Januarius Aloysius MacGahan
əˈɡæn(June 12, 1844 – June 9, 1878) was an American journalist and war correspondent working for the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''.
His ...
'' and the London ''
Daily News''. His articles describing the massacre of Bulgarian civilians by Turkish soldiers and irregular volunteers in 1876 created public outrage in Europe, and were a major factor in preventing Britain from supporting Turkey in the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which led to
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
gaining independence from the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.
Youth and education
Januarius Aloysius MacGahan was born near
New Lexington
New Lexington is a village in and the county seat of Perry County, Ohio, United States, southwest of Zanesville and miles southeast of Columbus. The population was 4,731 at the 2010 census.
In 2020, New Lexington’s historical Main Street und ...
,
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
on June 12, 1844. His father was an immigrant from
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
who had served on
HMS ''Northumberland'', the ship which took
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
into exile on
St. Helena
Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constitu ...
. MacGahan moved to
St. Louis, where he worked briefly as a teacher and as a journalist. There he met his cousin, General
Philip Sheridan
General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...
, a
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
hero also of Irish parentage, who convinced him to study law in Europe. He sailed to Brussels in December 1868.
MacGahan did not get a law degree, but he discovered that he had a gift for languages, learning French and German. He ran short of money and was about to return to America in 1870 when the
Franco-Prussian War broke out. Sheridan happened to be an observer with the German Army, and he used his influence to persuade the European editor of the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''.
His ...
'' to hire MacGahan as a war correspondent with the French Army.
In France, Russia and Central Asia
MacGahan's vivid articles from the front lines describing the stunning defeat of the French Army won him a large following, and many of his dispatches to the ''Herald'' were reprinted by European newspapers. By the age of twenty-seven, he was a celebrity. When the war ended, he interviewed French leader
Léon Gambetta and
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, and, in March 1871, he hurried to Paris and was one of the first foreign correspondents to report on the uprising of the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
. He was arrested by the French military and nearly executed, and was only rescued through the intervention of the U.S. Minister to France.
In 1871 MacGahan was assigned as the Herald's correspondent to St. Petersburg. He learned Russian, mingled with the Russian military and nobility, covered the Russian tour of General
William Tecumseh Sherman and met his future wife, Varvara Elagina, whom he married in 1873.
He learned in 1873 that Russia was planning to invade the khanate of
Khiva
Khiva ( uz, Xiva/, خىۋا; fa, خیوه, ; alternative or historical names include ''Kheeva'', ''Khorasam'', ''Khoresm'', ''Khwarezm'', ''Khwarizm'', ''Khwarazm'', ''Chorezm'', ar, خوارزم and fa, خوارزم) is a district-level city ...
, in Central Asia. Defying a Russian ban of foreign correspondents, he crossed the
Kyzyl-Kum desert on horseback and witnessed the surrender of the city of Khiva to the Russian Army. There he met a Russian Lieutenant Colonel,
Mikhail Skobelev
Mikhail Dmitriyevich Skobelev (russian: Михаил Дмитриевич Скобелев; 29 September 1843 – 7 July 1882), a Russian Empire, Russian general, became famous for his conquest of Central Asia and for his heroism during the Russo ...
, who later became famous as Russian commander during the
Russian-Turkish War
The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in History of Euro ...
of 1877–78. MacGahan described his adventures in a popular book, ''Campaigning on the Oxus and the fall of Khiva'' (1874). MacGahan was also married to the daughter of an old Russian noble family.
In 1874 he spent ten months in Spain, covering the
Third Carlist War
The Third Carlist War ( es, Tercera Guerra Carlista) (1872–1876) was the last Carlist War in Spain. It is sometimes referred to as the "Second Carlist War", as the earlier "Second" War (1847–1849) was smaller in scale and relatively trivial ...
. In 1875, he voyaged with British explorer Sir
Allen Young on his steam yacht on an expedition to try to find the
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arct ...
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The expedition got as far as
Peel Sound in the Canadian Arctic before it met pack ice and was forced to return.
Investigation of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria (1876)
In 1876 MacGahan quarreled with
James Gordon Bennett Jr., the publisher of the New York ''Herald'', and left the newspaper. He was invited by his friend,
Eugene Schuyler, the American Consul-General in Constantinople, to investigate reports of large-scale atrocities committed by the Turkish Army following the failure of an attempted uprising by Bulgarian nationalists in April 1876. (See
April Uprising.) MacGahan obtained a commission from the ''
Daily News'', then the leading liberal newspaper in England, and left for Bulgaria on July 23, 1876. He became a member of the American investigation commission of the US Consul-General in Constantinople, Eugene Schuyler, together with the Constantinople correspondent of Kölnische Zeitung,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
journalist Karl Schneider (1854–1945);
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
prince Aleksi Tsereteli (Aleksei Tseretelev) - governing secretary of the Russian embassy in Constantinople; and Turkish and Bulgarian translator Petar Dimitrov, an instructor at the American
Robert College
The American Robert College of Istanbul ( tr, İstanbul Özel Amerikan Robert Lisesi or ), often shortened to Robert, or RC, is a Selective school, highly selective, Independent school, independent, mixed-sex education, co-educational Secondary ...
in Constantinople.
After visiting Philippopolis on July 28, and Peshtera and Pazardjik on August 1 and 2, MacGahan travelled to the village of Batak, and sent the paper a graphic report of what he saw:
...We looked into the church which had been blackened by the burning of the woodwork, but not destroyed, nor even much injured. It was a low building with a low roof, supported by heavy irregular arches, that as we looked in seemed scarcely high enough for a tall man to stand under. What we saw there was too frightful for more than a hasty glance. An immense number of bodies had been partially burnt there and the charred and blackened remains seemed to fill it half way up to the low dark arches and make them lower and darker still, were lying in a state of putrefaction too frightful to look upon. I had never imagined anything so horrible. We all turned away sick and faint, and staggered out of the fearful pest house glad to get into the street again. We walked about the place and saw the same thing repeated over and over a hundred times. Skeletons of men with the clothing and flesh still hanging to and rotting together; skulls of women, with the hair dragging in the dust. bones of children and infants everywhere. Here they show us a house where twenty people were burned alive; there another where a dozen girls had taken refuge, and been slaughtered to the last one, as their bones amply testified. Everywhere horrors upon horrors...
MacGahan reported that the Turkish soldiers had forced some of the villagers into the church, then the church was burned and survivors tortured to learn where they had hidden their treasures. MacGahan said that of a population of seven thousand, only two thousand survived. According to his account, fifty-eight villages in Bulgaria had been destroyed, five monasteries demolished, and fifteen thousand people in all massacred.
These reports, published first in the
''London Daily News'', and then in other papers, caused widespread popular outrage against Turkey in Britain. The government of Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
, a supporter of Turkey, tried to minimize the massacres and said that the Bulgarians were equally to blame, but his arguments were refuted by the newspaper accounts of MacGahan.
Following the publication of MacGahan's articles,
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
wrote a pamphlet called ''Bulgarian Horrors'': "I entreat my countrymen," he wrote, "upon whom far more than upon any other people in Europe it depends, to require and to insist that our government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply all its vigour to concur with the states of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves...."
In 1876
Ivan Vazov dedicated a poem to Macgahan called ''Жалбите на майките'' (''The Sorrows of the Mothers'').
Russian-Turkish War (1877–78)
In the wake of the massacres and atrocities committed by the Ottoman forces during the suppression of the
April Uprising, as well as centuries-long conflicts between Russia and Turkey in Crimea, the Russian Government, stirred by anti-Turkish and
Pan-Slavism sentiment, prepared to invade The Ottoman Empire, and declared war on it on April 24, 1877. The Turkish Government of Sultan
Abdul Hamid II
Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II ( ota, عبد الحميد ثانی, Abd ül-Hamid-i Sani; tr, II. Abdülhamid; 21 September 1842 10 February 1918) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to ...
appealed for help to Britain, its traditional ally against Russia, but the British government responded that it could not intervene "because of the state of public feeling."
MacGahan was assigned as a war correspondent for the ''
Daily News'', and, thanks to his friendship with General Skobelev, the Russian commander, rode with the first units of the Russian Army as it crossed the Danube into Bulgaria. He covered all the major battles of the
Russo-Turkish War, including the
siege of Pleven
The siege of Pleven, was a major battle of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, fought by the joint army of Russia and Romania against the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian army crossed the Danube at Svishtov, it began advancing towards ...
and
Shipka Pass. He reported on the final defeat of the Turkish armies, and was present at the signing of the
treaty of San Stefano, which ended the war.
The 1877 invasion prompted this sardonic comment from MacGahan: “I can safely say I have done more to smash up the Turkish empire than anybody else ... except the Turks themselves.”
He was in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
, preparing to travel to Berlin for the conference that determined the final borders of Bulgaria, when he caught
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
. He died on June 9, 1878, and was buried in the Greek cemetery, in the presence of diplomats, war correspondents, and
General Mikhail Skobelev. Six years later his body was returned to the United States and reburied in New Lexington. A statue was erected in his honor by a society of Bulgarian-Americans.
Honors
![A Boulder with Plaque in Honor of Januarius MacGahan in Panagyurishte](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/A_Boulder_with_Plaque_in_Honor_of_Januarius_MacGahan_in_Panagyurishte.JPG)
MacGahan is still remembered in Bulgaria for his role in winning Bulgarian independence. A street and a school in the capital,
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
, a square in the city of
Plovdiv
Plovdiv ( bg, Пловдив, ), is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, standing on the banks of the Maritsa river in the historical region of Thrace. It has a population of 346,893 and 675,000 in the greater metropolitan area. Plovdiv is the c ...
, streets in the towns of
Varna
Varna may refer to:
Places Europe
*Varna, Bulgaria, a city in Bulgaria
**Varna Province
**Varna Municipality
** Gulf of Varna
**Lake Varna
**Varna Necropolis
*Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy
*Varniai, a city in Lithuania
* Varna (Šaba ...
,
Sliven,
Vratsa,
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
,
Panagyurishte,
Pazardzhik and
Stamboliyski
Stamboliyski ( bg, Стамболийски ) is a town in southern Bulgaria, located on the right bank of Maritsa river and is a part of Plovdiv Province. It was founded in 1873–75, when the Istanbul- Belovo railway was built. It was initial ...
are named after Januarius MacGahan.
There is also a festival and memorial service held each June in his honor in his hometown of New Lexington.
References
Bibliography
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* Pundeff, Marin V. ''Schuyler and MacGahan Before 1876''. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Bulgarian Studies,
Varna
Varna may refer to:
Places Europe
*Varna, Bulgaria, a city in Bulgaria
**Varna Province
**Varna Municipality
** Gulf of Varna
**Lake Varna
**Varna Necropolis
*Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy
*Varniai, a city in Lithuania
* Varna (Šaba ...
, June 1978.
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External links
Perry County Historical SocietyMacGahan American-Bulgarian Foundation*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macgahan, Januarius
American war correspondents
1876 in Bulgaria
April Uprising of 1876
People from New Lexington, Ohio
1844 births
1878 deaths
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
Deaths from typhoid fever
19th-century American male writers
American expatriates in Belgium
American expatriates in France
American expatriates in the Russian Empire
American expatriates in the Ottoman Empire
American expatriates in Spain