I'm sure a number of people listening can 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.080 think back to positive experiences they had in the b 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.679 s A. I know my dad can, Um, he was 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.359 an Eagle Scout, like I know a lot of people 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.239 who could who felt very fondly about their time in 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.040 the Scouts. But despite all of that, the Boy Scouts 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.640 from the beginning is an organization that was poisoned in 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.280 a fundamentally inescapable way, and that poison led to its 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.960 evolution into an organization that facilitated the rape and molestation 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.359 of like a city's worth of young boys. Um, it's 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.960 it's this is a dark one, my man, this is 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:33.360 a dark one. Yeah. God, I love going in cold, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.040 you know, probably really regretting that email you Sami. I 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.760 would love to come back up. Yeah, I'll be back 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.360 any motherfucker you want to come on our show? Were 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:48.120 gonna talking about nazis A yeah, yeah baby, Oh yeah, no, 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.200 I'm excited. Man, it sounds like a lot of fun. Um, 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.440 you know, it sounds like Boy Scouts you know, uh 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:57.960 are gonna be a great organization to learn more about. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.960 So let's strap in. Yeah. Well I might not want 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:03.480 to say that, give him what comes in part two, 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:09.560 but yeah, let's let's see the episode. Um spoilers. So, 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.760 do you know anything about the founder of the Boy Scouts, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.240 at least the guy most often credited as founding the 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.520 Boy Scouts, Robert Maiden Powell. I did not know him. Okay, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.119 Well that part one we're largely going to be talking 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:23.840 about the founder of the Boy Scouts, and then part 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:25.719 two we're gonna be talking about all of the rapes 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.679 and how the organization facilitated them over a century. Um, 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.159 but let's talk about Robert first. The other Robert so 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.680 Robert Baden Powell. His full name at the end of 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.480 his life gives you a pretty clear idea of the 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.280 kind of social position this guy enjoyed. Uh. When he died, 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:46.720 his full title was Lieutenant General Robert Stevenson smythe Baden Powell, 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.080 first Baron Baden Powell, oh M G C MG G 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.800 C V O K C b K S T J 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.840 d L, which are all like different orders and awards 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.359 and like nightly ship that you. He was. He was 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.680 English as fuck. That could not be more Enguish than 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.920 this motherfucker the whole alphabet. Yeah, he's he had all 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:10.719 these scot damn titles. Um. Yeah. And he was born high, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.039 like he was born to rule, be one of the 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.520 people who helped run the British Empire, like that was 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.960 his Yeah. He was born on February eighteen fifty seven 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.800 in Paddington, London, inguland his father was the Reverend Professor 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:31.120 Baden Powell, and was a pro motherfucking reverend professor. The 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.320 line of people who were like, we must have multiple 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.279 titles like these. Everyone in his family has has a 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.880 thousand fucking titles and they're all very fancy people. So 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.120 his dad, the Reverend Professor, is a geometry professor at 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.640 Oxford University and a priest at the Church of England's. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:55.920 Yeah you know those geometry priests. You know, it's like 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:58.760 you get one degree and then you're like, I'm gonna 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.480 just throw on a little yeah, little but another hat 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:07.599 from my hat. Yeah. Yeah. So his mother was Henrietta 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.880 Grace Smith and she was the oldest daughter of Admiral 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.799 William Henry Smythe Um, I don't who was a famous admiral, 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.120 you know, like and that's like the biggest thing you 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.960 can be in the British Empires, a admiral, Like that's 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.120 like the top of of cool British ship to be 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.080 in this period. And yeah, well people said it was 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.719 a good one. Yeah. So Reverend Professor Baden Powell UM 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.360 was an old man when he married Henrietta Grace Smithe 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:36.919 she was his third wife, and he was again not 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.520 a young man when he had Robert. And in fact, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.000 Robert's born in eighteen fifty seven and his dad dies 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.919 in eighteen sixties, so our Baden Powell never really knows 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.839 his father um. And this brings to an interesting note. 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.520 So Professor Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout. 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.800 His name is Baden hyphen Powell. Right, his dad's first 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.200 name is Baden, and his dad's last name is Powe. 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.320 His mom's his name is Smithe So why does he 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.200 Why is his last name Baiden hyphen Powell. That's an 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:09.880 interesting question. So when he died, when his dad died, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.640 his mom changed the family last name after his death 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.520 to be their father's full name with a hyphen in it, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.120 in order to distinguish the children she had had with 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:23.000 him to the kids he'd had in previous marriages. So 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.880 petty ship, Yeah, it's like petty weird English bullshit. Um 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:29.560 so yeah, like Baiden Pale. You would think with the 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.520 name like Biden pal Oh, his dad was a Baiden 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:33.720 and his mom was a Powell, and they just did 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:35.800 the thing that you know, fancy people do when they 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.840 hyphen ate their names. But no, it's much dumber than that. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.160 So Robert was raised by his mother. She was a 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.080 forceful person and he later recalled that quote the whole 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.960 secret of my getting on was in his mother's very 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.679 powerful personality. She was described by one writer as either 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.240 a great motivator or simply overbearing, depending on who was 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.120 talking about her. Since the family had money and the 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.960 upper crust British kids inevitably went way to private schools 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:02.920 while they were public schools. But we call them private 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:04.800 schools like a public school in England is like a 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.720 fancy private school. You know. Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:15.680 it's weird. Everything's wrong over there, right, yeah yeah. Um, 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.400 and Robert spent his youth in a series of fancy 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.440 all boys schools. He was very intelligent and was given 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.480 to throwing himself completely into any task set before him. 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.400 He particularly pushed himself to succeed at tasks that were 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.360 likely to make him popular, so he became an excellent singer. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.760 He became a skilled sketch artist and an actor in 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.719 the school's drama productions. Holidays back home, Yeah, holidays back 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.640 home were spent on yachting expeditions with his again quite 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.000 wealthy family. Um. He first came to the practices of 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.520 scouting while he was at school, though these are boarding schools, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.880 and the forests near his school, which occupied an old monastery, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.120 were filled with game animals, and so he would escape 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.280 from school. He wasn't supposed to be doing this and 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.720 hunt in butcher game meat. Um, this was like his 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.760 hobby when he was in school with with what like 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.600 a knife? I assume he had a gun or something 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:05.000 like like English shotgun. Yeah, I really that is unclear 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.360 to me. Probably it's just knifeing deer in the woods. 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.880 That's what a scout would do. That's one of the 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.360 merit badges I have always assumed. Yeah, stabbed fucking deer 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.800 in the neck. Yeah, just mass murder stags with a 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.600 single pocket knife. A gun ain't fair. Look, the deer's 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.280 got a knife. You got a knife, you got in 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.840 your head. I got knives on my hand. It's perfect now. 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.680 In the British Jackson in eighteen seventy six, he graduated 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.840 school and he found himself somewhat adrift and uncertain of 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:37.840 what he wanted to do with his life. His mother 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.080 pushed him to join the military, and he quickly fell 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.600 in love with the adventure and camaraderie of that life. 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.839 He particularly enjoyed spending all of his time in close 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:50.239 proximity with other young men separated from mainstream British society. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:56.360 He was, yeah, he's he's definitely. His sexuality is something 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.400 we'll discuss in a bit sure. There's a lot going 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.480 on here, a decent amount of it's uncomfortable. He became 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.720 an officer because that's the role men in his part 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.360 of English society were born to occupy. A right up 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.960 in the book Scouts Honor notes as an officer, he 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.280 was known for his teaching skills, sense of discipline, and 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.559 obsession with physical and moral cleanliness. He must have seemed 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.600 a bit of a square. He tried to sway his 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.840 men from using brothels and advised them to beat the 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.200 type who could be trusted on their honor to do 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.360 a thing, who were guided by a sense of what 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.240 is their duty rather than by their own inclination, who 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.760 are helpful and kind, especially to the weak, and who, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.520 by their personal self respect and avoidance of bad habits, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.679 give themselves a manliness and dignity which no humbug can 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:42.480 attain to. So, well, that's a he's a stickler. Yeah. 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.040 I mean it sounds like, you know, perfectly good rules 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.360 to live your life by, you know, I mean, yeah, yeah, 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.680 yea here great, yeah, kind of kind of a little 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.760 bit like uptight. You get the sense that, like he 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.839 would have been kind of frustrating if you're a young 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.160 man in the military. Oh, he's not very fun but 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.800 certainly not you know, like very distinctly not about like 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.400 cavorting and going out and like drinking and whrring and 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.040 doing stuff that soldiers do, you know, because soldiers are 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.680 all all dirty, dirty bastards. So um. He first served 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.600 as a hussar in India, which is like a mounted soldier. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.400 He was sent to Africa in the eighteen eighties, where 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.080 he fought as a scout officer against the Zulu in 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.320 what is today South Africa. His courage and competence earned 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.559 him repeated commendations. In eighteen ninety, he was promoted to 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.160 major and made senior aide de camp to the governor 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.920 of Malta, who also happened to be his uncle. Because again, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.319 that's how everything works in this empire, a lot of nepotism. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.280 He's very good at what he does that everyone seems 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:44.080 to agree with that, but he's also there's a lot 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.720 of nepotism that he benefits from. For the next three 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.120 years he did this job, and he also worked a 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.920 part time as an intelligence officer, and among other things, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.720 he would like disguise himself as a butterfly collector, so 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.840 he could travel around to foreign military installations and bring 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.160 back intelligence to the British. He would just show up 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.760 as like a butterfly guy and be like, yeah, looking 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:08.280 at for some butterflies about check out your cannons? Might 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.320 if I read these documents, I'm just gonna I'm trying 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.160 to see if there's butterflies. Yeah, And this is the 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.400 period if you read about, like, um, the British invasions 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.320 of Afghanistan and the Great Game between the Great Britain 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.960 and Russia, which is happening in like this period spying 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.160 at this point, there's not like intelligence agencies. It's a 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.679 bunch of like rich fancy boys on both sides who 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.440 travel around enough fancy together and they bring back intelligence 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.160 and it's yeah, they just it's just basically just gossip 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:42.640 from like you know, the Yeah. In eighteen ninety six, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.120 he returned to Africa and he fought in the Second 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.439 Mattabelli War. This was a revolt of the indigenous Mattabelli 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.319 people against the British South Africa Company. So again, corporations 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:54.719 are running all of these colonies at this time, and 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.720 the British Empire exists to like enforce their right to 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:02.080 control large chunks of continent. Um. The Matta belly are 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.720 like it kind of a raw deal for us, and 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.360 they try to fight back, and Baden Powell is among 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.640 the soldiers sent into brutally crush them. This is like 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:14.480 three now, this is three different uh like colonial like 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.960 wars that he's been part of. He fights in a 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.240 lot of colonial wars. He sees a lot of combat, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.600 and it is all in the name of of furthering 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.199 the British Empire and the economic interests of British corporations. Yeah. Um, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.560 And he understands it this way. He is an unrepentant imperialist. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.120 Baden Powell had no issue deploying industrial armed might against 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.480 a subject people who had starved due in part to 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.520 cattle pests brought over by the British colonizers. This campaign 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.440 was important to the Boy Scouts for two reasons. One, 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.960 it was there that Baden Powell met an American scout 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.959 who introduced him to the concept of woodcraft, the stetson 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.679 cowboy hat, which becomes as an icon of the Boy Scouts, 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.000 and the neckerchief, which is another icon of the Boy Scout. 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.600 So he's very impressed by this. American Scout, and he 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:01.800 adopted a lot of these aspects of his dress, which 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.640 later become things that the boy Scouts do. Secondly, this 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.080 is where Lord Baden Powell committed his first war crime, 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:10.560 or at least the first war crime we have documentation of. 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.120 The gist of it was that there was an indigenous 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.440 Matta Belli chief named Weenie. He was thought to be 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.280 a major inspiration for the uprising and was accused of 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.560 murdering white settlers. We might say that those white settlers 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.760 were trying to steal land in the ability to produce 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.960 food from indigenous people, and they fought back. Um a 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.160 number of ways you murder self defense, self defense from 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.320 an invasion. Yeah, um. So Weenie gets wounded in battle, um, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.960 and he surrenders under the promise that his safety would 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:42.000 be guaranteed that like he won't be like murdered. For surrendering, 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.840 Baden Powell has him executed, which was definitely illegal. We 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.640 called that the old Baden switch. I was waiting for 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:56.680 that that was destined to happen. It was. So the 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.080 simple summary of what happened is that, yeah, he committed 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.320 a war crime against black man fighting for the freedom 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.160 of his people Um. Baden Powell's biographer, though, a guy 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.080 named Tim gel Um we'll talk about Tim in a second, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.400 defends it this way because the chief was wounded during 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.040 capture and Baden Powell doubted he would survive a long 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.320 journey to the Cape to face a civil court. He 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.200 court martialed him on the spot. The verdict was death, 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.200 so he was shot. Baden Powell had exceeded his orders. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.080 So Tim Gill acknowledges this was illegal, but he also 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.560 was like, well, the guy was wounded. He was it 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.920 was like a mercy killing. You know. That's why we're 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.800 decimating this village because we stole all of the They're 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.760 gonna starve because of the things. What do you want 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.720 to do? You want to watch him software that's no 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:46.560 get the get the flamethrower over here. Um. So Tim 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.280 gel who you're going to hear from a lot in 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.359 this because he's he's Baden Powell's biggest, best, probably best biographer. 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.840 Regular listeners will recognize him because he also wrote a 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.040 biography we used of Henry Morton Stanley, who was one 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.080 of the artist imperialists in the history of imperialism. This 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.760 is a guy who's scout quote unquote, discovered a shipload 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:12.600 of Africa, murdered just a tremendous number of people, and 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.200 basically was responsible for conquering the Congo for King Leopold 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.760 via like a series of fake treaties, like he tricked 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.360 them basically on behalf of level. One of the worst 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.040 people who's ever lived. Jim Gill wrote a biography about 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.160 him that's very positive and Tim Geil this is what 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.400 he does. So Jeal is definitely kind of right wing. 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.600 He loves the British Empire. He is frustratingly good at 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.080 the technical aspects of writing biography. So he's really good 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.920 at going through thousands of pages of people's notes and 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.960 diaries and and and synthesizing them and provide so you 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.280 actually get really good information from his books. His the information, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.160 the facts he provides are generally pretty solid. But you 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.880 also get it with Tim's framing of the facts, which 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.480 is always like ludicrously positive and forgiving of these nightmarish 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:05.320 war criminals, imperialism stand who's primary source. It's just three 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:11.160 other pages, yes, literal young, Yeah, he is deeply frustrating. 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.399 Tim Jeel. Now in this case he calls Baden Powell's 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.400 execution of this guy. Quote the most damaging charge made 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.159 against Baden Powell's honor. Now, this is in spite of 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.359 the fact that in eight Robert Baden Powell was in 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:27.080 charge of an operation to track down Zulu rebels and 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.440 he lost control of his men, who murdered at least 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.080 three people. Geille defends this by arguing, quote, even if 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.280 he had given orders to spare the rebels lives, it's 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.359 incredibly unlikely that his Zulu mercenaries would have obeyed. A 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.200 lot of trouble stemmed from this, and he was lucky 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.320 not to lose his career. It's like, well, Whitey, how 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:44.760 how do you know that? How do you know that 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:46.879 he couldn't have stopped this? How do you know they 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.720 were actually rebels? Like you? You just know what this 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.120 guy wrote and is like Jill never actually like he's 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.359 great at giving you what these people were writing and 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.159 saying to each other. He's not so great at like 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.760 seeing the people they were doing violence to as human 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:02.960 beings and made investigating their side of the case and 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.359 being it is this true? Was It's like not my job. 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.359 I'm a biographer for people who've done nothing wrong. Yeah. 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.520 The most famous moment of Biden Powell's military career came 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.240 the next year, in eighteen nine, with the outbreak of 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.000 the Second Bower War. This is one of those rare 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.920 colonial wars where there's not really anyone who's like a 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.920 good guy here because the Bowers horrible people, like a 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.400 lot of them, horrible people, very racist. This is where 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.400 we get apartheid South Africa. A chunk of that comes 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.480 from this um. But also they're fighting the British Empire 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:37.600 who put them in concentration camps and kill a huge 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.119 number of women and children. So my sympathy overall is 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.200 with the Bowers, I guess because they're the people putting 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.760 deck camps. But technically I'm like, well, I do hate imperialism. Yeah, 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.840 I guess they're both kind of imperialists. That's a more 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:57.160 powerful one. Yeah. It's not a fun war to read about. 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:58.679 The gist of it is that the Bowers, who are 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:00.840 kind of Dutch, were fighting the British who didn't like 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.440 the idea of Bower's like running ship in South Anyway, whatever, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:06.920 you don't need to know too much about this. The 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.720 war is most noteworthy because it was where the British 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.440 first deployed concentration camps and idea they had kind of 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.320 cribbed from the Spanish who had kind of cribbed it 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:17.280 from what the Americans did to the indigenous people. Um. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.399 And yeah, this led to the death of a lot 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:21.800 of Bowers, but also many more Black Africans. A lot 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.280 of Bowers do starve, that's worth noting. But like a 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.240 huge number of the people who starve as a result 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.439 of British policies in this war are Black Africans. Um. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.000 But at the time this becomes kind of the most 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.080 famous fallout of the Boer War because the Nazis pay 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.119 attention to the British use of concentration camps and it 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.560 has a big inspiration on that. But anyway, um, at 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.760 the time, the most famous battle of the war back 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.080 home in Merry Old Ingleland was the siege of MafA King. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.439 Robert Baden Powell, who was by this point of colonel, 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.399 was the man in charge of the garrison there and 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.560 basically he's got about fift men, a mix of British 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.159 soldiers and like local African auxiliaries, and he gets besieged 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.040 by a force of eight thousand bow um. And this 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.240 battle lasts close to a year. It's like two hundreds 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.280 something days that they're under siege. So it is it 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.480 is this horrifically bloody battle. By the end of the fighting, 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.480 like two thirds of a year's worth of fighting, Biden 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.760 Pale's lost more than half of his men, the Bowers 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.680 lose two thousand men, a shipload of people starved to death, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.720 and it is front page news the whole time. This 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.080 is like the most like the biggest story in the 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.040 British Empire back in the Aisles for the better part 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.360 of a year, and it makes Robert Baden Powell into 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.359 a celebrity because he's the heroic commander of this this 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.359 scrappy defense under incredible odds to like defend Maficking from 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.119 the Bowers. Um. And he's also he's handsome, right, Like 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.119 he's he's generally noted by women at the time of 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.919 having been a good looking man. Um. And so you've 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.760 got this like handsome young war hero in the siege 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.919 that's front page news from months. Um. It makes him 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:48.760 into one of the most famous people in the entire 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.720 British Empire. And he's only getting more handsome because you know, 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.440 as the food runs out, he's just getting skinnier. He's 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.879 just getting skinnier and skinny, right, those cheek bones are 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:02.360 just getting like prominenter yeah sharp now. The siege held 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.560 several influential moments in the development of scouting. For one thing, 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.480 in order to free up men for the fight, he 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.360 deputized a bunch of teenage and preteen boys to act 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.960 as messengers. The Mayficking Cadet core, consisting of twelve to 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.600