Comics Explained: Mysterio

Mysterio in Spider-Man/Deadpool #2

One of Spider-Man's major, and memorial, villains Mysterio is a prime choice for the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home. Once ranked the eight-fifth greatest comic book villain by IGN he has been a recurring foe for New York based superheroes. Today we'll be looking at some memorial moments from the main Mysterio's appearances (there has been more than one Mysterio) to see why he is such a high-regarded Spider-Man foe.

Real-World Origins

The Amazing Spider-Man #13

As can be expected Mysterio first appeared in a Spider-Man comic: The Amazing Spider-Man #13 from 1964. That year was a big year for Spider-Man seeing the introduction of: Electro, the Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and the Sinister Six. Like most of Spider-Man's comics he was created by the Steve Ditko-Stan Lee partnership; quite likely Ditko was more behind Mysterio. Ditko was very much interested in surreal characters and imagery which Mysterio fits perfectly. Evidentally Ditko was proud of creating Mysterio stating on the front cover: We've done it! We've created the greatest villain of all for 'ol Spidey! However, Mysterio's first appearance was later retconned to the earlier The Amazing Spider-Man #2 - in this story a villain called the Tinkerer had used realistic alien costumes and props as a way to take control of New York. This was retconned so Mysterio was the one who made the realistic aliens.

Origins

An example of Mysterio's powers in Amazing Spider-Man #66-67

Mysterio, Quentin Beck, was a special-effects master and stunt-actor from Hollywood but wanted to be so much more. Unfortunately for Beck, he lacked the talent to be an actor, and lacked the patience to be a director his attempts at fame were snatched from him. Jokingly, a friend suggested that to become famous quickly you had to be a costumed superhero, however, Beck realised that with his skills at special effects he could become a villain. Developing his famous fish-bowl helmet, a hallucinogenic gas, and state-of-the-art robotics he moved to New York to see if he could take down, and then replace, Spider-Man. After helping the Tinkerer he decided to adopt his own identity - Mysterio. In Amazing Spider-Man #13 reports emerged that Spider-Man had been robbing establishments leading Peter Parker to fear that he had developed a disorder at the worst time possible: Aunt May was struggling to find money to cover a mortgage payment. Mysterio appeared at the Daily Bugle in a puff of smoke declaring that he is a new hero aiming to bring down Spider-Man, and as he left in another puff of smoke a note appeared challenging Spider-Man to a duel on Brooklyn Bridge. Spider-Man accepted but was easily defeated by Mysterio's hallucinogenic abilities, gadgets, and a seeming ability to replicate Spider-Man's powers. Heralded as a hero Mysterio agreed to a publicity shoot at the Bugle where Parker managed to place a tracker on the new 'hero'. Spider-Man tracked him to his base where he found out that Mysterio was the true culprit - the two fought again after Spider-Man managed to record Beck's confession, and this time he used his spider-senses to counteract Mysterio's gas. 

Mysterio reappeared later that year in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 as one of the founding members of the Sinister Six - in fact Mysterio coined their team name. Dr Octopus realised that alone he could not defeat Spider-Man, but united with other villains they would be able to beat him so he brought together five other villains - the Vulture, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, Sandman, and Electro. Octopus would kidnap Bugle reporter Betty Brant, whom he knew was close to Spider-Man, and Aunt May who was visiting her - the other five villains would distract Spider-Man and, in theory, wear him down. Mysterio was the fourth villain that Spider-Man fought - he built robots versions of the X-Men to battle Spider-Man. However, the robots were defeated by Spider-Man, Mysterio was defeated, and Spider-Man went on to defeat the last two members of the Sinister Six.

Other Appearances

Mysterio's usage of gadgets and the possibility for surreal stories thanks to his hallucinogenic gas made Mysterio a popular character throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Spider-Man replaced the Fantastic Four as Marvel's big publication so Mysterio went from a major Spider-Man villain to a major Marvel villain. One unique storyline was the introduction of Mysterio's alternate life as Dr. Ludwig Reinhart; Mysterio was also a skilled hypnotist which helped with his mind-altering techniques. In Amazing Spider-Man #24 Peter Parker overheard Dr Reinhart telling J. Jonah Jameson that Spider-Man will eventually develop a split-personality: the spider and human half would inevitably clash. When Peter changed into Spider-Man he suddenly saw Dr Octopus, Vulture, and Sandman who disappear just as quickly as they appeared. Fearing these visions might lead him to attacking civilian he decided to finally see Reinhart for help, however, when he arrived the doctor's house had the room flipped upside down. During the consultancy visions of his enemies kept appearing so Reinhart starts convincing him to remove his mask. Jameson, and Parker's bully but Spider-Man admirer Flash, realised that something was up and broke into the house revealing that the furniture was actually nailed to the ceiling. Tackling Reinhart they revealed that it was really Mysterio underneath a realistic face mask.

Mysterio in The Amazing Spider-Man 

There are other interesting stories featuring Mysterio's surreal powers. My personal favourite in in The Amazing Spider-Man #66-67 where he used his hypnotic powers and hallucinogenic gas to convince Spider-Man that he was only six inches high! However, other times Mysterio went into dark territory in order to mentally break Spider-Man, including: faking his own death, faking Aunt May's death, and convincing Spider-Man that his actions caused the death of a bystander. Spider-Man always came out on top with Mysterio's image of a serious threat being dented - especially as other villains, like Green Goblin, had managed to hurt Spider-Man so much more. His reputation was entirely destroyed with Power Pack #55. The Power Pack are a superhero team of children, and when their building was seemingly haunted it turned out that Mysterio was causing it as part of a retail scheme. Being defeated by literal children completely destroyed his reputation until the late-1990s when Marvel wrote a dark tale...

Guardian Devil

Daredevil Vol. 2 #7

In the late-1990s, with Marvel going bankrupt thanks to the comic book crash, Marvel experimented with several new lines of comics. One such was Marvel Knights; instead of focusing on long-term stories Marvel Knights would focus on stand-alone stories. One of the characters to be brought into Marvel Knights was Daredevil which with Daredevil Vol. 2 #1-8 brought two legendary figures together. The first was comic book fan and movie director Kevin Smith, of Clerks and Mallrats fame, and legendary artist Joe Quesada who had worked on everything from Batman to Spider-Man. Marvel Knights proved to be so successful that Quesada became Marvel's editor-in-chief. Anyway, in Daredevil #1 he is given a baby born through immaculate conception, and is told that the child is the Anti-Christ by a man called Nicholas Macabes - something deeply troubling for the recently devout Catholic Matt Murdock. Macabes left a crucifix for Matt, but his life started falling apart soon after. His former lover Karen Page discovered that she was HIV-positive from her time in the porn industry and addicted to drugs, his best friend Foggy Nelson is accused of murdering a woman he was having an affair with, and Matt started becoming uncontrollably violent when people suggested that the infant was not the Anti-Christ. Desperate for help he sought Dr Strange who informed him that the crucifix was emitting a drug, and that the child was not a demon (albeit with the help of the demon lord Mephisto). However, the church where he left the baby was soon attacked by the assassin Bullseye who killed Karen to get to the baby. Devastated, Daredevil almost commit suicide but he opted to track Macabes instead who turned out to be Mysterio. After being released early from prison due to a brain tumour caused by his equipment he decided to destroy a hero. He wanted to destroy Spider-Man but opted against it because he incorrectly believed that Spider-Man was a clone - the Clone saga was confusing even for Marvel characters. Buying information on Daredevil from the Kingpin he had a girl artificially inseminated without her knowing, faked Karen's test, drugged Foggy, and drugged Matt. He then wanted Matt to kill him for what he had done, but Matt refused calling it a 'B-movie plan' and that Kingpin had already attempted to drive him insane. Mysterio opted to copy Kraven - after he had defeated Spider-Man he had killed himself - and killed himself. The dark, and very controversial story which Marvel has tried to forget, did have a happy ending - the baby went to live with a loving family.

The Other Mysterios

The Second Mysterio

In 1975 with The Amazing Spider-Man #141-142 a second Mysterio was introduced. After Quentin Beck seemingly died in an attempt to escape prison J. Jonah Jameson decided to use it to bring down Spider-Man. Hiring a stunt-man called Daniel Berkhart, who had worked with the original, and obtaining the original suit he wanted Berkhart to 'haunt' Spider-Man as the ghost of Beck. However, Spider-Man soon defeated the second Mysterio who, possibly, lied about being given Beck's costume and decided to get revenge for his predecessor's imprisonment. The comic ended with Berkhart demanding Jameson get him a lawyer or he would tell the police about the editor's involvement - something writers forgot about and still haven't mentioned since. After the original's actual death Mysterio kept appearing and fans wondered, is it Berkhart? It has since been confirmed that Berkhart was the second Mysterio, however, he also took up the mantle of Jack O'Lantern. Unfortunately for Berkhart, the newest Jack O'Lantern in 2012's Venom Vol. 2 #11 said that he killed all the past Jack O'Lanterns meaning that he is likely dead. A third Mysterio, a mutant able to teleport called Francis Klum, appeared in the very controversial Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil that Men Do (due to Klum being sexually abused and then forced to be involved in drugs, all by his older brother). Like Berkhart, after his initial appearance he rarely featured in comics and was seemingly killed off. The fourth Mysterio is still nameless - an unnamed African-American man bought Mysterio's costume before changing it to become Mysterion. 

The Original's Return

The Return of the Original

In The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #12 the original Mysterio returned back from the dead with half his head missing from his gunshot to confront the second and third Mysterios attacking Peter Parker's school. However, in The Amazing Spider-Man #618 when he re-adopted his old moniker he claimed that he had faked his death - comics can get confusing. Even more confusingly he managed to find an entrance to a parallel version of his world - Earth-1610, the Ultimate Universe. Utilising an android resembling himself he sent it into the Ultimate Universe to create a footing in the New York underworld. He even murdered the Ultimate version of Kingpin in order to take over his former territory but he was constantly defeated by the Ultimate Spider-Man - regardless of reality Spider-Man also bested him. That is, until Spider-Man was killed. This brings us onto Spider-Men.  With the Ultimate Peter Parker dead he hoped to properly muscle in on the underworld. The mainstream Peter Parker saw Mysterio up to something in his original universe, and was accidentally transported to the Ultimate Universe where he clashed with the new Spider-Man. After the initial clash, and Peter trying to understand that he's dead in the new reality, they had to deal with Mysterio. With his Spider-Man in the Ultimate Universe he planned to trap Parker there. He would have succeeded if not for his own hubris - assured of victory he briefly opened the portal to check where Parker was allowing him back through. Since then Mysterio has remained a constant villain against Spider-Man.

Beck did retire for some time. After he was defeated by both Spider-Man and Deadpool in 2016's Spider-Man/Deadpool #5 he decided to retire to Las Vegas stating: I'm done. Mysterio is dead, and may he rot in Hell. God knows I've done it before. His retirement didn't last long. In Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider he was caught up in a plot where his daughter planned to sacrifice him in order to obtain the power of Cyttorak - a demon/god entity. Such a popular villain of Marvel's most popular hero could not stay retired permanently though. The story is still ongoing, it only started mid-2018, but we may finally get to see who revived Mysterio from the grave. The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5 #1 showed just how powerful Mysterio is: he managed to create images of an alien invasion so convincing that every major hero came out to fight them. He wanted to be more than just a street-level villain constantly beaten by Spider-Man - after all he had almost took over the New York of a parallel reality - and wanted to be treated in the same light as a villain like Dr Doom. His lawyer, the Beetle a.k.a Janice Lincoln, told him to claim insanity. He was only convinced when he saw his master in the corner...

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Left-Wing and The 'Other' History: Introduction and The Spartacist Uprising

A Spartacist militia in Berlin during the Uprising

This is a new series which I have wanted to do for a long time. I have a great interest in the far-left and looking at history from below - present-day subaltern studies has its origins with the Marxist Antonio Gramsci so there is some overlap. Just like World History we will be looking at and explaining the history of the Left including individuals, movements, events, books, and ideas. However, I also want to look at the history of 'The Other': groups marginalised in society and how they managed to find their voice, or survive in human history. As my own speciality is 'early modern' and 'modern' history - and modern Left/Right concepts are just over two hundred years old - we will mostly look at history since the 1600s. To also avoid confusion I will delineate between which posts cover Left-wing history, 'the Other', or both. This post will look at Left-wing history.

As of writing, it has just been the centenary of the Spartacist Uprising. Coming at the end of the First World War as various socialist and working-class revolts broke out in Germany, partially inspired by the Russian Revolution, and the Spartacists led one in Berlin. Led by the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, among others, the Spartacists hope to bring socialism to Germany, but they were crushed by the Freikorps - a far-right militia allied to the newly formed government. 

Luxemburg and Liebknecht

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg is perhaps one of the best known German Marxist thinkers since the death of Marx and Engels themselves. She has been celebrated by individuals across the world and history: in 2003 Dr Zweledinga Pallo Jordan of the ANC in South Africa quoted her when commemorating the murder of anti-Apartheid activist Chris Hani; the People's Republic of China has hosted several international conferences on her; and Dr Sobhanlal Datta of the University of Calcutta has broken from traditional Indian leftism to honour Luxemburg. Born in 1871 in Zamosc, Russian Poland to Jewish parents growing up speaking Yiddish, and her liberal and well-read parents ensured that she got a good education. Most likely thanks to intense antisemitism in 1874 the family moved to Warsaw where the anonymity of a city could offer Jews some measure of safety. However, thanks to antisemitism they lived close to the former Jewish quarter and started making themselves appear 'less Jewish': the parents started 'assimilating' at a faster rate, began speaking less Yiddish, and started wearing clothes from Western Europe. Many other Jewish families also began this process. At the age of ten she managed to enter the Russian Second Gymnasium for Girls in spite of the harder entrance exams which Jews had to take. Quoting Paul Frolich she had to face the triple 'yoke of oppression': a Jew facing antisemitism, the shackles of tsarism, and living in Poland facing Russian imperialism. Furthermore, society was very patriarchal adding a fourth form of oppression. This installed in her a strong sense of oppression and justice, a poem she wrote stated: I want to burden the conscience of the affluent with all the suffering and all the hidden, bitter tears. In 1886, while still in school, she joined the Proletariat Party and even helped organise a strike, but the party was banned in 1887 so she continued at meetings in secret. With the young Rosa immersed in socialist politics the began a lifelong career of activism.

She would later move to Zurich to attend university there, obtaining a doctorate in Public Law and Political Science in 1898, where she became immersed in Marxist literature. Many Marxists and socialists had fled, or were exiled, to Switzerland, including Georgi Plekhanov, an individual whom Lenin credited with helping form Russian socialism. As a result, it was very easy for Luxemburg to come into contact with far-left theories, and she soon became noted for her strong criticisms of not only capitalism but also fellow Marxists. Her criticism of Lenin's What is to be Done? (1902) found its roots in her time criticising other Marxists. While in Zurich she wrote consistently for the German journal Die Neue Zeit and helped form the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) with fellow expatriate (and lover) Leo Jogiches. Luxemburg had Germany on her mind. Europe's continental political and economic powerhouse with a strong labour movement, despite the attempts to crush it by Otto von Bismarck. The Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was one of the largest parties in Europe with a million members, and, quoting J.P. Nettl, 'German trade unionism was the creature of the political party'. By 1898 Germany was attracting Marxists from across Europe, however, Rosa faced discrimination: a woman, a Polish Jew, short, and she walked with a limp. She had to fight hard to be respected in the SPD's ranks and managed to become one of the party's main thinkers. Her speeches won her respect from miners and workers at Konigshutte, Katscher, and Gleiwitz, and her later speeches attracted mass crowds in 1905 and 1914.

Karl Liebknecht

Karl Liebknecht is often overlooked when discussing the Spartacists, largely thanks to the presence of Luxemburg: she had to overcome so much more, wrote much more, and was very active in working-class strikes stemming from her time in school. Nevertheless, Liebknecht was highly influential in the German Marxist movement. Born to one of the SPD's founders, Wilhelm Liebknecht, in 1871 he grew up heavily influenced by Marxist theory. The SPD was regularly under attack from conservative governments and was actually banned, and Wilhelm had taken part in the failed Frankfurt Assembly during the 1848 Revolution. Like his father Karl started exposing Marxist ideas when he started studying law and political economy at Leipzig and Humboldt University in Berlin. Eventually, in 1897, he earned his doctorate from Wurzburg becoming a lawyer with his brother when they moved to Berlin in 1899. Karl proved essential to the German Marxist movement defending fellow SPD members in court when they were charged for translating and exporting leftist material to Russia. He was also active in the international left-wing movement. One reason why Karl was so eager to defend SPD members for sending Marxist literature to Russia was due to him also sending the literature. Karl got involved in the Second International, an attempt to unite labour and Marxist movements, and helped found the Socialist Youth International.

The German Left before 1917

SPD activists in 1919

To understand the Spartacists we have to understand how the German Left functioned before they were formed. When the SPD first entered the German Reichstag it already terrified the ruling classes - revolutionary language evoked imagery of 1848 and SPD co-founder August Bebel in 1871 openly praised the Paris Commune in the Reichstag. Russian anarchists assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881 which made the radical Left seem much more than utopian idealists speaking revolution with no intention of bringing it about. Originally, Bismarck's anti-socialist bill was rejected by other parties, but an attempt on the life of the German emperor ensured a bill was passed by 221 votes to 149. Despite officially banning socialist parties and meetings the movement continued on - as did Catholic meetings who also faced persecution under Bismarck's rule - and thrived underground. Although the socialist vote dropped from 493,000 in 1877 to 312,000 in 1880 it soon rose again to 550,000 in 1884. Socialism's emancipatory rhetoric also attracted minorities - such as Jews and Poles - but the SPD largely remained Christian German dominated. Being driven underground had made the SPD a well-organised, mass party and the envy of the international Left - the socialists were so popular that Bismarck had to plant the seeds of today's welfare state in order to try and undercut them. Nevertheless, German working-class agitation remained strong and this would be essential in years to come. Meanwhile, the SPD remained divided between radicals and moderates, as well as between Germans and non-Germans. 

Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in 1910

Among the radicals included Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Clara Zetkin. In 1907 Liebknecht published his best known work, Militarism and Anti-Militarism, where he argued that war is used to profit the capitalist classes so by maintaining the military it retains their power, and the harsh actions against dissenting soldiers and anti-war activists are related to the threat to this power. Due to this he was imprisoned - thanks to Bismarck German nationalism placed much emphasis on the military - and was actually elected to the Reichstag while still in prison. Luxemburg, meanwhile, wrote extensively on the need to support mass strikes, and how Marxists (and the SPD) should not abandon revolutionary struggle as advocated by Eduard Bernstein in Reform or Revolution (1899). Due to alienation thanks to her being a Jewish woman from Poland Luxemburg had to fight to be heard, and formed close friendships with fellow Marxist women including Zetkin, Sonya Liebknecht, and Luise Kautsky - the wife of the SPD's chief theoretician Karl Kautsky whom Rosa often clashed with. Fearing marginalisation in a male dominated party Luxemburg and Zetkin spoke little on 'the women question' - women's suffrage - but they made their viewpoint clear: the current suffrage movement sidelined working-class women. In a 1912 speech she urged class and gender to come together, 'Fighting for women's suffrage, we will also hasten the coming hour when the present society falls in ruins under the hammer strokes of the revolutionary proletariat.' Luxemburg is particularly known for her critiques of what would become Marxism-Leninism - in her view Lenin's advocacy of a vanguard party leading the working-class was the antithesis of a proletariat revolution. While in prison (later published in 1922) she wrote that 'the rule of the Bolsheviks in Russia is a distorted expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat.' Although Lars Lih has argued that Luxemburg never actually read What is to be Done? her writings regardless shows her idea of what a socialist state should be compared to Lenin's: less focus on centralised leadership in favour of a classless democracy. 

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of "justice" but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when "freedom" becomes a special privilege... But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism.

In 1914 the First World War broke out and it divided the German Left as it did elsewhere. Despite the Second International opposing the war - seeing it as a war between empires costing the lives of the working-class - the SPD voted in support of war bonds. Radical members abstained and despite also abstaining Karl Kautsky angered radicals by suggesting that, although deplorable, the war was a defensive one against tsarist Russia. Ten months later he changed his mind, but his initial stance offered a mark against his name. With the SPD even suggesting that it would prevent strikes Luxemburg came close to suicide feeling that all her ideas had been prevented from occurring. Using his position in the Reichstag Liebknecht virulently denounced the war effort. Opposing the war Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Zetkin, and Franz Mehring formed Die Internationale to push back against the support for the war in August which evolved into the Spartacist League in January 1916. The Spartacists were named after the famed Roman gladiator 'Spartacus' who led a slave uprising. Both Die Internationale and the Spartacists were made illegal for their criticisms of the war in pamphlets signed off as 'Spartacus' or 'Junius' (for Luxemburg) after a founder of the Roman Republic. The German government ignored its own laws about preventing politicians from conscription by sending Liebknecht to the eastern front for his criticisms. He refused to fight, opting to bury bodies, and was soon removed from the front due to ill health. The SPD kept its words - strikes were prevented, but it really did not need to do so, the war was genuinely popular in the early years. Radicals did protest the war resulting in their imprisonment - while in prison Liebknecht and Luxemburg wrote some of their best work. Despite this, the Spartacist League continued underground and aligned with the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) who were pacifists, like Hugo Haase, angered by the SPD's continued support of the war so split in 1917. Then in November 1917 the Bolsheviks took power in Russia which would change everything.

The November Revolutions

An image of sailors during the Kiel Mutiny

Although the November Revolution in Russia soon devolved into a brutal Civil War it offered a symbol: one of hope for the downtrodden, one of despair for the ruling classes. At the same time the war was going badly for Germany: thousands had died fighting with little results to show for it, rationing was constricting everyday life, and the British blockade was preventing the importation of much needed food and medical supplies. The Spanish Influenza epidemic was so severe in Germany as rationing and the blockade weakened immune systems the flu turned extremely deadly. As support for the government dropped Spartacist and USPD pamphlets started to get a larger audience. A conference on 7 October 1918 called for an end to the compulsory labour laws, release political prisoners, nationalise major industries, democratise the military, transfer food to workers, and annul war loans. Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) published an issue on 5 November 1918 which caused the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Stuttgart demanding a peace obtained from a government ran by the proletariat. When Chancellor of Germany, Prince Maximilian of Baden in October issued an amnesty releasing political prisoners a crowd of workers supposedly led Liebknecht directly to the Soviet assembly. He immediately started advocating revolt, such as in a speech in November saying:

 Lay down your weapons, you soldiers at the front. Lay down your tools, you workers at home. Do not let yourselves be deceived any longer by your rulers, the lip patriots, and the munitions profiteers. Rise with power and seize the reins of government. Yours is the force. To you belongs the right to rule. Answer the call for freedom and win your own war for liberty.

The spark for revolt came from the navy. A naval order on October 24 ordered the navy to set sail to clash with the Royal Navy in the English Channel. On the night of October 29 sailors revolted at Schillig Roads, but on November 3 the larger Kiel Mutiny began. Mutinying sailors made alliances with the local unions, SPD, and USPD and took over Kiel. An SPD politician, Gustav Noske, was sent by the government (which was in the coalition) to take control of the mutiny, but he was welcomed regardless. Seeing that around 40,000 had took over Kiel revolt spread across Germany inspired by both Kiel and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Local princes fled as on November 7 and 8 workers' and soldiers' councils were established in Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Frankfurt, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Hanover, Nuremburg, and Stuttgart. A socialist state was even declared in Bavaria under Kurt Eisner. Seeing his empire crumble around him Kaiser Wilhelm II fled and a fragile republic declared.

The Spartacist Uprising

At the end of December revolution was in the air and several leftist politicians and societies formed the Communist Party (KPD). The SPD was in power under Friedrich Ebert who became Germany's first president, and he was no radical. Ebert's politics were set very much against more radical socialism - he believed reform could bring about socialism. In the last few years Bernie Sanders (in the US) and Jeremy Corbyn (in the UK) have been described as representing Ebert's side of the SPD - it is an oversimplification but it is useful for a basic understanding. Emil Eichhorn, a USPD member, was dismissed as Chief of Police due to his support for Berlin radicals. The Prussian SPD (the state which Berlin belonged to) had issued a campaign in the papers calling for his dismissal beforehand. This made radicals fearful that the SPD would soon move against them. Eichhorn's successor, Eugen Ernst, after the Uprising said to the Manchester Guardian: a success of the Spartacists was a priori impossible; we forced them to resort to force prematurely because of our preparations. They had to fight before they were ready and therefore we were in a position to challenge them successfully. On Sunday 5 January a mass, and armed, demonstration protested outside the police headquarters at the Alexanderplatz, and occupation of SPD papers, including Vorwärts. Leaders of the Spartacists soon gathered at the Alexanderplatz and Liebknecht demanded a revolution, much to the disagreement of other leaders, including Luxemburg, who viewed a revolution as being premature due to the KPD only being recently formed. 

A Spartacist poster from 1919 - a Spartacist slays a hydre of Kapitalismus (capitalism), Junkertum (Junkers, Prussian landed nobility), and Neuer Militarismus (new militarism)

Liebknecht and several others the next day declared that the government was deposed by 'the representatives of the revolutionary socialist workers and soldiers (USPD and KPD)'. On January 7 the KPD and USPD called for a general strike, which attracted 500,000 participants, and key buildings were soon seized. The strike leaders, the Revolutionary Committee, remained divided between revolutionaries wanting the government deposed and reformers wanting to negotiate. The Committee soon found that the military, unlike in Kiel, remained loyal to the state and the KPD resigned in protest to the USPD inviting Ebert to negotiate. Soon enough the Uprising was soon crushed. In Vorwärts a flyer proudly declared 'The hour of reckoning is coming soon!' as the USPD started negotiating with Ebert. The SPD had made an alliance with the conservatives in Germany and struck an alliance with the Freikorps - this was a far-right paramilitary organisation made of veterans wanting revenge on those blamed on causing their defeat in the war. They disliked the SPD but loathed the communists. Many of their members would later fill up the ranks of the Nazis and their paramilitary force, the SA. Freikorps forces wiped out the Spartacists, and murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht on January 15 - their bodies were dumped in the Landwehr Canal. The Spartacist Uprising had been crushed.

Legacy and Conclusion

Although the Spartacists were crushed socialist uprisings continued until 1920 where most were crushed by the SPD's alliance with the Freikorps. With the execution, exile, or imprisonment of the KPD's, and the success of Lenin, Marxist-Leninist's took over the party, although some of the older members remained like Clara Zetkin. The socialist uprisings were just one event which fed into the 'stab-in-the-back-myth' - Right-wing Germans argued that Germany didn't lose the war, subversives had stolen victory from them. Due to Jewish presence in the KPD anti-socialism and antisemitism came together with this myth. Despite the Spartacist defeat their legacy lives on - particularly with Luxemburg. Managing to become a driving force in a misogynistic, antisemitic, and ableist world earns respect, and her death at a young age (47) made her a martyr. Her ideas also offered valuable insight into democratic Marxism and intersectionality (between class and gender), and I would consider her one of the biggest contributors to my own politics. Today, at the sight where she was murdered there is a memorial to her (although sadly not Liebknecht), and there are streets in Berlin named after both - albeit that is thanks to the post-war East German state. Liebknecht's Militarism and Anti-Militarism found a new audience in 2003 with the Iraq War as what he wrote a century prior was still found to be true. Although the Spartacists were quickly crushed their legacy and ideas live on.

The Luxemburg Memorial in Berlin from when I visited in August 2018

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Eric Waldman, The Spartacist Uprising of 1919, and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement: A Study of the Relation of Political Theory and Party Practice, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958)

-Paul Le Blanc and Helen C. Scott, (eds.), Socialism or Barbarism: The Selected Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, (London: Pluto Press, 2010)

-William Carr, A History of Germany, 1815-1985, Third Edition, (London: Edward Arnold, 1987)

-Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg: A Life, (London: Boston, 1987)

-J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 1, (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)

- J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 2, (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)

-Karl Liebknecht, 'Call for Revolution', (1/11/1918), Marxists.org, [Accessed 10/01/2019]

-Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Klara Zetkin and Franz Mehring, 'A Call to the Workers of the World', (25/11/1918), Marxists.org, [Accessed 10/01/2019]

-Karl Liebknecht, Militarism and Anti-Militarism, (Cambridge: Rivers Press Limited, 1973)

Thank you for reading. We will, eventually, have a full page of these posts which you can look at here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: The Revolutions of 1848

An 1848 painting by Horace Vernet depicting the revolt in Paris

Today we're looking at the last event in what Eric Hobsbawm characterised as being in the 'Age of Revolution'. Later named the 'Springtime of Peoples' beginning in February 1848 revolution swept over Europe - they remain the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. From nobles to labouring poor the masses rose up against autocracy and inequality, but most were crushed within the year resulting in even more autocratic regimes. However, the ideas of 1848, and the consequences of 1848, would continue on in Europe for much longer.

Origins

Europe in the 1840s was a time of transition. German democrat Victor von Unruh stated that 'We live in transitional times. The old has not yet been overcome, the new is still being born.' The legacy of the French Revolution lived on with its ideas of 'liberty, equality, and brotherhood', as well as the new European order created by the Congress of Vienna. Austrian diplomat Klemens von Metternich helped create a post-Napoleon order where conservative, absolutist powers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia aimed to crush potentially subversive ideas of liberalism, republicanism, socialism, and even nationalism. Regardless these ideas continued to flourish. In 1830 a revolution toppled the autocratic and conservative Bourbon monarchy in France leading to the rise of the July Monarchy under the constitutional monarch Louis-Philippe; however, this monarchy was still repressive and few people could vote and there was another failed revolt in 1832 which featured heavily in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. More radical socialists emerged across Europe and major radicals, such as Karl Marx, were regular sent into exile. National identity started to emerge in divided Germany and Italy, as well as the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. Metternich even tried to use this to his advantage - when Hungarian liberal and nationalist Louis Kossuth was elected to the Diet in the 1830s Metternich ensured that the government started supporting Croatian intellectual Ljudevit Gaj. However, when southern Slav nationalism grew this was withdrew in 1842. The conservative order was being challenged long before 1848 - revolts in France in 1830 and 1832, Galician peasants rose up in 1846, in 1847 bread riots swept Germany, and periodically Britain saw a series of protests by the Chartists who wanted increased suffrage and democracy. 

Eugene Delacroix's Liberty guiding the People depicting 1830

Economic and social issues also played a role in the origins of 1848. Populations started rapidly growing, especially in the cities, but there were issues thanks to harvest failures. This created a domino effect of economic decline - food prices rose, people spent less on manufactured goods, businesses started to collapse and so did the banks. Of course people are aware of inequality when times are good, but it is harder for autocratic regimes to justify themselves when everyone is poorer. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution demographics and economics started changing. Rising industrialisation caused more people to move to the cities, and balance of power shifted. As argued by von Unruh Europe was in transition - using a Marxist stance Europe was transitioning from feudalism to capitalism, or an early-modern economy to our present capitalist one. The old society was giving way to a new one, and naturally problems arose from that. Cholera epidemics are a good example - squalid cities changed thanks to industrialisation made cholera run rampant but states found it hard to deal with them.

Outbreak of Revolt - in Italy

Revolt in Palermo

Often we view the 1848 Revolts as starting in Paris, and the Parisian revolt did offer the spark for continent wide revolt. However, in January our first revolt broke out on Milan. Italy was divided by various states and under the Austrian protection, so nationalism played a role. Austria started taxing Italian states so Milanese nobles started boycotting tobacco on New Year's Day- the most lucrative tax. To frustrate the Milanese the Austrian garrison were encouraged to smoke and on January 3 an Austrian soldiers scuffled with Milanese citizens after a soldier started smoking in someone's face. The 'tobacco riot' led to the deaths of six and the wounding of fifty, and in Venice liberals were arrested in fear that they would also agitate. Not long after a revolt broke out in Sicily. Seeing reforms in Rome by Pius IX and the 'fiercely independent' islanders begrudging the Bourbon monarchy in Naples they decided to celebrate King Ferdinand II's birthday. They built barricades, unfurled an Italian tricolour, and declared 'Long live Italy, the Sicilian Constitution and Pius IX'. Peasants soon joined the revolt and a General Committee was formed under Ruggero Settimo. Hearing the revolt in Sicily the people took to the streets in Naples. Soon enough revolt spread to the Papal States. The once reformist pope Pius IX had started slowing liberal reforms and his own civic guard joined the masses. The revolt in Rome eventually became far more radical, largely thanks to events abroad, and in February 1849 the future unifiers of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Aurelio Saffi and Giuseppe Mazzini, declared the Roman Republic. In France, the revolt was always far more radical.

France

Paris was always a cultural hub of Europe, and there was a joke stating 'When France sneezed Europe caught a cold'. It was thanks to the more radical nature of the French revolt which allowed 1848 to spread. It is quite possible that Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in inspiration from the French revolt. Despite being a constitutional monarchy - and many radicals like Marx, and anarchists including Mikhail Bukharin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon calling it home at some times - the legacy of 1789 made the monarchy very restrictive. Prime Minister Francois Guizot was just one politician who ensured that political discussion remained silenced - insulting the king was banned and one cartoonist joked that pears should be banned as Louis-Philippe resembled one. The suffrage was also very small - only 250,000 could and all were men of wealth. As public meetings were banned 'banquets' were held instead, and Guizot banning of a banquet on 22 February began the revolt. The National Guard, composed of middling and petty bourgeois individuals, joined students and workers (also women) causing a crisis for the Guizot ministry - they had just lost their guard. Guizot resigned, Louis-Philippe panicked and abdicated, and a provisional government was set up in the Hotel de Ville. Although those who made up the representatives were mainly wealthy men their politics were diverse: moderate republicans, dynastic opponents, and even socialists including Louis Blanc and a metalworker called Albert. As what would characterise the 1848 Revolutions after brief success division would splinter the revolt.

Barricades during the June Days

Workers, socialists, and Jacobins feared that 1848 would be a repeat of 1830 - when Louis-Philippe abdicated his son, the Comte de Paris, was made king. Jacobin intellectual, Francois Raspail, marched onto the Hotel on February 25 with a workers' society and got the delegates to declare the Second Republic. Louis and Albert, meanwhile, organised a commission of workers' delegates in the Luxembourg palace to prevent worker exploitation, but it was far less powerful than the Hotel de Ville filled with wealthier individuals. Radical press, political clubs, and the National Guard campaigned for universal manhood suffrage allowing women to become increasingly politicised. Why should only men benefit from the new revolution? Women's clubs and the paper, Voix de Femmes, demanded female suffrage but little came of it. Elections for the new Assembly brought moderates to power angering workers outside of Paris. Louis Blanc had formed National Workshops in order to combat unemployment, but his resignation and failure to properly challenge the issue let the Assembly to start closing them. Angry radicals and workers rose up on June 23 in the 'June Days', but unlike in February the National Guard did as the government wished. Led by Louis Cavaignac the National Guard (numbering 40,000) clashed with even more workers and their families. 10,000 were killed (mostly workers) and 4,000 insurgents exiled to Algeria in what political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville described as 'a class struggle, a sort of servile war'. Marx described the Second Republic as 'the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the sabre'. The French Revolt spread quickly across Europe thanks to the newly emerged modern press and telegraph. American charge d'affairs in Vienna William H. Stiles stated that it 'fell like a bomb amid the states and kingdoms of the Continent: and, like reluctant debtors threatened with legal terrors, the various monarchs hastened to pay their subjects the constitutions which they owed them.'

Habsburg Empire in Revolt

The Habsburg ruled Austrian Empire was prime for revolt. It was struggling to industrialise, intensely conservative, autocratic, and starting to be divided by emerging nationalism. Revolution was proven to be contagious when Metternich resigned. Telegraphs and the Augsburger Zeitung brought news of the abdication of Louis-Philippe to the Austrian Empire, and in the Hungarian Diet Lajos Kossuth, whom we met earlier, declared that 'the pestilent air [of Habsburg absolutism]...dulls our nerves and paralyses our spirit' and that Hungary should be 'independent, national and free from foreign interference'. Kossuth wasn't too radical - he advocated keeping the Emperor as the King of Hungary. Students at the University of Vienna started petitioning for freedom of the press, religion, speech and teaching with participation in government, and a new Germany. In March they started protesting and were joined by workers. Workers, students, men, and women clashed with troops in Vienna and the government decided to dismiss the hated Metternich who fled to Britain. Metternich's resignation opened the floodgate for revolution: Hungarians started moving towards independence, Czech students protested in Prague and formed barricades demanding the implementation of Czech and possible independence, German Jews in Prague (like Ignaz Kuranda in Grenzboten) tried to defend the German minority and Jewish rights, and in Galicia (now Ukraine and Poland) demanded Ukrainian to be taught and implemented. As we shall see, the Habsburg revolts soon became overtaken by counterrevolution.

Revolt in Germany

The Frankfurt Assembly

Like Italy, what would become Germany was divided by various states united by language and a customs union called the Zollverein. The two main powers were Prussia and Austria - the two conservative powers of Central Europe. Inspired by France revolt first broke out in 'Third Germany', the various German states that weren't Prussia or Austria, first in Baden. A common occurrence in these revolts was a rural-urban divide which played out in Baden - attempts to entice peasants failed when they asked 'What does freedom of the press mean to us? Freedom to eat is what we want.' In Cologne the Communist League encouraged artisans to demonstrate in March and across the Rhine insurgents attacked steamships which, in turn, caused propertied liberals to encourage reform. At the start of March Prussia's capital of Berlin saw revolution - students, artisans, and tradespeople gathered in the Tiergarten clashing with troops. Unexpectedly, Frederick William IV agreed to a constitution, free press, and a new assembly - after seeing the same masses who toppled Louis-Philippe and Metternich he feared the same would happen. Clashes still happened causing him to remove the troops and many liberals were soon elected into the new assembly. 

Nationalists, both liberal and radical, hoped to use the 1848 Revolutions to unite Germany so began organising the Frankfurt Assembly - organised in May it was an attempt to unite all of Germany. When we get to nationalism we will again see how early German nationalism could be quite inclusive - if you lived in a German state you were a German in their eyes which caused leading Czech nationalist Frantisek Palacky to reject the offer to attend stating that he spoke Czech, not German. Liberals overwhelmingly were represented in the Frankfurt Assembly - most came from wealthier backgrounds including lawyers, publishers, businessmen (specifically men), and industrialists. The Assembly saw both moderation and radicalism - all were deemed German, Jews were emancipated, and freedom of the press, religion, and speech were guaranteed, but universal suffrage was initially rejected, women were not emancipated, and they wanted Frederick William to be king. The Assembly failed through division between moderates and radicals, and Frederick William refused to accept 'a crown from the gutter'. 

Other Revolts

There are many different revolts which took place in 1848 so we'll just cover a few of them.

Poland - Poland had been divided between several states (Prussia, Russia and Austria) by the end of the 1790s but, of course, this did not destroy Polish national identity. Due to this it was difficult for a Polish national movement to emerge across all the former territories, and as a result other states helped crush revolts. In 1830 Polish nationalists rose up in Russia so Prussia helped crush the revolt. Poland was also being colonised by Prussian farmers and the Prussian state even reversed their antisemitic policies in just that area. To build support among Polish Jews against Poles Prussia started emancipating them - an irony considering in the west Prussia was implementing more antisemitic policies. Thanks to events in Berlin in Poland benefited - exiles could return, prisoners were released, and increased autonomy was granted. Polish reformers refused to work with Jews or Germans alienating them so when an uprising did take place it could only find support from Polish communities. The Prussian army then managed to defeat the uprising and all grants of autonomy were scrapped.

The 'March Days' in Stockholm

Scandinavia and Switzerland - Scandinavia was not immune from revolt. Protesters in Stockholm rioted on March 18 demanding a constitution which were soon dispersed. Denmark in January had been facing liberal and peasant protests so these led to marches for a constitutional monarchy in Copenhagen when a new king came to the throne. He quickly signed a constitution granting their demands, however, Schleswig-Holstein was left unmentioned. This was a Danish-German duchy under Denmark's rule. Events in Denmark and Germany caused the duchy to rise up hoping to come under German rule after the Danish constitution hoped to put the duchy under Copenhagen's direct rule. The First Schleswig War broke out as German states battled the Danish over the duchy - an 1852 treaty left the duchy free but under Danish supervision. Meanwhile, in Switzerland there were fears that the recently ended civil war could flare up again. The Catholic cantons, wanting to escape Protestant rule, had tried to secede in a short civil war. Wanting to avoid this a new constitution was quickly made forming a federal state which ended the near independence of the cantons.

Ireland - For a long time Ireland had been ruled by Britain and a settle community had emerged. Protestant farmers from the 1600s had dominated Ireland largely from Dublin and Ulster at the expense of the Catholic population. Attempts to enforce English, British laws and customs, and years of repression had led to various nationalist movements. One such was the Young Ireland movement. Ireland also faced genocide in the 1840s - failure of the potato crop caused a famine which the British government did little to solve. Making matters worse, fearing the famine would increase nationalist urges, the Crime and Outrage Bill was passed in 1847. On 29 July seeing the uprisings the Young Irelanders rose up - it was soon crushed.

Where did it not Hit?

Chartists in London

Revolution did not sweep over Europe equally. Only the most democratic and industrialised states, and the least industrialised and most autocratic escaped full blown revolt. Popular protests in Belgium were diffused, much to the dismay of radicals, by a quick expansion of suffrage, and likewise in the Netherlands the king issued a quick liberal constitution. As states had quickly responded this undercut radical demands before they could take root in public discourse. Meanwhile, on April 10 the quasi-socialist Chartists organised a protest of between 50,000-100,000 at Kennington Common in London. The Chartists were a working-class movement wanting to expand the electorate, introduce secret ballots, abolish property qualifications for suffrage and political office, and payment for Members of Parliament. However, thanks to previous expansion of the suffrage, and their association with socialism, had left the Chartists isolated, and news from France alienated the rest of the country from possible domestic radicals. As a result the Chartists were soon dispersed. In Russia we did not see revolt because of the strength of absolutism and a lack of industry. News of revolt found it harder to spread to Russia so it could be quickly silenced, and nationalist movements (like with the Poles) found it hard to communicate. To organise a movement when you cannot properly coordinate - it is no coincidence that when Russia properly started industrialising from the 1850s that revolts were more common. Russia even helped crush some of the revolts in other states.

Why did they Fail?

Casino Savorelli after bombardment by French forces

One key reason explains why 1848 failed: division. A common trend was that when more radical, often urban working-class, voices started taking hold the liberal moderates sided with conservative forces. Following the June Days the provisional government used a now conservative National Guard to oust radical voices, and the elections in December even brought Napoleon's nephew, Louis, to power. In Germany the Frankfurt Assembly was intensely divided between moderates and radicals, as well as what Germany should be. There were advocates for Grossdeutschland (including Austria), and Kleindeutschland (excluding Austria); Catholics didn't want to be under the rule of a Protestant state (and vice versa); and moderates wanted a monarchy compared to radicals which didn't. Prussia soon ignored the Assembly issuing a 'monarchist' constitution, and after defeating the revolution in its own borders Austria turned on the southern German states - the biggest supporters of the Assembly. In Italy the rural peasantry had been excluded from enfranchisement so in Naples when the king attempted to reverse the constitution the peasants refused to help the urban bourgeoisie allowing them to be defeated. The radical Roman Republic initially won support by abolishing hated taxes, employing unemployed labourers to repair monuments and slums, and dividing land among the peasants, but their anti-clericalism alienated the religious masses. Appealing to his own conservative Catholic supporters Louis Napoleon sent troops to destroy the Republic and restore the pope. The Austrian military soon ousted revolutionaries in Italy, Vienna, Bohemia and Hungary crushing the revolt there. Again a moderate-radical, national, and urban-rural divide aided in this - Magyar gentry helped organise against Budapest radicals who, in turn, had allowed the Austrian army take Vienna. Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his young nephew, Franz Joseph, who would rule until the end of the First World War.

Conclusion and Legacies

This cartoon effectively shows the results of 1848: German princes hide behind Prussia sweeping revolt away, revolutionaries fleeing across the Atlantic, Austria and Magyar gentry dismember Hungary, and Britain mocks the continent ignoring starving people in its own borders

On the surface 1848 was indeed a 'Springtime of Peoples': a brief time in the sun. Poles, Germans, Danes, Italians, Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Jews, Serbs, Croats, Romanians, and Irish had all protested or revolted for autonomy as ideas of liberalism and socialism dominated discourses. However, divisions between nationalities, class, and location spelled their end - Robert Gildea has argued that if France had possibly looked outward they might have found more success. Despite Marx's and Engels' call for 'workers of the world unite!' the workers were divided, The Communist Manifesto little read until after the revolution, and working-class revolt was crushed. Louis Napoleon, who would soon crown himself emperor, Franz Joseph and Frederick William would ensure conservative forces dominated Europe - Prussia's conservative powerhouse Otto von Bismarck entered politics just after 1848. In the long-term 1848 would see success. Nationalism and socialism soon came to dominate the late-nineteenth century: socialists soon came to be a major force (especially in Germany), a working-class revolt broke out in Paris in 1871, Italy and Germany unified, and new national movements emerged. Austria initially seemed unstoppable but gave way - martial law was eventually lifted, liberal reforms started to be passed, and national groups were given autonomy. In 1867 Austria became Austria-Hungary to reflected the strength of nationalism. 1848 was a turning point for Europe, and the 'Springtime of Peoples' was not so short-lived.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe, 1800-1914, Second Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

-Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution, (London: Abacus, 2008)

-Priscilla Robertson, Revolutions of 1848: A Social History, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952)

-Frank Eyck, (ed.), The Revolutions of 1848-49, (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1972)

-David Blackbourn, The Fontana History of Germany, 1780-1918, (London: Harper Collins, 1997)

-'1848: Year of Revolution', BBC In Our Time Podcast, 19/01/2012

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: Abacus, 1975)

-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (London: Penguin, 1848/2015)

Thank you for reading. The next World History post will look at abolitionism, and the successes and failures of the end of slavery. For other World History posts we have a list. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Paleo Profiles: Megatherium

A Megatherium, from the London Natural History Museum

Visitors to the Natural History Museum in London in the second half of the nineteenth century gasped in awe upon seeing a giant skeleton. Visitors today may do so at the animatronic Tyrannosaurus, the long-necked sauropod Camarasaurus, or perhaps Dippy, the Diplodocus who until recent years dominated the Entrance Hall. However, in the 1800s the guests were not gasping at a dinosaur as they would today - instead they were in awe of a sloth. The Megatherium was one of the largest mammals to ever walk on land; only the largest of mammoths, elephants, and the great Paraceratherium exceeded it in size. 

Discovery and Fossils

Megatherium has been known to science for a long time - long before science officially described dinosaurs. In 1788 on the banks of the Lujan River in Argentina Manuel Torres came across several large bones which were then shipped to Madrid where they were stored in the Museo National de Ciencias Naturales. This coincided with the European Enlightenments which have been seen as one of the intellectual movements which gave rise to present-day science. As a result, anatomists and early biologists were eager to examine newly found bones, and live specimens. Eventually, an anatomist named Georges Cuvier - a French anatomist and biologist who would be considered to be a 'founding father' of palaeontology. Looking at the bones he described them as resembling that of a sloth - originally he even stated that, like sloths, it lived in the trees - except that these bones were from an animal the size of an elephant. His paper in 1796 named this extinct animal Megatherium americanum, 'Giant best from America'. Cuvier continued studying Megatherium eventually changing his mind on the sloth's biology; he argued it really lived a subterranean life using its big arms and claws to dig tunnels. He was half correct; Megatherium could dig but it did not lead a subterranean life.

Georges Cuvier

We have many examples of Megatherium fossils from across South America. It was an incredibly diverse animal having eight different species which occupied all of the continent from Patagonia in the south to Colombia in the north. Close cousins of the Megatherium also dominated the southern US and Central America as well. Normally, palaeontologists have to deal with a few remains and, therefore, have to reconstruct animals from better preserved relatives or logical guesses. The number of complete skeletons we have of Megatherium means that we do not have that issue in this case.  On his voyage with the Beagle Charles Darwin even brought some skeletons back with him in the 1830s. Other genus of ground sloths have even given us fossilised hair and droppings which paints a better picture of what the Megatherium was like in life. 

Biology

The size of the Megatherium from Prehistoric-Wildlife.com

The ground sloths share a basic body shape with their relatives in the trees, except that their bodies have adapted for life on the land instead. The hind legs are short with the lower bones being as thick as the femur; they had short but thick tails; robust bones; a broad pelvis; and a low body - this allowed the Megatherium to eat from the trees while remaining firmly on the ground. A stable lower-body allowed the sloth to raise itself onto two feet to browse from the trees. Its upper body was surprisingly flexible to reach branches; prehensile lips (with a possible prehensile tongue) to choose the best foliage; and strong, muscular jaws to effectively cut through the vegetation. As this animal was feeding it would rear up, using its tail as a tripod to steady itself, and then use its arms and lips to physically feed. The Megatherium's hands were also decked out in five curved claws which could be up to 70-cm (around 2.4-foot) in length. These could be used to tear leaves from the trees or bend branches closer to its mouth - or alternatively be used as a weapon. Megatherium would have walked on all-fours, but from footprints we know that it could spend considerable amounts of time in a bipedal stance. Even when on all-fours it had a unique way of walking; to protect its claws from unnecessary wear it would walk on the sides of its feet. Pictured below is a relative of the sloths - the giant anteater. Like the Megatherium they are heavily reliant on their claws so when they walk in a quadrapedal stance they do so on their knuckles.

A giant anteater walking on its knuckles, from Arkive by Joe Kolowski, Accessed 05/01/2019

Megatherium was in the Order Pilosa which included other giant ground sloths, and today is comprised of modern sloths, anteater, and tamanduas. Expanding it out slightly they also belong to the Superorder Xenarthra which also includes armadillos - the giant armadillo even walks like a ground sloth. The Megatherium differs thanks to its size - the largest were 6 metres long (20 foot) and weighed up to 4 tonnes. Modern elephants are of an equivalent size. A lot of this came from the animal's bones and muscles - it was big to make itself stable. As a result, adult Megatherium had little to fear in regards to predators. However, due to its size, weight being at the lower half of the body, and walking style this made Megatherium a slow animal.

When and Where

An example of the Great Interchange, Wikipedia - the blue originated in the North, the olive the South

One of the reasons why we have so many Megatherium fossils is due to it living quite recently. Megatherium first appeared in the early Pliocene, sometime between 5 and 3 million years ago, or when humanity's first ancestors started becoming bipedal. Megatherium's ancestors evolved during a time of great change. Moving continents lead to the creation of the Isthmus of Panama bridging the gap between North and South America. This severed the link between the Atlantic and warmer waters leading the Atlantic, and also the Arctic and Antarctic, to become much cooler. Two continents now being connected allowed animals to migrate: deer, camelids, and big cats were just some who moved south as sloths, giant terror birds, and hummingbirds were just some who moved north. Hence, we have sloths closely related to Megatherium living in Central and North America. The Eromotherium was so similar to Megatherium that it was once, and sometimes still is, classed as Megatherium. As giant ground sloths existed in woodlands and grasslands this have them a wide area to call home - we have found Megatherium for that reason in nine countries, the most recent being found in the Peruvian Andes. Existing throughout the Ice Age it managed to last until the last few thousand years. We can even carbon date the youngest Megatherium fossils, and the giant sloths went extinct around 8,500 BCE.

Diet

Like existing sloths Megatherium was adapted to eating plants. Their jaws were adapted to slice through thick foliage allowing them to browse from the trees as well as through various grasses and agaves found in America's grasslands. Most of this is not speculation either. Fossilised dung from Megatherium and other ground sloths have shown us their diets - inside the fossilised droppings we find a wide variety of plants, in one up to over 70 different types. However, Richard Fariña and Ernesto Blanco have put forward a controversial theory: Megatherium could be an omnivore. They argued that short triceps meant that Megatherium could move its arms quickly making its claws an effective weapon. They did stress that Megatherium was not a hunter - instead, using its immense size, it would scare predators from their kills to supplement their diets. The BBC documentary Walking with Beasts portrayed it as doing exactly that. This theory has been criticised in recent years. Palaeontologists have pointed out that we likely would have found claw marks from sloths or evidence in dung if meat was such a large part of their diet to be classed as an omnivore. Zoologists have found deer eating baby birds in the wild and hippos even cannibalising one another so it is not too far-fetched for Megatherium to occasionally scavenge. Undoubtedly, the Megatherium would almost entirely be herbivorous.

Habitat

A Megatherium in its habitat in Walking with Beasts

Megatherium lived in the grasslands and woodlands across South America - imagine llaneros herding their cattle today and coming across a giant ground sloth. Their bodies being adapted to an occasional bipedal lifestyle would indicate that woodlands, or the outskirts of woodlands, would be the ideal habitat for a Megatherium. They would live alongside a wide variety of fauna including the lama like Macrauchenia, a giant armadillo (the size of a small car) with a clubbed tail called Doedicurus, the terror birds (two metre tall predator birds), and the Smilodon, better known as the sabre-toothed cat. A fully grown Megatherium would have no fear, other than other sloths, but younger ones would have potential predators. Smaller ground sloths, although still fairly large, in North America have been found to have dug holes. This could be a potential way to clean themselves - dirt baths are particularly effective way to clear fur from ticks - but also a potential place to hide from a predator. They likely had one predator: humans.

Extinction

Megatherium is one of the first animals lost in the Sixth Mass Extinction - the mass extinction caused by humanity. When humanity expanded into Europe, Australasia, and the Americas most of the megafauna went extinct - including the giant sloths. We even have fossil evidence to show that humans did hunt smaller cousins to the Megatherium - cuts and breaks on sloth bones show evidence that humans had used their bodies for resources. It is quite likely that Megatherium could have met the same fate. One theory has suggested that humans accidentally caused a mass extinction as fauna went extinct thanks to disease introduced by domesticated animals. However, humans were not the only reason why the sloth went extinct. From around 12,000 years ago the climate started rapidly changing - which has been suggested why humanity adopted farming - which drastically affected habitats worldwide. Climate change had restricted Megatherium's habitat which started driving the sloth into extinction - human hunters ensured that it did go extinct. Megatherium was joined in extinction by the rest of the ground sloths as well as much of the megafauna of the Americas.

Thank you for reading. The sources I have used are as follows:

-'Megatherium', Prehistoric-Wildlife.com, (Accessed 04.01/2019)

-Jeremy Green and Daniela Kalthoff, 'Xenarthran Dental Microstructure and Dental Microwear Analyses, with New Data for Megatherium americanum (Megatheriidae)', Journal of Mammology, 96:4, (2015), 645-658

-Gideon Mantell, 'The Megatherium', Scientific American, 37:7, (1852), 291

-'Sabre Tooth',Walking with Beasts, (2001), BBC, 13 December

-M. Susana Bargo, 'The ground sloth Megatherium americanum: Skull shape, bite forces, and diet',  Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 46:2, (2001), 173-192

-Francois Pujos, 'Megatherium celendinense sp. nov. from the Pleistocene of the Peruvian Andes and the phylogenetic relationships of Megatheriines', Palaeontology, 49:2, (2006), 285-306

-Pip Brewer, 'What was Megatherium?', Natural History Museum, (22/11/2018), Accessed 04/01/2019
-Tim Haines and Paul Chambers, The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life, (London: BBC Books, 2005)

Thank you for reading. For other Paleo Profiles we have a list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.