The Top 15 War Films That Are Not Just About Combat

The first movie that won an Oscar was the 1929 war epic Wings, about two American pilots in World War I, and Howard Hughes famously spent $4 million (almost $60 million in today’s money) to bring to life, in chilling detail, his version of the airborne death and destruction of the Great War. Just a year later, Director Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front, in examining the devastating toll taken on humans subjected to relentless violence and grief on the battlefield, also helped revolutionize how movies and plots were created. Many young actors and directors have had big breaks or careers rejuvenated by war pictures which gave audiences front row seats to the smoke, stress and gut-wrenching loss of conflict. However, most war films have relied on nonstop combat sequences over characters to carry the story lines, and while many of these are great pictures and deserve to be honored, for this list I have chosen memorable movies that, in a departure from typical war plots, have little or no combat while still making powerful wartime statements.    

15. The Great Escape, released in 1963, set in World War II                              

Considered one of the best war films in general, The Great Escape follows the true story of a group of American and British prisoners inside the German prison of Stalag Luft III as they try to figure a way to get all 250 captives out in one mass escape. Starring Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough, among others, the movie takes place entirely in the prison, except for the dramatic ending, and never shows major combat.   

14. Conspiracy, released in 2001, set in World War II

While not having a theatrical run, Conspiracy was released by HBO in 2001. At just over 90 minutes, it is one of the shortest movies on this list, one of the most haunting, and its brevity allows it to take place in real time. The conspiracy in question was a real meeting of over a dozen high ranking Nazi leaders, portrayed by actors like Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, as they lay out the strategy for what would become the Holocaust, and defeat the last efforts at any official opposition.

13. War Horse, released in 2011, set in World War I

Steven Spielberg’s first war film since Saving Private Ryan, War Horse looks at World War I through the eyes of a horse who starts the war in the cavalry and ends the war pulling heavy cannons behind the lines. Unlike some of Spielberg’s other work like Munich, and although it has some battlefield settings, there does not appear to be any overriding political message to it, merely highlighting the horror of war on people and animals.

12. Hotel Rwanda, released in 2004, set in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

The horrifying events in Rwanda in 1994 when the long oppressed Hutus rose up and began mass killings of the ruling Tutsis which left over half a million people dead in just three months, have received surprisingly little attention from Hollywood since they occurred. One film that has attempted to document these events is Hotel Rwanda, which follows the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, manager of an upscale hotel, who bravely threw open its doors to refugees fleeing the genocide. Rusesabagina, played by Don Cheadle, stays in the hotel, watching over the people. While some violence is shown toward the end, it does not dominate the film.     

11. The Pianist, released in 2002, set in World War II

Directed by the controversial Roman Polanski, this 2002 film follows the real life story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Jewish musician from Poland who finds his life brought to screeching halt when the German army invades his country in 1939. As Szpilman flees underground for most of the movie, combat does occur around him, but he does not take part in it.

10. 1776, released in 1972, set in the Revolutionary War

This delightful Broadway musical follows the political debate, writing and ultimate passage of the Declaration of Independence in July in 1776. It tells the story from the viewpoint of John Adams, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Taking place almost entirely inside Philadelphia’s Freedom Hall, no combat is ever shown, though it is discussed through letters and song. 

9. Amen, released in 2002, set in World War II

A little known German movie from 2002, Amen follows the interesting story of Kurt Gerstein, a low ranking German SS officer responsible for improving hygiene for the men in the field. However, as the war continues, Gerstein finds out that his services are being used to supply gas to the concentration camps. Horrified by what he sees, the film shifts to what happens when word from Gerstein reaches the Vatican and Pope Pius XII. Based on the 1963 play The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth and Gerstein’s real story, the movie takes place in multiple locations over several years, but it does not depict any combat. It also deserves special credit for discussing a little known area of the war – the infamous T-4 Program.

8. Twelve O’clock High, released in 1949, set in World War II

A classic war film and one of the highlights of Gregory Peck’s long career. The film follows General Frank Savage, a young officer placed in charge of the VIII Bomber Command. The struggling VIII has a poor bombing record and low morale. Through brutal discipline, Savage remolds them into one the most feared units in the air. Like most movies that came out in the immediate years after the war, Twelve O'clock High may have had a low budget and been unable to show aerial combat for very long. For this reason, the single combat scene that is shown uses stock film from the war and almost the whole film takes place at an airbase in Britain.

7. Downfall, released in 2004, set in World War II

Often made fun of for the fact that it has a Hitler rant scene, Downfall is still one of the most accurate films made to date. It follows Traudl Junge, Hitler’s personal secretary, as she and Hitler are forced to flee into a massive bunker when the Soviet Red Army surrounds Berlin and moves in for the final assault. While street fighting is shown at some points in the film, Downfall is chiefly about the men and women in the bunker and how they are forced to ready themselves for the unknown. Hitler, played brilliantly by Bruno Ganz, is not shown as a drooling monster, but his mental instability and declining grasp of reality is deftly portrayed.    

6. Das Boot, released in 1981, set in World War II

At over three hours, Das Boot follows the crew aboard the German submarine U-96 early in 1941 as they go out into Atlantic in search of British merchant ships to sink. There are long scenes of depth charges raining down on the crew and one British ship is sunk, but this is not a film about combat. It is more about a diverse group of men thrown together in claustrophobic conditions and how each simply tries to carry on their lives as the war rages on above them. No wonder some called the film, “So good, you will root for the Germans.”

5. Gone with the Wind, released in 1939, set in the Civil War

In this sweeping adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s classic novel, Scarlett O'Hara, a southern belle and daughter of a planter, finds herself caught up in the storm of the American Civil War. Most of the film being set in wartime Atlanta, no scenes of battle are shown except for when the city is spectacularly burned by the retreating Confederate Army, and even then no army action is shown. While Scarlett herself shoots a Union soldier, the movie is more about how strong willed women survived as their world was being destroyed around them.   

4. Casablanca, released in 1942, set in World War II

Among the first films to depict life during a war which was still going on at the time, Casablanca is about American expatriate Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, who runs a bar and semi-secret gambling club in Nazi occupied Casablanca. Finding himself helping two underground rebels escape back to Europe, Rick is forced to outwit the Nazis and make peace with his former girlfriend, Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman.

3. Lincoln, released in 2012, set in the Civil War

Among the very best films made by Steven Spielberg in recent years and even better than War Horse or Saving Private Ryan, this movie focuses on President Abraham Lincoln as he pushes, cajoles and flat out bribes members of Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery throughout the United States. While a brief combat sequence is shown at the beginning, no other military action happens as it is mostly set in the House of Representatives. The obvious high point of the movie is Daniel Day Lewis, who turns in an Academy Award winning performance as the title character.

2. Command Decision, released in1948, set in World War II

Very similar to Twelve O'clock High in terms of structure and characters, the performances and plot are stronger. The story centers on General K.C. "Casey" Dennis, in an exceptional performance by Clark Gable as commander of the 5th Bomber Division, and is based off a play of the same name. While Savage personally led the bombing raids in Twelve O'clock High, Dennis is forced to remain at the base as much younger men take off for dangerous missions deep inside Germany. The main conflict comes as Dennis knows that he is sending boys to their deaths, but is convinced that if he does not, the war will simply go on and get even worse. In the end, what makes Command Decision great is the blunt discussion of what it is to lead people in wartime and how hard the decisions are those who are not in battle.    

1. The Best Years of Our Lives, released in 1946, set in World War II

Filmed immediately after the end of World War II, The Best Years of Our Lives centers on men returning from Europe and the Pacific who attempt to resume lives they find no longer exist.  The main characters, a sergeant, a B-17 pilot and a double amputee Navy sailor, each have different experiences that are equally disturbing and unexpected. The pilot suffers post-traumatic stress, the sergeant finds his wife and children are strangers with strange ideas, and the sailor must adjust to a new life with awkward prosthetic arms. All of the characters are skillfully written and portrayed compassionately and the film was, and still remains, a sober and realistic observation of post-war life that appealed to millions of people all over the world who were recovering from the war themselves.

As war continues to fascinate and horrify the public, Hollywood will continue to produce stories revolving around war. Some of these will become classics while others were will be seen as shallow political hit pieces. But it is also hoped that directors and writers will continue to make films that focus on the quieter and less well known sides of war. 

The Loser Who Won: The Story of the Legendary Gil Dobie

NOTE: The following article was written by Robert S. Welch and was published in The Columbia,the Washington Historical Society Magazine in the Fall of 1987 in Vol. 1 number 3. It is republished here with permission from the editor.

Quite simply, he was the best football coach the University of Washington has ever had. And, not incidentally, the worst.

Gilmour Dobie, who coached the U.W.'s team from 1908 through 1916, was the ultimate in pigskin paradoxes. Despite compiling a record unequaled in college football history, he laughed, officially, only once. His motto was, "I am always right, you are always wrong." His nickname was "Gloomy Gil." He was loved and hated, fancied and feared, idolized and ostracized. He is still the only football coach in America to go unbeaten for nine seasons and he still got fired.

Therein lies the mystery of Gil Dobie. It first unfolded in the fall of 1908, at a time when Seattle was alive with logging, sawmills and shipping, but desperately trying to shore up that other significant area: the university football team. It was a time of five-point touchdowns and 10-cent vaudeville shows.

In 1908, with the football team coming off a .500 season, the Washington Alumnus lamented that the trouble with U.W. athletics was the matter of priorities among students, complaining, “Too much society. Too many social stunts. Too much competition among the sororities and fraternities as to which can give the swellest and biggest social affair; and too much energy wasted in giving them."

Discipline and a hunger for success—that's what Washington needed. And that's exactly what it got in Gil Dobie. Reared in poverty in little Hastings, Minnesota, Dobie had developed a nearly fanatical drive to win at everything: school (he was an honor student who earned a law degree), football (he quarterbacked the University of Minnesota to its first Big Ten championship in 1900) and finances (his shrewd stock-market investing would make him a wealthy man before the collapse of 1929).

After college, when he began coaching, Dobie's Southside High (Minneapolis) team went unbeaten both years he was there, as did his North Dakota Agricultural College squad in 1906 and 1907. Washington knew it was getting a winner; it also knew it was not getting the world's most warmhearted human being.

At North Dakota, Dobie had quickly earned the wrath of every rival coach for his stubbornness and total lack of sentimentality. But such things are easily overlooked when weighed against the four undefeated seasons he'd produced. Thus, Dobie was hired—for $1,200 a year.

"He's maybe a little rough," said U. W. graduate athletic manager Lorin Grimstead in 1908, "but real sharp. No, sir, no more seasons like the last one."

What Grimstead failed to realize was that "maybe a little rough" would ultimately mean things like the team being forced to run 20 laps—after a 70-0 victory. But, then, Dobie never sold himself as the Good Fairy. Upon arriving on Washington's fir-studded campus, he first alienated the alumni, faculty, students and sportswriters by closing practice sessions. He then alienated the team with an icy introductory speech.

"There were no smiles, no handshakes, no slaps on the back...nothing but a pair of black eyes coldly peering out of a dark face," wrote Wee Coyle, who played quarterback for Dobie from 1908 to 1911, in a 1948 Seattle Times article. "Many of the players thought about leaving; this tall glob of gloom couldn't tell us what to do. But when it came time to depart, something besides the love of our homes, our sweethearts and our friends kept us on the right track—it was the spell of Gil Dobie."

Indeed, though his heart was as cold as a November drizzle, the Scot's mind was sharp, cunning and calculating. He was highly intelligent, a shrewd investor and, off-season with a glass of brew in his hand, almost tolerable. On the football field, he was a drillmaster and master psychologist.When halfback Cedric "Hap" Miller received national attention for an outstanding game, Dobie promptly told him he had a swelled head, was no help to the team and should quit. His pride threatened, Miller, of course, responded with an even better game. When going against a favored Oregon team, Dobie told his players that the sawdust on U.O.'s field was a devious ploy to slow the U.W. down and he wouldn't allow his team to play. Begging to play, the players blanked the favored Oregon squad 15-0.

Physically, Dobie was an Ichabod Crane type—tall, gaunt and sharp-featured—who often wore a derby and smoked a large, black cigar as he nervously paced the sidelines of Denny Field. Emotionally, he was something of a Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights: mysterious, independent, brooding and seemingly unfeeling. His only official laugh came in 1911, when a trick play in practice worked well. The only recorded compliment he ever gave came when he told Mike "Mother" Hunt, "I wouldn't take you out if both your legs were broken. I've got that much confidence in you."

On Friday nights before home games, Dobie would have quarterback Coyle come to his small house near the university—now a Christian Science reading room—to prepare for the next day's game. The living room would be cluttered with sports pages and football diagrams. The twosome's "discussions" were simple: Dobie would talk; Coyle would listen. Among the bits of information Coyle remembers is, "You play like a man devoid of brains."

Dobie once endeared himself to the team with the remark, "You are the dumbest, clumsiest, rankest collection of so-called football excuses I've ever seen." Despite such verbal lashings, or because of them, Coyle and his teammates responded game after game. "If we can take him day after day, we can take anybody on Saturday," one player reasoned. And, indeed, they did, compiling a record of 58 wins, no losses and 3 ties over nine years—a mark unmatched in college football history.

  

In a sense, Dobie was the Vince Lombardi and Woody Hayes of his time. He demanded perfection, courage and complete loyalty. "If he doesn't get what he demands he unceremoniously kicks the individual off the field never to return," wrote Coyle in 1914.

And Dobie wasn't discriminatory in the least. He seemed to feel equal disdain for players and non-players alike. Once, Dobie nearly came to blows with Hi Gill, former mayor of Seattle, and George Russell, the city's postmaster, because the lanky coach was obscuring their view of a game, a fact they relayed to the coach by showering him with peanuts and politely yelling, "Sit down, you big bum."

He didn't particularly like sportswriters either, nor was he number one with them. "The sportswriters of the Seattle dailies were placed in the same class as poison ivy," wrote Coyle. Dobie wasn't much for publicity and he particularly disliked naming All-American teams. Later, when coaching at Cornell, Dobie said, "Many a tomato has been made to look like a peach through the pressure of publicity. If you sing the praises of a man high enough in this country, it will reach not only to heaven but from Kennebunkport, Maine, to Walla Walla, Washington."

Sportswriters didn't like being banned from practice, nor did they like the way it was done. Once, a writer from the Daily approached Dobie from behind at practice.

"That you, Fred?" asked Dobie.

"Yes, it's me," came the reply.

"Get the hell out of here, Fred," said Dobie.

Because of such tact, many Dobie accounts suggest he was disliked intensely by all. Not true. Winning, regardless of how it's accomplished, is seductive and it was particularly so in upstart Seattle, which was tenaciously trying to establish credibility in the eyes of other cities. True, halfback Penny Westover admitted he once wanted to punch Dobie after the coach had called him a "poor numbskull." True also, Dobie wasn't tops with the faculty, which wasn't pleased at a Dobian language well flecked with four-letter words, his marked disinterest in academics, and a salary, $3,OOO a year by the time he left, higher than their own.

Ah, but winning wipes clean many a sin. And, besides his skill at swearing, Dobie knew how to win. In Dobie's first season, the U.W. went undefeated and won the Northwest championship. "The prayers of the righteous prevaileth and Washington has a champion football team," responded the Washington Alumnus magazine. "It is a team, a fighting machine, and a thing of beauty to see in action."

"Dobie was quiet, determined, exacting, shrewd, capable," the magazine later added. "He minds his own business and, what is more, he sees to it that no one helps him mind it." Anyone who disagrees, the magazine said, should be considered "a candidate for speedy annihilation."

He continued his tongue-lashings and harsh practices, but Dobie's disciples remained loyal to the cause. "Dobie means what he says and rarely says it," wrote F. A. Churchill, Jr., in a 1911 Seattle Town Crier. "As a result, the squad accepts his word in the attitude of a gang of Platos surrounding Socrates."

Washington rolled through opponent after opponent. Dobie won with trick plays, including a well-practiced center-to-end handoff, called the "bunk" play—that helped beat Oregon 29-3 in 1911. Dobie won big, once beating Whitworth 100-0. And he won even in 1915 when Northwest schools, in an attempt to derail the dynasty, refused to play Washington, forcing Dobie to round up new opponents.

But at the end of the 1915 season, Dobie suddenly resigned. At a subsequent luncheon in Dobie's honor, President Henry Suzzallo praised the outgoing coach. "The university," said Suzzallo, "is a large place to make men, and the process takes place both in and out of the classroom. Dobie has aided in this building of men."

Soon thereafter, Dobie pulled his personal "bunk" play, reversing his decision and deciding to stay on. Though Suzzallo might have been less than thrilled—behind his glowing words, the president was tiring of Dobie's popularity and disregard for the classroom—most of Seattle rejoiced. Editorialized the Seattle Post lntelligencer, "Tune up the sackbut, psaltery, harp and lute, and anything else that will make a noise, and let us sound a paean of joy over the return of the mentor whom we had mourned as officially dead."

But Dobie's encore was short-lived. As the 1916 season wound to a close, controversy clutched the campus and Dobie was right in the middle. One of his players, Bill Grimm, had been caught cheating on a history test. A student committee recommended Grimm be suspended from school for one year, from December 1, 1916, right after the big Thanksgiving Day finale against California, until December 1, 1917. A faculty committee turned down the students' recommendation and stiffened the penalty by setting November 20 as the date of suspension.

The players were stunned. Losing Grimm next year was one thing—but losing him for next week's big game against Cal, well, that was quite another. So they went on strike. For two days, they refused to practice. Suzzallo looked to Dobie for leverage but the coach, almost with an air of cockiness, sided with his players. "If the boys feel that their studies demand their attention more than football practice, why that's their privilege," said Dobie, in a rare and suspicious proacademic statement.

The alumni and even Grimm entered the mess and convinced the team to play "for the greater good." The players ended the strike and beat Cal 14-7 in a game whose halftime entertainment was a 50-yard dash between the referee and umpire for a $10 stake.

It was Dobie's last game at Washington. A week later, Suzzallo fired him, contrary to subsequent accounts that said Dobie quit. In remarks strikingly different from those in his speech on Dobie a year previously, Suzzallo said, "The chief function of the university is to train character. Mr. Dobie failed to perform his full share of this service on the football field. Therefore, we do not wish him to return."

Suzzallo was still stung by Dobie's antifaculty stance on the team strike. Had the coach intervened, he contended, the strike and subsequent controversy could have been prevented. Others suggested that the sophisticated Suzzallo, with no shortage of ego himself, was simply tired of playing second fiddle to a man whose success stemmed from Xs and Os scribbled on restaurant napkins.

The Town Crier defended Suzzallo's decision with sarcasm: "The disagreement between Dobie and President Suzzallo is caused by a misunderstanding on the part of the president. In some manner, Suzzallo has gotten the idea that the educational functions of the university are of more importance than the football team."

Responded Dobie, "My support of the strike was justified and great good has been accomplished. I feel that the football team was grossly wronged by robbing it of a member whom I had approved all season as the best man in the defensive scheme of the team's existence."

The students rallied around Dobie, whose U.W. teams had recorded 42 shutouts in 61 games and allowed only one team more than a touchdown. Calling him "the most loved and the most feared man who has ever fought for Washington," the Daily said, "His greatest fault was not that he did not serve, but that he served too well."

Former player BeVan Presley wrote to Suzzallo, "As far as character building and moral influence are concerned, I think he was one of the strongest factors working along these lines. And I feel that I derived as much benefit from my association with him as I did from any member of the faculty."

Some 800 students, more than one-fourth of the student body—showed up in front of Dobie's small house on 14th Avenue on a drizzly December night to honor the man they loved. When he walked out onto his porch, Dobie was greeted with three minutes of applause. In an uncharacteristic moment of kindness, he thanked the students, saying, "Kings, presidents and statesmen have been greatly honored, but I know they could have felt no greater honor than the honor bestowed upon me tonight." He implored them to "take your stand for or against intercollegiate athletics and stay there."

It was typical of Dobie that there was no middle ground. From the moment he stepped on campus to the moment he left, he ruled with a bullheadedness that was both his strength and weakness. To him, everything was black and white; there was no room for compromise.

Not surprisingly, he didn't change much upon leaving Washington. He went to the University of Detroit where he quit after "several days," reported the Times, "because he was not satisfied with the small squad." 

Then Navy took him on. He resurrected its dying gridiron program, losing only one game a year for three years. Then, when offered a three-year contract on his terms, he abruptly quit, later saying there were "too many admirals trying to run football at Navy when they should be at sea."

Later, at Cornell, after achieving a record of 82-36-7 from 1920 to 1935, Dobie was fired after two sour seasons. "You can't win games with Phi Beta Kappas," he concluded.

He ended his coaching career with three years at Boston College, in which his teams lost six games. He was fired, but that didn't surprise Dobie. After all, he'd once said, "A football coach can only wind up one of two ways—dead or a failure." A decade later, in 1948, he died in Putnam, Connecticut, at age 69. 

Had he fulfilled his prophecy? No. In reality, Dobie died both a success and a failure.

He was a master technician and psychologist when it came to coaching. He squeezed players everything they had to offer—and the results were impressive. His .780 lifetime winning percentage still ranks among the best in the country. The most points scored against one of his Washington teams was 20—in an entire season. Had Washington, where he enjoyed his greatest success, been on the more populated and media-rich East Coast, it's likely the name Gil Dobie would be mentioned in the same breath as Pop Warner, Knute Rockne and John Heisman.

But for all his ability to coach winning football teams, Dobie was a lonely man who, because of his own pessimism, was always facing third-and-long against the world. He couldn't see beyond the scoreboard, couldn't see that life was wider than a football field, couldn't see that compromise doesn't necessarily mean defeat.

  

All such things considered, Dobie's legacy is the ultimate paradox: He was a loser who won.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and the plight of the poor

With Christmas fast approaching, many people will be dusting off their copies of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. While we know the classic tale to be about the Golden Rule and keeping Christmas traditions, few realize it was a biting and timely political piece meant to shed light on a serious problem in London society.

London of the 1840s was in the mist of the industrial revolution which had begun at the end of the 18^th century. Textile mills, steam engines, and other innovations allowed England to import and exports goods as never before, making business owners and enterprising inventors extremely rich. However, this same industrial age had created a vast poverty class, leaving thousands unemployed and with only the option of working in “poor houses” which were government run building where poor families would go to live and do manual labor. In his documentary series on Britain, Author Simon Schama explained, “Workhouses had always been deliberately designed to be as much like prisons as possible, to deter anyone with who had slightest chance at a job.” Thus, Scrooge, the old money-lender symbolizing the indifferent upper class, facetiously inquires in the first chapter of A Christmas Carol, “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?”

If anything could have been worse than life in a poorhouse, it would be life in a factory. An American observer in the city of Manchester during this time wrote of the people “Wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature lying in bleeding fragments.” Worse yet was the widespread use of child labor. Often the children would be told a retrieve pieces of cotton from underneath moving machinery where one brief slip could crush their arm.

Dickens himself, visited Manchester and elsewhere, and was shocked by the poverty he saw. Dickens’s father had been forced into a debtors prison, and as a young boy Charles had to work in a shoe polish factory. As Dickens remembered, wages were horribly low and the factory teemed with rats. The experience left Dickens with deep bitterness toward his parents and a great sympathy for the lower classes. Then in 1842, the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission was published, which showed the growing problem of child labor in England. Dickens wanted to write a response to this in form of a political pamphlet, but put it off.

Finally in December 1843, he published  A Christmas Carol. In his story, Scrooge came to represent everyone in the upper class who blatantly ignored the conditions of the poor and only made money for themselves. Again and Again Scrooge is told how he should use his money for good, but the direct appeal to help the poor comes in form of a cold warning when the Spirit of Christmas Present lifts his robe to expose two poor children. “They are Man’s,” he says, “This boy is Ignorance. The girl is Want. Beware them both, and all their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that which is written is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.” Dickens was saying that the poor and the problems they faced would continue to get worse unless addressed, and could lead to the overthrow the wealthy class. Dickens struck one last chord at the end of the story when Scrooge sees that his house has been ransacked and that he has died alone without friends. To every well bred Englishman, the thought that they would not be liked, or at very least respected at the time of their death, was a terrifying thought.

Ultimately, Dickens wanted greater attention for the poor, and for them to be provided with more opportunities through moral changes in society and greater financial support.  

Dickens would not be the last one to focus on the plight of the poor. Four years later Elizabeth Gaskell would once again plunge the British readers into the slums of England in her novel Mary Barton. The book focused on two poor families in Manchester who had to work in factories and watch their children starve. Gaskell brought into sharp contrast, and Schama believed even more so the Dickens, the great divide between the rich and poor. Gaskell’s main point was that poor people cared little about the luxuries of the upper class and only wanted to see their children fed. In one scene, she showed how a family’s life depended on what a wealthy character considered loose change. 

That same year German writer Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto and echoed what Dickens and Gaskell had said when he wrote, “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie [wealthy class] and Proletariat [lower class].” Marx also wrote, “Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of [laborers] crowded into the factory are [organized] like solders.” Here the worker became more a part of the machinery than a man. Up to this point Marx reflected the writing of the Dickens and Gaskell, but where Dickens and Gaskell believed that society should voluntarily take care of the poor by admitting their existence, Marx thought that compromise with upper class was pointless and that only true solution was to mount a violent overthrow of the government.

So while A Christmas Carol emphasizes a broad theme of Christian charity in keeping with Christmas traditions, it should be remembered that it was also part of a powerful series of books that, for the first time, brutally focused on the plight of the poor and demanded serious changes in how the privileged viewed their responsibilities to society.

Ten Forgotten Olympic Triumphs (Part V)

9.    “You could hear a pin drop”

In the first week of October 1968 the world descended on Mexico City to begin the Olympics. The year had been an especially traumatic one for the U.S. At the end of January, the North Vietnamese army had launched a major offensive that had led to weeks of fighting and many Americans no longer believed the war could be won. At the end of March, President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection. Four days later longtime Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King had been shot dead on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, causing riots across the country. Then on June 5, Senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy had been gunned down in California. By the time the Democratic National Convention arrived in Chicago in August, tensions were extremely high. As delegates argued over the candidates inside, outside anti-war protesters shouted against the war and the establishment. On August 28, police suddenly charged into the crowd and began beating them. The violence took place over several minutes as cameras rolled and the footage was soon shown around the world. Inside, several delegates hearing the fighting began accusing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley of causing it and various groups on the convention floor looked about to fight each other. The Democratic Party was imploding.

By the time the Olympics began, most Americans were numb and wanted to forget about politics and troubles overseas. For the first few days all went well, as medals were handed out with so sign of trouble. Then on October 16, American Tommie Smith won the 200 meter run, with teammate John Carlos coming in third. As the medal ceremonies began, both men walked to podium with their shoes off, Smith wearing a black scarf and Carlos with his track coat unzipped. The two later explained that this was to show solidarity with the black poor. This in itself would have been controversial. But it was what they did next that got them in real trouble. As the “Star Spangled Banner” began to play, Smith raised his right fist while Carlos raised his left in a black power salute. Immediately, boos began to echo across the stadium. Smith and Carlos were ejected from the remaining events and ordered to leave immediately.

All eyes now turned to the remaining black athletes, as people wondered what they would do. Among those immediately swarmed by the press was 19 year old heavyweight boxer George Foreman.

Born in Houston, Texas, Foreman had grown up in the in 5^th Ward, reputed to be the poorest section of the city. Uninterested in school, he had dropped out and fallen in with a street gang. “I was a teenage thug really,” Foreman would remember years later. Foreman exhibited a fiery temper, broke into houses and got in fights.               

However, things began to change when Foreman decided to join the Job Corps. Soon he had his degree, but his anger continued to be problem. Nearing expulsion, Foreman was saved when local boxing coach Doc Broadus agreed to begin training him. Slowly Foreman began to show skill in the ring and started winning fights. Still he was not sure if he wanted to pursue boxing as a career. Finally, Broadus explained that Clay and Frazer had become national celebrities after winning their gold medals; if Foreman got serious, he could compete at that level and if he won, would be lifted out of poverty. For the next year Foreman trained hard, fighting 18 times, winning all but one match and also acquiring a reputation for a savage punch.

Easily making it onto the U.S. Olympic team, Foreman remembered, “When I got a chance to really go to the Olympics, I knew then that I was a prime representative of the American team.” He quickly defeated each of his opponents, making it to the gold medal fight. In his way stood Jonas Čepulis, an experienced fighter from the Soviet Union. At the time of high Cold War tensions, the fight took on special political as well as racial meaning. In the first round, Foreman came out hitting Čepulis with repeated right hooks and left jabs. Soon blood was spilling out of Čepulis’ nose. While the Russian landed several good blows, he could not match the damage the American was causing. After starting round two, the referee stopped the fight. Foreman had won, but what would he do? As he retired to his corner, a hush fell over the crowd. Broadus, who was on hand for the fight, remembered, “Everybody was sitting there tensed; you could hear a pin drop.” Foreman took off his gloves, grabbed something and headed back out the center of the ring. To the delight of the crowd, he held out a small American flag and bowed to each side of the ring.

Overnight, Foreman became a national hero as pictures of him were flashed around the world, and he was even invited to the White House to meet President Johnson. Foreman would go on to become heavyweight champion and later a very wealthy grill salesman. On the other hand, Smith and Carlos were largely shunned by advertisers and had only brief NFL careers before slipping mostly into obscurity. Sometimes it is not so much the odds or the prize, but the symbolism of the moment that makes a victory memorable.

10. Facing “Alexander the Great”

In 2000, the world’s athletes came to the continent of Australia, this time to the city of Sydney. While many expected the U.S. team to do well in track, basketball, baseball, and several swimming events, few contemplated the sport of wrestling. This was because beginning in 1987, then 20-year-old, six-foot-three, 286-pound Alexander Karelin had won every international event he had entered and defeated every opponent who stepped on his mat. Karelin had become a hero to the Russian people and gained a reputation as an unstoppable machine. Sydney would be Karelin’s fourth straight Olympics and as usual he expected to bring home another gold medal. 

Expectations for American Rulon Gardner were far different. Born in Afton, Wyoming, Gardner had been raised on dairy farm. Like everyone in the family, Gardner helped his parents with manual labor, often lifting heavy bales of hay. However, he had a hard time in school. In kindergarten, Gardner had been placed in special needs for time. Taunted for his inability to read as he got older, Gardner had sought an escape in sports, taken up wrestling and begun winning. By the time he graduated high school, Gardner could still only read at a 5^th grade level, and against his teachers’ advice applied and was accepted to Ricks College in Idaho on an athletic scholarship. He later transferred to the University of Nebraska to be on their wrestling team. To the surprise of many, he completed his studies and earned a degree in physical education; Gardner had done nothing to distinguish himself in sports, held no major wrestling titles and had placed only fifth at one major tournament. Undaunted, he tried out for the U.S. Olympic team and was accepted.

When he arrived in Sydney, Gardner made a splash when he announced to the press that after months of hard training he believed he was good enough to go up against Karelin. Few put any stock in his claims and called him cocky. As the wrestling competitions began, one by one Gardner beat each of his opponents until he found himself in the gold medal round with the man called “Alexander the Great.” Many spectators and analysts believed Karelin would make quick work of the American. They had good cause to think so; in 1997, Gardner had gone up against the Russian and lost 5-0. Not only had he lost, but he had been picked up three times, and at one point Karelin had thrown his entire body weight on Gardner’s neck.

Now, the gold medal match began. Karelin raced into and tried to lift Gardner again; but each time he did, Gardner refused to budge. Trying to find a better hold in the second round, Karelin’s hand slipped for brief second. It was enough; for the first time in six years, he had allowed an opponent to score a point. For the rest of the round, the Russian tried again and again to find some way to earn a tying point, but Gardner continued to stop him. Because only one point had been scored, the match went to overtime, one final chance for Karelin to win. But as the clock continued to tick down, Karelin became frustrated and clawed at Gardner’s face. Finally, with just seconds left, Karelin stood up and let the clock run out.

Wild chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” instantly filled the arena as Gardner grabbed an American flag and raced around the mat. Overnight, the victory hit newsstands like a bombshell and he became a celebrity and hero of the games.

After the match, Karelin announced his retirement from wrestling and went into Russian politics, where he continues to serve to this day. Gardner attended the games in 2004 and walked away with a bronze medal. Missing the 2008 games, he attempted a short lived comeback in 2012. Failing, he announced his retirement. Today the famous match has been largely forgotten by the public, but among wrestling enthusiasts it remains the biggest upset in the sport’s history.