THE DAY OF THE BIG STICK

On the 2^nd September 1901, the then Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair, uses the phrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” This policy has never been far from United States foreign policy. Roosevelt made this speech twelve days before the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt had used the phrase earlier in a letter to Henry W. Sprague on the 26^th January 1900. 

He had attributed the term as a West African proverb. Roosevelt allegedly described his style of foreign policy as “the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.” In other words be well forearmed.  Since the Second World War, the US has certainly attempted to adhere to that part of the policy dealing with weapons, without necessarily following the part relating to intelligent forethought.

Here is a short video extolling the virtues of Teddy Roosevelt.

The advantages of the big stick, or rather possession of modern weaponry, was amply demonstrated three years to the day before Roosevelt’s State Fair speech, on the 2^nd September 1898.  At the Battle of Omdurman, on that day, an army commanded by General Sir Herbert Kitchener defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, successor to the Mahdi. The British forces consisted of 8,200 British Troops and 17,600 Sudanese and Egyptian soldiers against 52,000 warriors. On the British side reported casualties were 47 dead and 382 wounded as against 10,000 killed, 13,000 wounded and 5,000 captured on the other side. It clearly demonstrated what modern rifles and artillery could do against far older weapons. The British always seem to want to display there weaponry on the African continent. I wonder why that is? Is it really something to be proud of? I still wonder. The pretence of protecting civilians by reigning down terror from the air with computer guided bombs, killing other civilians apparently not worthy of protection, is not a particularly brilliant display of intelligent forethought. However…

The Battle of Omdurman is portrayed in the 1939 Alexander Korda film of “The Four Feathers” which follows herewith. A grand display of jingoism and the stiff upper lip, but well acted or course.