How Rome Finally Fell

Helmet of the Bersaglieri

On the morning of September 20, 1870, an elite military corps known as Bersaglieri broke through Rome’s famed Aurealian Wall at the Porta Pia for the final showdown between the Kingdom of Italy and the pope’s army. Clad in their signature feather-encrusted helmets, this crack team of marksmen defeated the papal army, despite losing 49 men to the pope’s 18.

Established in 1836, the Bersaglieri are known for being larger than life characters and exceptionally fit. They are outstanding marksmen (and, today, a few women). Originally intended to be a highly mobile unit that could get into and out of places quickly, they even carried folding bicycles as part of their gear during World War I.

World War I Bersaglieri with bicycles

Thus, the Bersaglieri were the natural military unit to breach the Porta Pia. Designed by Michelangelo, this gate on the north-eastern part of the city wall was commissioned by Pope Pius IV as part of his urban renewal project in the mid-1500s. Porta Pia opened onto a new street, Via Pia: both gate and street named for the pope himself. For centuries, the gate protected the city from unwanted entry.

It was another Pope Pius, the Ninth, who headed the Holy See when the Bersaglieri broke through the wall. The struggle for unification had been waging for about fifty years at that point. Most of the peninsula had been unified as the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, with Victor Emanuel II as the king. A parliament had met that year in Turin, declaring Rome as the capitol of the new kingdom. But because Rome was under papal control, the government couldn’t enter the new capitol.

The pope had been able to retain power in large part because French troops protected Rome. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, however, Napoleon III recalled those troops to France in August 1870, leaving the pope vulnerable.

Hoping to finally capture Rome without bloodshed, King Victor Emanuel sent an envoy to the Holy See on September 10 with a letter offering protection to the pope and outlining political solutions to a variety of sticky issues. The pope was enraged. He scared off the envoy, declaring, “You will never enter Rome.”

Porta Pia with Bersaglieri Monument

The next day, on September 11, the Italian army entered papal lands and began its march toward Rome. It moved slowly in hopes that a peaceful solution could be found. On September 19, the army numbering 50,000 reached the Porta Pia. Inside, 13,000 Swiss Guards and volunteers waited for the attack.

The following morning, the attack began, and after three hours, the Italian troops broke through the wall. The Bersaglieri entered the city and overpowered the papal army. On September 21, all of the papal lands were firmly in Italian hands.

The Via Pia was rechristened Via XX Settembre in honor of the anniversary, and throughout Italy, cities and towns have established their own Via XX Settembre. Today, the Porta Pia houses a museum honoring the Bersaglieri.

The Bersaglieri have continued to distinguish themselves since their establishment, in World Wars I and II and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the breach of Porta Pia remains their finest hour. In parades they don’t march, they jog. Even the band, the black feathers on their helmets floating in the breeze. 

It’s A Long Way To The Top – Sir Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Hillary 2004 - Photo by Mariusz Kubik

I’ve always been interested in firsts when it comes to history – the first person to discover an uninhabited land, first person to cross the Antarctic, the list could go on. Milestones are reached everyday; sometimes the achievements are our own, while others go on to obtain milestones that will go down in the annals of history. For me, Edmund Hillary, mountain climber and philanthropist extraordinaire, is someone who never stopped achieving milestones – both personal and professional.

My bookshelves bow from the weight of mountaineering and adventure books I’ve collected over the years, and I’m very proud of my extensive Edmund Hillary collection. As a kid, I read about adventures in far off lands where humans battled extreme elements and their own psyche in order to obtain their dreams. Tenacity and undying passion are what pushed these amazing adventurers along, and Edmund Hillary was no different.

Born in New Zealand in 1919, Edmund Hillary finished primary school two years early and moved on to high school. He didn’t fit in very well, so turned to books and at the age of 16, undertook a school trip to Mount Ruapehu. His passion for climbing was awakened and a few years later, he climbed another mountain in New Zealand, Mount Ollivier, with his brother, Rex. Their desire to climb every winter meant they needed a well-paying summer job, so they entered the bee keeping business.

Over the next few years, Hillary undertook other climbs in New Zealand and in 1951, managed to gain a place on an expedition to Everest, led by Eric Shipton, a renowned Himalayan climber. After a failed attempt in 1952 to reach the summit of Cho Oyu, a mountain that borders Nepal and Tibet, Hillary joined the 1953 Everest Expedition led once again by Shipton.

At this time, the Tibetan route up Everest had been closed by the Chinese, and Nepal only allowed one group of climbers per year up the mountain from their side. The expedition involved 4,000 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides and 10,000 pounds of equipment.

In March, the climbers set up base camp and slowly worked their way up the mountain, setting up camps intermittently. The expedition rock stars, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, were slated for the first attempt at the summit but turned back when Evans’s oxygen system failed. They were only 300 vertical feet (91 metres) from the summit. Hillary was paired up with a successful Nepalese climber, Tenzing Norgay, and the men quickly formed a strong team.

Tenzing and Norgay were next in line for the summit bid and on 28 May they headed up the mountain. When Hillary woke the next day he found his boots had frozen solid, and he spent two hours warming them before they started their ascent. With climbing, every minute counts, and late starts can make all the difference between success and failure and, literally, life or death.

Mount Everest - Photo by Pavel Novak

Just below the summit, the pair came across a rock face that is now known as the “Hillary Step”. The men successfully scaled the difficult section and a short time after, they made history. Both Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the highest point on earth – 29,028 feet (8,848 metres).

After years of planning and training, the men spent only 15 minutes on the summit. They took the obligatory photos, but as Tenzing had never used a camera before, the photo didn’t turn out. Hillary left a cross he’d been gifted and Tenzing left chocolates on the summit in respect for his gods. Hillary took additional photos to prove they’d made it to the top and just achieved one of the most amazing milestones in history.

Fame followed and not long after that, controversy. Many people, especially the media, said Tenzing made it to the top first, but Hillary always maintained they stepped on the summit together. Although Tenzing, in his biography, The Dream Comes True, said Hillary had taken the first step.

Both men participated in other expeditions and Hillary documented many of them in his books, including an adventure along the Ganges river, From Ocean To Sky. After hitting such a monumental achievement in Nepal, Hillary devoted much of his time to helping the Nepalese through the Himalayan Trust – an organization devoted to improving the lives of people living in the Himalayas. The trust has built a hospital in Kunde, undertaken a forestry program in various parts of Nepal, and also built a school in Khumjung. Hillary was also an Honorary President of the American Himalayan Foundations, as well as Mountain Wilderness, a company dedicated to protecting mountains around the world.

With all the wonderful milestones Hillary has reached, his private life has not been devoid of tragedy. In 1975, Hillary’s wife, Louise, and his daughter, Belinda, were en route to meet Hillary and help build a hospital. But the plane carrying his wife and daughter crashed near Kathmandu shortly after take-off. Hillary remarried many years later.

Hillary’s son, Peter, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a climber, summiting Everest on the 50^th anniversary celebration. And to top things off, so to speak, Norgay’s son, Jamling Tenzing Norgay, was also part of the expedition. In 1990, Peter and Edmund Hillary became the first father and son duo to ascend Mount Everest successfully.

Edmund Hillary passed away in 2008, and the outpouring of love and respect for the man was felt throughout the world. A true adventurer, Hillary touched the lives of many. He used his milestones and engaging public persona to raise funds for communities that desperately needed assistance.

The legacy this adventurer has left behind is legendary. His charity work still lives on, increasing awareness of the plight of poor communities in the countries he travelled to, as well as inspiring climbers of the past, present, and future. Edmund Hillary showed the world that a young, gangly boy with a big dream can achieve monumental milestones. All it takes is determination and passion.

Statue of Edmund Hillary overlooking Mount Cook, NZ. Photo by Johnathon Keelty

Shah Abbas and The Remaking of an Empire

Shah Abbas I

The first time I visited Esfahan, I was captivated by a slogan flashing on a neon sign outside my hotel window every night. Esfahan, nesf-e jahan, it proclaimed to the dark neighborhood: Esfahan – half the world. The words had me imagining a cosmopolitan metropolis whose streets were filled with traders from around the world, intellectuals arguing the finer points of philosophy in a cacophony of languages, tourists thronging museums, mosques, and palaces. In reality, I didn’t see a single foreigner (besides myself) in all the days my husband and I spent exploring the city.

But there was a time when Esfahan’s bold claim did ring true. Five hundred years ago, it was the heart of a vibrant empire, an economic, cultural, and political powerhouse built by an ambitious and visionary king.

Shah Abbas I, who ruled Iran from 1587 to 1629 during the Safavid Dynasty, was sixteen when he seized power in a coup against his father, Mohamed Mirza, a weak-willed monarch who had allowed the country to descend into political chaos. Shah Mohamed had sat by as the Ottomans seized vast territories in the west, and he ceded much of the northeastern Khorasan province to the Uzbeks. Infighting between the powerful Qizilbash tribesmen, who governed the provinces and controlled the military, undermined the government’s central authority.

The new king set about rectifying his father’s mistakes, ruling Iran with a keen sense of military strategy, political savvy, and a combination of compassion and ruthlessness. He beat back the Ottomans and Uzbeks, strengthened central authority, reformed the military and government institutions, opened up trade with the West, and launched what is now recognized as the Golden Age of Iranian art and culture.

Naghsh-e Jahan Square, Esfahan

In 1597, Shah Abbas relocated his capital from the northern city of Qazvin to the more centrally situated Esfahan, which was better suited for overseeing his empire (encompassing present day Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey) and afforded more convenient access to the southern trading ports. He built a new city, partly with the help of Armenian artisans he’d forcibly resettled from his northeastern border to areas in the nation’s interior to establish a buffer between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. By depopulating the region, Abbas prevented the Ottomans from using the Armenian villages to launch attacks against Iran. Yes, he could be ruthless.

Shah Abbas’s military, economic, and political strategies were all intertwined and aimed at creating a strong nation. Peace in the border regions brought prosperity that allowed art and culture to flourish. The end to internal strife strengthened the king’s authority and helped fill the royal coffers, which gave Abbas the financial means to establish trade with the West and gain the support of his people. He saw Europe as a natural ally in his ongoing struggle against the Ottomans, and the flourishing silk trade he established with the Dutch and the British melded European economic interests with his own desire for stability.

Contemporary accounts describe Abbas as a highly intelligent and intensely curious man, a compassionate ruler who honored and valued human rights, freedom of religion, and education. He used Christian Armenian merchants to conduct the silk trade with the West on the principle that Europeans would be able to relate better to followers of their own faith. He built universities and hospitals and welcomed foreigners and their ideas to his court, something that would have been unthinkable in the days of his predecessors.

Vank Cathedral, New Julfa, Esfahan
Photo by Raeabileah

Although you could argue that the forcible relocation of Armenians was anything but compassionate (thousands died on the march south), once in Esfahan, these new residents enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and autonomy. Abbas built them their own town named New Julfa and allowed them to largely govern themselves, own property, and practice their religion (he even built them a beautiful cathedral that still stands today) – all notions that were rare among Muslim leaders of the time.

Unfortunately, Abbas’s compassion didn’t extend to his own family. Obsessed with fears that his progeny would overthrow him in a violent coup, he had his eldest son assassinated and two others blinded. According to the beliefs of the time, a blind man could not become king.

Subsequent Iranian rulers undermined many of Shah Abbas’s accomplishments, and the country again lost vast territories in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, this time to Afghanistan and Russia. But the ghost of this charismatic Safavid leader lives on in Esfahan, where the blue-tiled mosques and richly decorated palaces he built still sparkle in the desert sun, and his ornate bridges link two halves of the city across the Zayandeh Rud, a river (aptly named the Giver of Life) that snakes through the arid landscape. The city may not be host to half the world anymore, but it does mark a milestone in Iranian history – when a charismatic monarch unified his fragmented nation under the banner of religious tolerance and prosperity.

Off The Beaten Track: An Eskimo Whaling Adventure

Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, writer and editor Shehla Anjum began her life in the United States in the cold climes of South Dakota, where she received a college scholarship. She went on to study biology at the University of Minnesota, public administration at Harvard, and creative writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She now lives in Anchorage, but began her Alaska sojourn in Barrow, the northernmost town in the United States.

A moan of “whoosh, whoosh” echoed in the cold silence after the bowhead whale sank back into the water. It resurfaced, spouted a geyser from its blowhole, arched its back, and disappeared in a slit of water that cleaved the jagged landscape of white and blue ice. I saw that whale, and dozens more, during a weekend as a guest cook at an Inupiat Eskimo spring whaling camp near Barrow, Alaska, about three decades ago. I had lived in Barrow, the northernmost town in the United States, for nearly two years before I was invited to the camp, a privilege that the Inupiat accord only to few outsiders.

For one magical weekend, I became a silent participant in one of the last primeval experiences still in existence. That visit is probably the most unusual experience of my life.

I began dreaming of travel as a child in Karachi, Pakistan, and made lists of places I wanted to go – London, Paris, the Grand Canyon, the Alps, the Himalayas, Australia, Africa, and so on.  Alaska never entered those dreams. It was for me, as for most, a place of perpetual ice, snow, cold, and Eskimos living in igloos. Still, I ended up not only living in Alaska, but my long stay here began at the “Top of the World” in Barrow.

A close up of the ice boulders that we had to pick
our way through. They are formed by the pressure
of the pack ice pushing against the shorefast ice.

Every spring, the Inupiat of Alaska’s coastal villages ready for a harvest of bowhead whales in a tradition going back more than a thousand years. Bowheads come closest to shore during spring migration to Canadian Arctic feeding grounds. They travel through areas of open water, known as leads, formed when the ice pack begins separating from the shorefast ice, which is the ice that forms from the shore and beyond, beginning in the fall. Inupiat hunt bowheads from camps set up on the shorefast ice next to the open water. These whales are an integral part of the Inupiat diet and cultural identity, and learning to hunt them is a rite of passage for young Inupiat men.

On a Saturday in early May, I huddled amid camping gear piled on a sled behind a snow machine in a caravan of three or four. A couple sleds carried umiaks, boats made from walrus skin used for the hunt. I was one of only two women accompanying our host, Ralph Aveoganna, a Barrow whaling captain. Only men go out to land whales, but women help out by cooking and performing other domestic chores. Dixie, an Inupiat woman, and I went along that day as the designated helpers for the crew of eight Inupiat men.

We traveled on a perfect Arctic day of clear skies, about 20 degrees (Fahrenheit), and constant light. Our trail to the camp, about 14 miles from Barrow, lay through a landscape with a geography all its own. Smooth stretches that sparkled like diamond dust. Rough patches strewn with ice boulders of clear aquamarines and opaque moonstones. Snow dunes carved by the wind. Miniature mountain ranges and palisades heaved up by the embrace of the shifting ice pack and shorefast ice.

A crew from Barrow paddling in their umiak
along the shorefast ice.

After traveling about 12 miles on the ice past the shore, we halted at the edge of a lead. Ralph and the crew put the umiaks in the water and loaded them up with supplies and camping gear. We set out for camp with the snowmachines following along on the ice.

At the campsite, Ralph chose a spot about 25 feet back from the lead, where we quickly set up the tent we’d use for cooking, sleeping, and warming up. Dixie and I fired up the Coleman stove, put water on for tea, and started rummaging for lunch supplies. The men began their whale watch crouched by an umiak, standing behind an ice fence they’d erected at the ice edge, or from seats carved into tall ice boulders. We spoke in hushed tones so any nearby whales wouldn’t hear us.

The whaling campsite on the shorefast ice, next to the lead.

When I went out with a tray of tea and hot chocolate, I noticed one of the crew paddling an umiak toward the ice pack. A gunshot shattered the quiet. The crew forgot the code of silence and whooped with delight. An unlucky young seal had lost its life. No need for sandwiches or soup now.

I stood in shock, not sure if I should cheer or cry at the death of that seal, who happened to show up at the wrong place and time. I ate the game meat my Inupiat friends shared with me, but I had never seen an animal being killed.

I had little time to reflect on my feelings. The hunter returned and stepped onto the ice. A young seal dangled from one hand. I stood frozen, and watched him skin and cut up the seal. When he was nearly done, he looked at me.

I swallowed hard and went to the tent to fetch a pot. Still in shock, with a pot of steaming chunks of dark meat in hand, I returned to the tent. Dixie put on a pot of rice and asked me to cook the seal, which I sautéed with oil, soy sauce, and black pepper. An hour later, we ate an impromptu feast on the Arctic ice. My lingering hesitation about eating the seal disappeared at the first bite of the meat, which tasted like tender lamb.

When I returned outside after lunch, one of the whalers clambered down from an ice boulder, about 20 feet high and five feet back from the lead, and I took his seat. I settled in and began scanning the lead from his lookout post. Bowheads bobbed up in the lead all afternoon. The crew scrambled if one seemed within striking distance, but by late afternoon, the crew still hadn’t come close enough to any they could attempt to land.

In my ice cubby, I sat marveling at my surroundings and my small part in the rites of an ancient tradition. For a long while, I was in a state of suspended animation until I heard urgent whispers below me and saw the crew prepare to board the umiaks. In the distance, two dark figures rose in unison and blew spouts taller than all the other whales we’d seen that day. They swam and dove in slow motion. Unlike previous forays, the entire crew, except Dixie and myself, went out this time. A lone darting gun rested on the ice below me.

(Photo by the U.S. National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration)

Transfixed, I watched the whales’ ballet and the crew’s movement. A part of me didn’t want the dance to end, but another wanted the whalers to succeed. I wrestled with sadness about the whales’ demise and elation that the crew would get their whale, two in fact, which they’d share with the rest of their village.

Shehla and a member of the whaling crew,
standing next to an umiak.

A loud, sudden whoosh made me shift my gaze nearer to the camp. I saw a black hillock sinking  into the ocean. A few seconds later that hillock – a bowhead, about 50 feet long – thrust its head out of the water, nearly dousing me. It swam unhurriedly and methodically about 10 feet from me and seemed in no hurry to move along. Nearby, Dixie let out a moan of disappointment. The darting gun sat unused on the ice.

The pair of whales farther out had gone. The crew – gun and harpoon ready at the bow of the umiak – was now frantically moving toward the whale in front of the camp.

The whale taunted the whalers for a good four or five minutes. When they were almost within striking distance, it let out a large blow, displayed a large swath of its back, slapped the water with its tail. And slipped away. Yet another one gone.

The umiak returned, and the subdued crew disembarked. Ralph noticed the darting gun on the ice. He pointed to it and teased me for not catching a whale. I smiled, enjoying the compliment that he was accepting me as one of them, but also relieved I had not seen any of the whales meet their end.

In fact, the crew never did not land a whale during my weekend with them. They got one the next weekend, when I wasn’t there. At that summer’s Nalukataq, the festival held after the whaling season, Ralph Aveoganna announced my name as part of his crew and gave me a portion of the whale. I received not only muktuk (whale blubber) but also the highly desirable whale flipper that I shared with my Inupiat friends in Barrow.

An Eskimo dance group from Barrow

I sometimes wonder if that large whale whose long dance I can’t forget is still swimming around or is now part of someone else’s memory of a successful whale hunt.