Rum Coke Business and Disastrous Diplomacy
We may be divorced from the war years by 100 years but like it or not our lives are still affected by those distant events.
On 15 May 1916 Jesse Washington, a black labourer from Robinson, Texas, was lynched by a mob from the town. His alleged crime, the murder of his employers wife. Even then there his guilt was disputed but the mob went ahead anyway. We know from news broadcasts today that black Americans are still at risk of summary, and fatal justice.
But on to the two events that cast a shadow today, one might be considered benign the other rather less so. On 22 May judgement was given in the case of “Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs” A bizarre name until you understand that the barrels and kegs contained coca cola. The case made against coca cola on the grounds that the substance “adulterated caffeine” was deleterious to health and that the title coca cola was misleading as the product contained no cocoa or any meaningful amount of cola. The judge found in favour of the company on both counts. Just think, had it gone the other way then our cola habit and the emergence of one of the largest and most powerful corporations of today would have been stifled at birth. Whether this is benign or not I leave you to judge.
On a more sober note on 16 May France and Great Britain concluded the Sykes-Picot Pact. This was a secret agreement to partition the Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence. The Middle East was divided up on arbitrary lines. Just look at the map to see what I mean. Clearly both countries were still ruled with an imperial mindset and that throw of the dice fills our newspapers and television screens today.
On a more heroic note, May 10 saw the end of the voyage of the James Caird: an open boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetlands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean This was the 1,500 km journey undertaken by Sir Edward Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of his expedition following the loss of his ship, the Endurance.
Still at sea, the end of month, spilling into 1st June, saw the battle of Jutland. This was WW1’s only major sea engagement and ended inconclusively but with the British Fleet still in command of the North Sea.
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