The Nazi armed forces, despite their apparently rigid “morality”, were a famous exception, with senior officers looting famous paintings, sculptures, gold and diamonds and corruption extending downwards to concentration camp guards. Their officers will no doubt turn a blind eye to a trophy, such as a Nazi luger or bayonet or some item of Saddam’s Iraqi Army equipment, but cart or jeep loads of such items would not be tolerated and even less so personal possessions of people in invaded countries. Soldiers in modern armies are paid, as indeed they were in older times but looting is not usually encouraged. Modern warfare is also fought for loot but not usually by the soldiers in the army. They just happened to have good relations with Muslim Spain (the reverse of what they were to have later with its Christian rulers). Unfortunately for this story, the fact is that the Basques, Asturians and Occitanians were …. One of these was Hroudland, military governor of the land bordering Brittany, who was later romanticised as the great warrior Roland who died fighting the Muslims of Spain who threatened the Christian Europe. Departing then, Charlemagne took what he considered his quickest and safest route with his loot into the lands of his Frankish kingdom and went over the Pyrenees.īut some of his forces had already been near there when they sacked the Basque city of Iruña (Pamplona) in revenge the Basques (possibly aided by Asturians and Occitanians) mauled Charlemagne’s rearguard and killed most of the nobles with them. Charlemagne, that great soldier of Christendom, invaded Arab Spain in 778 ostensibly to aid three rebellious Arab chiefs against their Arab overlord, the Caliph of Cordova (Córdoba), during which he would also strike a blow against the Muslims however he took one of his allies hostage (the Arab Governor of Barcelona) and only gave him up to another, the Governor of Zaragoza, a city Charlemagne besieged for a while, for a huge ransom of treasure.
The first city attacked by the Crusaders was Damascus, a mostly Christian city. The Christian Crusades were fought for control over the eastern spice and silk caravan routes and for land but loot was the main prize for the individual soldiers and office rs. They were mainly non-Christian hordes of course and what could one expect of the like? The hordes of the Mongols, the Vandals, Huns and Goths all raided and looted. Groups among the Vikings, Saxons and Celts frequently sailed to other lands from which they took away slaves (probably the main booty and external trade goods for the Vikings, who made Dublin one of their slave markets). Many Native American tribes raided others for horses and women (and sometimes male slaves).
THE LOOTER KATRINA CRACK
Yet p lunder of treasure and goods w as in fact one of the main reasons for invading forays or war for centuries: the Irish word “ creacht ” (from which, according to one theory, the colloquial Hiberno-English word “ crack” - as in “the crack was great” - is derived) means, among some other meanings, loot taken from the victims of a raid – in their case, usually from another clan and the loot or “ booty ” often cattle, the main measure of wealth for centuries in Ireland. Nearby, neighbours whose homes were destroyed and who accused the men of looting.Īlthough “looting” is also used to describe many of the activities of advancing victorious troops on ground won in war (and on occasion too, activities of retreating troops), those troops themselves are never called “looters”. Alleged looters sit handcuffed under police guard in Oklahoma after storm May 2013. They are generally reviled in discourses, characterized as savage opportunists taking advantage of misery and breakdown of law and order to prey on the weak and defenceless. “ Looters” is the name usually given to those who sometimes operate in areas in the wake of a disaster, stealing items, occasionally also killing and/ or raping. Reading Salvage The Bones, a well-written novel by Jesmyn Ward, all but the last chapters of which are set in Louisiana during days of the impending hurricane Katrina in 2005, I started thinking about looters.
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