185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo"
The counter-insurgency achieved full success and forced the partisans to emigrate to other areas. The 185th Regiment was later destined to Calabria, then to Sicily, in order to counter the landing and the advance of the Anglo-American forces. In Calabria, in particular, the 185th Regiment was engaged in very harsh fights of extreme rearguard alongside German units, where it suffered air attacks and heavy losses. The 185th Regiment was initially subordinated to the 4th Infantry Division "Livorno" in the XVI Army Corps and then to the 211st Coastal Division in the XXXI Army Corps. On 3 September 1943 the XI Battalion was involved in a fight against units of the Eight Army.p. 361-362 In September 1943 the slow withdrawal of the 185th Regiment saw the VIII Battalion acting as a counter-commando force.p. 364


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Italian civil war
On 8 September 1943, Captain Sala,p. 376 the commander of III Battalion of the 185th Regiment, chose to continue the war alongside the Germans, while the rest of the Regiment remained loyal to the King, although several paratroopers of the XI Battalion followed the III Battalion (later placed under the 1st Parachute Division).p. 378,382 In Sardinia, the XII Battalion and part of the XIII Battalion remained alongside the Germans, remaining also involved in some internal clashes with loyalist units of the Nembo Division.p. 386 -387


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Italian civil war
On the loyalist side, elements of the III Battalion, under the command of Captain Carlo Gay and reinforced by several Arditi under Captain Carlo Bonciani, constituted the initial nucleus of the Unit which subsequently took the name of 1st Special Autonomous Unit and finally that of 1st Reconnaissance Squadron "Folgore". The Squadron operated from 6 October 1943 subordinated to the 1st Canadian Division and later of the XIII British Army Corps.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Italian civil war
Some paratroopers of the 185th Regiment were assigned to intelligence services, with tasks of coordination with Italian partisans.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo"
In late 1943, the 185th Regiment was reduced to VIII and XI Battalion and some other companies.p. 440-441 Then, headquartered in Santa Maria di Leuca and Presicce, it was restructured and reduced to the Battalion size (185th Unit "Nembo"). Then, on 20 January 1944, it took the name of 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo", ceded troops to the "Folgore" Squadron, to the military intelligence and to the "Piceno" Division.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo"
As of January 1944, the Unit consisted of three Paratroopers Companies, one Gun Company, one Mortars Company and a Vehicle Section.p. 453


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo"
The 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo" was then part of the 1st Motorized Group. On 5 February, the 185th Unit passed under the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division of the French Expeditionary Corps; however, two weeks later it returned to the 1st Motorized Group.p. 453 -454 The first operational engagement of the new phase was the reconnaissance operations in Monte Marone and Monte Mare: by the end of March 1944, the 1st Motorized Group, now under the 2nd Polish Corps, occupied Monte Marone;p. 456-458 on 19 May 1944, the 185th Unit occupied Monte San Michele.p. 462


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", 185th Arditi Paratroopers Unit "Nembo"
In June 1944, the Italian Liberation Corps was deployed on the Adriatic Coast, and the 185th Unit was assigned to the Nembo Division; there, it occupied Orsogna and L'Aquila.p. 466-467 In August 1944, the 185th Unit was inserted in the Combat Groups of the Italian Liberation Corps.p. 472


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Squadron "F"
The Squadron "F" conducted information-gathering missions in Italy, patrolling, infiltration and sabotage actions beyond the German lines that culminated with the Operation Herring (20 April 1945), the only paratrooper war operation carried out by our Army on Italian territory, in the area of the Po Valley, centred on the municipality of Poggio Rusco.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Squadron "F"
In early October 1943, Captain Carlo Gay and his men were placed under the 1st Canadian Division; on 15 November 1944 it was assigned directly to the XIII British Army Corps and, on 7 December 1943, the Italian Army Staff formally established the 1st Special Autonomous Unit, later 1st Reconnaissance Squadron "F".p. 472-473


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1941-1945: 185th Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo", Squadron "F"
The first assignment of the Squadron "F" was Abruzzo, earning admiration from Allied officers. In late March 1944, the Squadron "F" was moved to Cassino.p. 473-474 On 8 August 1944, the Squadron was placed under the British 1st Infantry Division in Tuscany.p. 477 In September 1944, the Squadron "F" was reinforced by a paratroopers contingent led by Captain Bonciani. In March 1945, the Squadron "F" was placed under the 25th Indian Infantry Brigade.p. 480


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1960-1993: 13th Target acquisition Group
The target acquisition capability in the Italian Army has been developed since 1960, then part of the 3rd Missile Brigade "Aquileia". Nowadays, the 185th Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore" provides the same capability to the Italian Armed Forces.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1960-1993: 13th Target acquisition Group
The first nucleus of the target acquisition capability was the Reconnaissance and Surveillance Battery (Batteria Ricognizione e Sorveglianza, B.R.S. ), established in 1960, within the 3rd Missile Brigade. The Reconnaissance and Surveillance Battery subsequently changed, in January 1961, the 13th Reconnaissance Artillery Battalion and finally, in 1962, the 13th Target Acquisition Battalion. This transformation led, in 1964, to the establishment of the Remotely controlled Aircraft Battery in 1973. In 1975 the Battalion was transformed in the 13th Target Acquisition Group (13° Gruppo Acquisizione Obiettivi, 13° Gr.Ac.O. ), operating within the 3rd Missile Brigade "Aquileia". Paratroopers of the 13th Group were trained to jump from light aircraft.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1960-1993: 13th Target acquisition Group
The Group was tasked with infiltration operations beyond the enemy lines, in order to conduct observation and information-gathering activity, to acquire targets and direct the fire of surface-to-surface missiles (MGR-1 Honest John missiles) and, from 1973 until the early 1990s, of tactical ballistic missiles (MGM-52 Lance).


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1960-1993: 13th Target acquisition Group
The 13th Group was subdivided into Batteries: the first (the Remotely controlled Aircraft Battery) operated Canadair CL-89 unmanned aerial vehicles; the second Battery, the Target Acquisition Battery, consisted of highly qualified paratrooper personnel, also known as Pipistrelli (Italian for "Bat"). The Target Acquisition Battery sought only rigorously selected personnel, working as much for the benefit of 3rd Missile Brigade as for the 5th Army Corps and the Allied Land Forces Southern Europe.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 1960-1993: 13th Target acquisition Group
In October 1993 the 13th Gr.Ac.O. was dissolved due to the restructuring of the Italian Army. Part of the staff was brought into the Long Range Reconnaissance Nucleus, placed under the responsibility of the 5th Army Corps Artillery Command. In 1995 the Long Range Reconnaissance Nucleus was upgraded to Long Range Reconnaissance Company and, on 24 June 1995, it was assigned to the 9th Paratroopers Assault Regiment.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2000-2013: 185th Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment in the Folgore Brigade
On 3 April 2000, the 185th Artillery Regiment "Folgore" took the name of 185th Terrestrial Artillery Regiment (Target Acquisition Paratroopers) "Folgore". The Regiment gave up the artillery and began to train its own personnel as Target Acquirer, with only the 30% being able to pass the course. The first Objective Acquisition Detachments were established, with the transformation of the 1st Battery, then followed by the other two which, in turn, carried out the specialization courses and received a different environmental characterization. The 1st Battery "Draghi" took on a particular predisposition to operate in the arctic and alpine area, the 2nd Battery "Aquile" in a desert environment and the 3rd Battery "Diavoli" in the continental terrain.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2000-2013: 185th Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment in the Folgore Brigade
In 2002, the 185th Artillery Regiment "Folgore" was included within the Special Operations Forces of the Army and was assigned to Mostar, Bosnia, directly under the Multinational Division South East "Salamanders". Other Detachments were deployed in Kosovo and in Macedonia. In 2003, the Regiment gained, from the 9th Paratroopers Assault Regiment, a LRRP company, which became the fourth Battery (company-level unit in Artillery units).


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2000-2013: 185th Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment in the Folgore Brigade
The 185th Target Acquisition Artillery Regiment "Folgore" was established in 2004 within the Folgore Brigade, inheriting the War Flag and traditions of the 185th Artillery Regiment "Folgore"; the Regiment, in turn, assumed the motto (Videre nec videri) and the coat of arms (bat with parachute and sword) of the paratroopers of the Target Acquisition Battery of the dissolved 13th Target acquisition Group "Aquileia" (13° GR.AC.O.) of the 3rd Missile Brigade "Aquileia", also disestablished.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2000-2013: 185th Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment in the Folgore Brigade
In 2013, the 185th Parachute Regiment "Folgore" was reestablished and, on 21 June 2013, it took up the flag previously handed over to the 185th Regiment RAO. The 185th RRAO, in turn, was assigned the War Flag that once belonged to the 185th Parachute Infantry Regiment, leaving Artillery for Infantry.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2014-present: COM.FO.S.E.
With the restructuring of the Italian Armed Forces, in 2014 the 185th RRAO, as well as the 9th Parachutist Assault Regiment "Col Moschin", transitioned from the Paratroopers Brigade "Folgore" to the new Army Special Forces Command (Comando Forze Speciali Esercito, COM.FO.S.E. ), which sees under its command the special operations departments of the Army to standardize their training and doctrines.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2014-present: COM.FO.S.E.
In June 2015 the 185th Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", as a beret flash, was grainted the emblem of the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron "Folgore" (Squadron "F").


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", History, 2014-present: COM.FO.S.E.
In 2017, the Regiment was upgraded to a Tier-1 special forces unit.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Mission
The 185th Regiment has, by its very nature, a vocation markedly directed towards Intelligence tasks and is specialized in Direct Actions that involve the engagement of remote objectives. The Regiment is particularly specialized in conducting special reconnaissance and terminal guidance operations (TGO), Joint Terminal Attack Controller operations and the terminal control of each source of fire against high-value targets.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Mission
The 185th RRAO is not a unit tasked with carrying out incursions and sabotage, nor counter-terrorism operations, at least in ordinary circumstances.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Structure
As of 2019 the 185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore" consists of:


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Structure
The Command and Logistic Support Company fields the following platoons: C3 Platoon, Transport and Materiel Platoon, Medical Platoon, and Commissariat Platoon. The Operational Support Company consists of a C4 Platoon and an Amphibious Platoon.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Structure, Target Acquirers Companies
Target Acquirers Companies include the Command and a number of Target Acquisition Detachments, of the nominal strength of 12 men each and commanded by an experienced lieutenant or marshal.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Structure, Target Acquirers Detachment
The Target Acquirers Detachment has a formal staff of 12 elements including the commander, a lieutenant or an experienced marshal, and can be split into three teams of 4 men or two of 6 operators. However, its exact composition in operations depends on the specific needs and characteristics of the mission. A generally motorized use may require, even for security reasons, configurations with more personnel, while others may require less personnel.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Structure, Target Acquirers Detachment
The key figures present in a detachment are ordinarily the scout, the observer, the image acquisition operator, the radio operator, the medic, the CBRN specialist, the JTAC and the sniper. Some functions may be duplicated or, on the contrary, a single operator may hold more than one position.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training
The training of an operator of the 185th Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore" is long and complex and lasts about two years.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training
The process to become "Target Acquirer" consists of three phases (70 weeks):


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training, Selective Phase
The Selective Phase, common to all Special Forces units, lasts six weeks and it is structured on a distance preparation phase (4 weeks), during which the aspirant must train and prepare in ordert to take the physical selection, and on physical tests and on the psycho-aptitude selection internship (2 weeks), whose purpose is to verify the athletic preparation of the aspirants and test their psycho-physical resistance and attitudinal profile, through the conduct of tactical activities.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training, Common Basic Training Phase
The Common Basic Training Phase lasts fourteen weeks, and is subdivided into two consecutive sub-phases. The first phase is the parachuting course (4 weeks), conducted at the Parachuting Training Center (C.A.PAR.) of the Paratroopers Brigade "Folgore", preparatory to the acquisition of the military paratrooper brevet. Those already in possession of the brevet have direct access to the O.B.O.S. course.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training, Common Basic Training Phase
The second phase is the "Basic Operator for Special Operations" Course (Operatore Basico per Operazioni Speciali, or O.B.O.S. ), which lasts 10 weeks. This training phase is conducted under the authority of the Commander of COM.FO.S.E. and performed at the Special Forces Training Unit (R.A.FO.S.). The O.B.O.S. Course aims to provide a homogeneous basic preparation, common to all Special Forces Operators of all Special Forces units, according to the principle of interoperability. Passing the O.B.O.S. Course entails the achievement of the qualification of "Basic Operator for Special Operations" and represents the necessary condition for access to the subsequent specialization phase.


185th Paratroopers Reconnaissance Target Acquisition Regiment "Folgore", Training, Specialization Phase
The specialization phase for "Target Acquisition" lasts 50 weeks, and is divided into several modules.


185th Special Operations Squadron
The 185th Special Operations Squadron is a unit of the Oklahoma Air National Guard's 137th Special Operations Wing,  located at Will Rogers World Airport (Will Rogers Air National Guard Base), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The 185th is the only National Guard unit (and only US Air Force unit) to be equipped with the MC-12W. The unit is known as the "Sooners". Famous unit alumni include former Vietnam prisoner of war Brig. Gen. James Robinson "Robbie" Risner and Astronaut Captain Fred Wallace Haise Jr., Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
The squadron was first organized at Key Field, Mississippi in February 1943 as the 620th Bombardment Squadron, one of the four original squadrons of the 404th Bombardment Group. The squadron was initially equipped with a mix of Douglas A-24 Banshees and Bell P-39 Airacobras. In July 1943, the squadron moved to Congaree Army Air Field, South Carolina, where it was redesignated the 506th Fighter-Bomber Squadron The following month. In early 1944, the squadron converted to Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. Completing its training for combat in March, it deployed to the United Kingdom.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
The squadron arrived at its first overseas station, RAF Winkton, England in early April. It became operational on 1 May and began bombing and strafing targets in France to help prepare for Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. At the end of the month, it dropped the "Bomber" from its name and became the 506th Fighter Squadron, but retained the air support mission. The squadron provided top cover for the landings on D-Day.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
A month later, on 6 July, the squadron moved to Chippelle Airfield in France, from which it provided air support for Operation Cobra, the Allied breakout at Saint-Lô, later that month. Despite suffering heavy losses from flak, the squadron helped cover four armored divisions dunging the breakout. This support earned the squadron the French Croix de Guerre with Palm.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
The squadron supported the Allied advance across the Netherlands, operating from bases in France and from Sint-Truiden Airfield, Belgium. Its actions in this area, resulted in the squadron being cited in the order of the day of the Belgian Army and the award of the Belgian Fourragère for its contributions to the liberation of the Belgian people. On 10 September, the squadron participated in three armed reconnaissance missions. On these missions, despite adverse weather and heavy antiaircraft fire, the squadron attacked lines of communications, factories and rail targets as ground forces advanced. These missions earned the squadron the Distinguished Unit Citation.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
During December 1944 and January 1945, attacked German positions during the Battle of the Bulge. Later it supported Operation Lumberjack and the establishment of a bridgehead on the west bank of the Rhine in March 1945. The squadron also flew air interdiction missions, strafing and bombing troop concentrations, railroads, highways, bridges, ammunition and fuel dumps, armored vehicles, docks, and tunnels. It covered bombing missions by Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, Consolidated B-24 Liberators, and Martin B-26 Marauders. On 4 May, the squadron flew armed reconnaissance missions that would prove to be its last combat missions of the war.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, World War II
The squadron briefly served with U.S. forces in the American occupation zone of Germany before returning to the United States in August 1945. It reassembled at Drew Field, Florida on 11 September, but was inactivated on 9 November 1945.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard
The 506th Fighter Squadron was redesignated the 185th Fighter Squadron and allotted to the National Guard on 24 May 1946. It was organized at the Westheimer Airport, Oklahoma, and was extended federal recognition on 18 December 1947. The squadron was equipped with North American P-51D Mustang fighters and was assigned to the Oklahoma National Guard's 137th Fighter Group.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard
The 137th Fighter Group provided command and logistical support for both the 185th and the 125th Fighter Squadrons, based at Tulsa Municipal Airport. The 125th performed air defense training missions over Northern Oklahoma and the panhandle; the 185th trained over Southern Oklahoma to the Texas border.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard
In April 1949, a tornado struck the Airport at Norman. The damage was considered too extensive for economical repair and the decision was made to move the 185th Fighter Squadron to Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City. The move was accomplished on 6 September 1949. Fortunately, none of the unit's F-51D aircraft were destroyed due to all being checked out by pilots for training flights away from base.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Korean War federalization
The 185th's parent 137th Fighter Group was federalized and ordered to active service on 10 October 1950. The squadron was then assigned directly to the Oklahoma Air National Guard, continuing its air defense mission. However, on 1 February 1951, the squadron was re-equipped with North American RF-51D Mustangs as the 185th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, and began training for tactical aerial reconnaissance and flying aerial photography missions.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Korean War federalization
The 185th was federalized and ordered to active service on 1 April 1951. It was assigned to the 118th Tactical Reconnaissance Group and moved to Memphis Municipal Airport the same month. The squadron moved to Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina on 5 January 1952. Squadron RF-51Ds were sent to Korea along with many of their pilots and joined the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group where they served in combat. The remainder of the squadron were equipped with Lockheed RF-80A Shooting Star reconnaissance jets. On 1 January 1953 the 185th was inactivated and transferred its personnel and planes to the regular 30th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, which was simultaneously activated. It was returned to Oklahoma state control and to Will Rogers Airport as the 185th Fighter-Bomber Squadron.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Fighter interceptor mission
Reforming after their active duty service, the 185th was again assigned to the 137th Group on 1 January 1953, becoming Tactical Air Command gained. The squadron was equipped with Mustangs again, due to the shortage of jet aircraft in the United States (almost all were in Korea). In the spring of 1953 they received reworked F-80A Shooting Star aircraft, brought up to F-80C standards. On 1 July 1955 the squadron was given a fighter-interceptor mission in Air Defense Command, and the became the 185th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, equipped with North American F-86D Sabres. Their F-80s were transferred to the civilian Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for various experimental testing activities.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Fighter interceptor mission
With the fighter interceptor mission assignment, the 185th also assumed a runway alert program on full 24-hour basis - with armed jet fighters ready to scramble at a moment's notice. This event brought the squadron into the daily combat operational program of the USAF, placing it on "the end of the runway" alongside regular USAF air defense fighter squadrons. In June 1959 the squadron traded their F-86Ds for the upgraded F-86L Sabre Interceptor with uprated afterburning engines and new electronics.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Strategic airlift
In April 1961, the 185th was traded its Sabre interceptors for 4-engined Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter transports and became the 185th Air Transport Squadron. With air transportation recognized as a critical wartime need, the 185th augmented Military Air Transport Service airlift capability worldwide in support of the Air Force’s needs. Throughout the 1960s, the 185th flew long-distance transport missions in support of Air Force requirements, frequently sending aircraft to the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, and during the Vietnam War, to both South Vietnam, Okinawa and Thailand.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Strategic airlift
Part of the squadron's mission was a specially equipped C-97E, 51-0224, the "Miss Oklahoma City" also known as the "Talking Bird". From 1961 though 1963 the aircraft was used as an airborne command post to maintain constant secure communications between the nation's capital and President John F. Kennedy during his visits to foreign countries. The C-97s were retired in 1968 and the squadron re-equipped with Douglas C-124C Globemaster II heavy transports. The squadron continued to fly long-distance intercontinental airlift flights until the Globemasters were retired in 1975.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Tactical airlift
In 1975 the squadron became the 185th Tactical Airlift Squadron when it was re-equipped with the Lockheed C-130A Hercules tactical airlifter. In June 1979 the 185th Tactical Airlift Squadron was the first Air National Guard unit to receive C-130H aircraft, receiving new aircraft direct from Lockheed.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Tactical airlift
In subsequent years the squadron served in humanitarian missions worldwide. During the 1990s the 185th provided counter-drug support coordinated through the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. As of mid-2001, numerous drug enforcement operations had resulted in the destruction of 7.2 million marijuana plants, estimated 4.1 billion dollars in destroyed drugs, 814 arrests, 165 seized weapons, and 1.1 million dollars in currency and assets seized.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Tactical airlift
Following the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, unit air guardsmen provided site security and medical, rescue, and recovery personnel, assisting in every aspect of the disaster rescue and recovery effort. The squadron provided operational support during the 1991 Gulf War, and contributed logistical assistance in Bosnia in the late 1990s. Personnel from the squadron aided New Mexico ranchers faced with livestock devastation after severe winter storms covered the grasslands with snow. 137th aircrew delivered much needed hay to starving livestock, averting near disaster to New Mexico's livestock industry.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Oklahoma Air National Guard, Air refueling
In its 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations, the Department of Defense recommended relocating the 137th Airlift Wing to Tinker Air Force Base and associate with the 507th Air Refueling Wing of Air Force Reserve Command. The squadron's C-130H aircraft would be distributed to the 136th Airlift Wing at NAS JRB Fort Worth, Texas (4 aircraft), and the 139th Airlift Wing at Rosecrans Memorial Airport, Missouri (4 aircraft). The other elements of the wing's expeditionary combat support would remain in place at Will Rogers. Beginning in October 2008, the 185th Air Refueling Squadron aircrews jointly operated the Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker aircraft at Tinker with the aircrews of the Air Force Reserve 465th Air Refueling Squadron.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Current status
As a result of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, the squadron transitioned from Air Mobility Command as an associate KC-135R unit at Tinker AFB to Air Force Special Operations Command as a MC-12W unit. The unit ceased operations as an associate unit flying KC-135s in the summer of 2015.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Current status
It started receiving its MC-12W aircraft in July 2015, returning to its previous home of Will Rogers World Airport/ANG Base. The squadron first deployed to support United States Special Operations Command elements in October 2017.


185th Special Operations Squadron, History, Current status
While commonly known as "Liberty," after the Second World War Liberty ships, the aircraft does not have an official nickname, and AFMC's Project Liberty Office was closed upon transfer of the aircraft to the Project Javaman Office for support to United States Special Operations Command. 'Javaman' was named after a declassified World War II naval project involving remote control attack boats controlled by retrofitted bomber aircraft.


185th Special Operations Squadron, References, Bibliography
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website .


185th Tunnelling Company
The 185th Tunnelling Company was one of the tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers created by the British Army during World War I. The tunnelling units were occupied in offensive and defensive mining involving the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps (a narrow trench dug to approach enemy trenches), cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services.


185th Tunnelling Company, Background
By January 1915 it had become evident to the BEF at the Western Front that the Germans were mining to a planned system. As the British had failed to develop suitable counter-tactics or underground  listening devices before the war, field marshals French and Kitchener agreed to investigate the suitability of forming  British mining units. Following consultations between the Engineer-in-Chief of the BEF, Brigadier George Fowke, and the mining specialist John Norton-Griffiths, the War Office formally approved the tunnelling company scheme on 19 February 1915.


185th Tunnelling Company, Background
Norton-Griffiths ensured that tunnelling companies numbers 170 to 177 were ready for deployment in mid-February 1915. In the spring of that year, there was constant underground fighting in the Ypres Salient at Hooge, Hill 60, Railway Wood, Sanctuary Wood, St Eloi and The Bluff which required the deployment of new drafts of tunnellers for several months after the formation of the first eight companies. The lack of suitably experienced men led to some tunnelling companies starting work later than others.


185th Tunnelling Company, Background
The number of units available to the BEF was also restricted by the need to provide effective counter-measures to the German mining activities. To make the tunnels safer and quicker to deploy, the British Army enlisted experienced coal miners, many outside their nominal recruitment policy. The first nine companies, numbers 170 to 178, were each commanded by a regular Royal Engineers officer. These companies each comprised 5 officers and 269 sappers; they were aided by additional infantrymen who were temporarily attached to the tunnellers as required, which almost doubled their numbers.


185th Tunnelling Company, Background
The success of the first tunnelling companies formed under Norton-Griffiths' command led to mining being made a separate branch of the  Engineer-in-Chief's office under Major-General S.R. Rice, and the appointment of an 'Inspector of Mines' at the GHQ Saint-Omer office of the Engineer-in-Chief. A second group of tunnelling companies were formed from Welsh miners from the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Monmouthshire Regiment, who were attached to the 1st Northumberland Field Company of the Royal Engineers, which was a Territorial unit. The formation of twelve new tunnelling companies, between July and October 1915, helped to bring more men into action in other parts of the Western Front.


185th Tunnelling Company, Background
Most tunnelling companies were formed under Norton-Griffiths' leadership during 1915, and one more was added in 1916. On 10 September 1915, the British government sent an appeal to Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to raise tunnelling companies in the Dominions of the British Empire. On 17 September, New Zealand became the first Dominion to agree the formation of a tunnelling unit. The New Zealand Tunnelling Company arrived at Plymouth on 3 February 1916 and was deployed to the Western Front in northern France. A Canadian unit was formed from men on the battlefield, plus two other companies trained in Canada and then shipped to France. Three Australian tunnelling companies were formed by March 1916, resulting in 30 tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers being available by the summer of 1916.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
185th Tunnelling Company was formed in Rouen in October 1915, moved immediately to the Somme area, for work at La Boisselle. From its formation until the end of the war the company served under First Army.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
In the Somme sector of the Western Front, local but very fierce underground fighting had taken place in the winter of 1914 and spring of 1915 at La Boisselle, Fricourt, Bois Français and Carnoy. Fowke moved the 174th and 183rd Tunnelling Companies there to relieve the French engineers, but the British did not have enough miners to take over the large number of French shafts and the French agreed to leave their engineers at work for several weeks. To provide the tunnellers needed, the British formed the 178th and 179th Tunnelling Companies in August 1915, followed by the 185th and 252nd Tunnelling Companies in October. The 181st Tunnelling Company was also present on the Somme.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
Early attempts at mining by the British on the Western Front had commenced in late 1914 in the soft clay and sandy soils of Flanders. Mining at La Boisselle was in chalk, much harder and requiring different techniques. The German advance had been halted at La Boisselle by French troops on 28 September 1914. There was bitter fighting for possession of the village cemetery, and for farm buildings on the south-western edge of the village, known as "L'îlot de La Boisselle" to the French, as "Granathof" (German: "shell farm") to the Germans and as "Glory Hole" to the British.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
In December 1914, French engineers had begun tunnelling beneath the ruins. With the war on the surface at stalemate, both sides continued to probe beneath the opponent's trenches and detonate ever-greater explosive charges. In August 1915, the French and Germans were working at a depth of 12 metres (39 ft); the size of their charges had reached 3,000 kilograms (6,600 lb). The British extended and deepened the system, first to 24 metres (79 ft) and ultimately 30 metres (98 ft). Above ground the infantry occupied trenches just 45 metres (148 ft) apart. Around La Boisselle, the Germans had dug defensive transversal tunnels at a depth of about 80 feet (24 metres), parallel to the front line.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
As Allied preparations for the Battle of the Somme (1 July – 18 November 1916) were begun, the tunnelling companies were to make two major contributions by placing 19 large and small mines beneath the German positions along the front line and by preparing a series of shallow Russian saps from the British front line into no man's land, which would be opened at zero hour and allow the infantry to attack the German positions from a comparatively short distance.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
Four mines were planned at La Boisselle: Two 3,600-kilogram (8,000 lb) charges (known as No 2 straight and No 5 right) were planted at L'îlot, intended to wreck German tunnels and create crater lips to block enfilade fire along no man's land. To assist the attack on the village, two further mines, known as Y Sap and Lochnagar after the trenches from which they were dug, were laid to the north-east and the south-east of La Boisselle on either side of the German salient – .


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Somme 1915/16
185th Tunnelling Company started work on the Lochnagar mine on 11 November 1915, and eventually handed the tunnels over to 179th Tunnelling Company in March 1916, which finished and fired it. A month before the handover, eighteen men of the 185th Tunnelling Company (2 officers, 16 sappers) lost their lives to a German camouflet at La Boisselle on 4 February 1916.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
185th Tunnelling Company next moved to the "Labyrinth" sector near Vimy in March 1916. The German "Labyrinth" stronghold was located near Neuville-Saint-Vaast, between Arras and Vimy and not far from Notre Dame de Lorette. 185th Tunnelling Company seems to have shared this sector with the 176th Tunnelling Company, which had moved to Neuville-Saint-Vaast in April 1916 and remained there for a considerable time, and the 172nd Tunnelling Company, which was relieved in this area by the 2nd Australian Tunnelling Company in May 1916.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
The front sectors at Vimy and Arras, where extremely heavy fighting between the French and the Germans had taken place during 1915, had been taken over by the British in March 1916. Vimy, in particular, was an area of busy underground activity. British tunnellers progressively took over military mining in the area from the French between February and May 1916. Other units active around Vimy were 175th, 182nd, 184th and 255th Tunnelling Companies.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
From spring 1916, the British had deployed five tunnelling companies along the Vimy Ridge, and  during the first two months of their tenure in the area, 70 mines were fired, mostly by the Germans. Between October 1915 and April 1917 an estimated 150 French, British and German charges were fired in this 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) sector of the Western Front.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
On 29 March 1916, the 185th Tunnelling Company was relieved at Roclincourt-Chantecler by the New Zealand Tunnelling Company. During summer and much of autumn 1916, the unit further developed and expanded its mining to create an effective underground defence at Roclincourt-Chantecler. In May 1916, a German infantry attack at Vimy, which forced the British back 640 metres (700 yd), was aimed at neutralising British mining activity by capturing the shaft entrances. From June 1916, however, the Germans withdrew many miners to work on the Hindenburg Line and also for work in coal mines in Germany.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
In the second half of 1916 the British constructed strong defensive underground positions, and from August 1916, the  Royal Engineers developed a mining scheme to support a large-scale infantry attack on the Vimy Ridge proposed for autumn 1916, although this was subsequently postponed. After September 1916, when the Royal Engineers had completed their network of defensive galleries along most of the front line, offensive mining largely ceased although activities continued until 1917. The British gallery network beneath Vimy Ridge eventually grew to a length of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi).


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
The Canadian Corps was posted to the northern part of Vimy Ridge in October 1916 and preparations for an attack were revived in February 1917. 185th Tunnelling Company then dug subways near Neuville-Saint-Vaast in early 1917. Prior to the Battle of Vimy Ridge (9 – 12 April 1917), the British tunnelling companies secretly laid a series of explosive charges under German positions in an effort to destroy surface fortifications before the assault.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
The original plan had called for 17 mines and 9 Wombat charges to support the infantry attack, of which 13 (possibly 14) mines and 8 Wombat charges were eventually laid. At the same time, 19 crater groups existed along this section of the Western Front, each with several large craters. In order to assess the consequences of infantry having to advance across cratered ground after a mining attack, officers from the Canadian Corps visited La Boisselle and Fricourt where the mines on the first day of the Somme had been blown.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
Their reports and the experience of the Canadians at St Eloi in April 1916 – where mines had so altered and damaged the landscape as to render occupation of the mine craters by the infantry all but impossible –, led to the decision to remove offensive mining from the central sector allocated to the Canadian Corps at Vimy Ridge.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
Further British mines in the area were vetoed following the blowing by the Germans on 23 March 1917 of nine craters along no man's land as it was probable that the Germans were aiming to restrict an Allied attack to predictable points. The three mines already laid by 172nd Tunnelling Company were also dropped from the British plans. They were left in place after the assault and were only removed in the 1990s. Another mine, prepared by 176th Tunnelling Company against the German strongpoint known as the Pimple, was not completed in time for the attack.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Vimy 1916/17
The gallery had been pushed silently through the clay, avoiding the sandy and chalky layers of the Vimy Ridge, but by 9 April 1917 was still 21 metres (70 ft) short of its target. In the end, two mines were blown before the attack, while three mines and two Wombat charges were fired to support the attack, including those forming a northern flank.


185th Tunnelling Company, Unit history, Douai 1918
Units of 185th Tunnelling Company were the first British troops to enter Douai, on 17 October 1918, during the great advance to victory.


186
Year 186 (CLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelius and Glabrio (or, less frequently, year 939 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 186 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.


186 (number)
186 (one hundred [and] eighty-six) is the natural number following 185 and preceding 187.


186 BC
Year 186 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Albinus and Philippus (or, less frequently, year 568 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 186 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.


186 Celuta
Celuta (minor planet designation: 186 Celuta) is a 50 km Main belt asteroid. It was discovered by the French astronomers Paul Henry and Prosper Henry on April 6, 1878. This was the last discovery credited to the Prosper brothers. It is classified as an S-type asteroid.


186 Celuta
The asteroid is named after Céluta, a female character in two works of fiction by François-René de Chateaubriand, Atala (1801) and René (1802). The Henry brothers had already named another of their discoveries, 152 Atala, after the heroine of Atala. Both Atala and Céluta are American Indian fictional characters.


186 Celuta
Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico during 2010 gave a light curve with a period of 19.842 ± 0.001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.54 ± 0.02 in magnitude.


1860
1860 (MDCCCLX) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1860th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 860th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 60th  year of the 19th century, and the  1st   year of the 1860s decade. As of the start of 1860, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


1860 (film)
1860 is a 1934 Italian historical film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and starring Giuseppe Gulino, Aida Bellia and Gianfranco Giachetti.


1860 (film)
The film presages Italian neorealism in that it was shot mainly on location. Some scenes were also shot at the Cines Studios in Rome. Also, most contemporaneous historical epics used a star to focus on grand historical characters. This film focuses on a character whom nobody knows or will ever know; a patriot riding to get the assistance of Giuseppe Garibaldi. This film (in its heralding of neorealism) illustrates how the average man plays a part in grand histories. The film also uses non-actors (a key element of Italian neorealism) and a rarity for its time and era.


1860 (film), Cast
The film includes many non-professional actors, Gianfranco Giachetti (brother of Fosco Giachetti), Maria Denis, and Mario Ferrari. It was the last film of Ugo Gracci. A list of the non-actors includes Giuseppe Gulino, Aida Bellia and many others.


1860 (film), Plot
The story is the harried attempt of a Sicilian partisan (as part of the Risorgimento) to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the revered revolutionary to rescue part of his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters many colorful Italians, differing in class and age, and holding political opinions of every type.


1860 (film), Plot
The film ends on the battlefield, making Italian unification a success, despite brutal losses.


1860 (film), Scholarly and other interpretation
Gabriella Romani, in an Italica article from 2002 (part of the JSTOR arts and sciences complex), writes:


1860 (film), Scholarly and other interpretation
Certainly the film drew upon the Soviet films of Sergei Eisenstein and the Macchiaioli painters, but just as important may be, the "Risorgimento female iconography was produced by nineteenth-century patriotic painters and writers."


1860 Argentine presidential election
The Argentine presidential election of 1860 was held on 6 February to choose the second president of the Argentine Confederation. Santiago Derqui was elected president.


1860 Argentine presidential election
The Buenos Aires Province seceded from the Confederation as the State of Buenos Aires on 11 September 1852 and did not participate in elections until 1862.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season
The 1860 Atlantic hurricane season featured three severe hurricanes that struck Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of the United States within a period of seven weeks. The season effectively began on August 8 with the formation of a tropical cyclone in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and produced seven known tropical storms and hurricanes until the dissipation of the last known system on October 24. Six of the seven storms were strong enough to be considered hurricanes on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale, of which four attained Category 2 status and one attained Category 3 major hurricane strength.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season
The first hurricane was the strongest in both winds and pressure, with peak winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 950 millibars (28 inHg). Until contemporary reanalysis discovered four previously unknown tropical cyclones that did not affect land, only three hurricanes were known to have existed; all three made landfall in Louisiana, causing severe damage.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season
The first two hurricanes to strike the Gulf Coast—in August and September, respectively—caused significant inundation of low-lying and coastal communities, inflicting severe damage and killing dozens of people. In some cases, flood waters were more than 12 ft (3.7 m) deep, and the center of destruction shifted slightly with each storm. Sugar cane crops were destroyed by these two systems as well as the succeeding storm in early October. Property and infrastructure suffered with all three events. With the third storm that made landfall, extreme winds blasted the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas. All other storms remained away from land with no effects except on shipping.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Methodology
Prior to the advent of modern tropical cyclone tracking technology, notably satellite imagery, many hurricanes that did not affect land directly went unnoticed, and storms that did affect land were not recognized until they made landfall. As a result, information on older hurricane seasons was often incomplete. Modern-day efforts have been made and are still ongoing to reconstruct the tracks of known hurricanes and to identify initially undetected storms. In many cases, the only evidence that a hurricane existed was reports from ships in its path.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Methodology
However, judging by the direction of winds experienced by ships, and their location in relation to the storm, it is possible to roughly pinpoint the storm's center of circulation for a given point in time. This is the manner in which four of the seven known storms in the 1860 season were identified by hurricane expert José Fernández Partagás's reanalysis of hurricane seasons between 1851 and 1910. Partagás also extended the known tracks of three other hurricanes previously identified by scholars.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Methodology
The information Partagás and his colleague uncovered was largely adopted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Atlantic hurricane reanalysis in their updates to the Atlantic hurricane database (HURDAT), with some slight adjustments. HURDAT is the official source for such hurricane data as track and intensity, although due to a sparsity of available records at the time the storms existed, listings on some storms are incomplete.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Methodology
Although extrapolated peak maximum sustained winds based on whatever reports are available exist for every storm in 1860, estimated minimum central barometric air pressure listings are only present for the three storms that made landfall in the United States. As the three landfalling storms moved inland, information on their meteorological dissipation was limited. As a result, the intensity of these storms after landfall and until dissipation is based on an inland decay model developed in 1995 to predict the deterioration of inland hurricanes.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
The first known storm of the season—which would also become the strongest—is listed in the hurricane database as having formed on August 8 in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, just offshore the west coast of the Florida peninsula, although it is possible the hurricane was related to a heavy gale encountered by a ship on August 5 during its voyage from Havana, Cuba to New York City. The cyclone drifted southwest for three days, gradually intensifying to attain a strength corresponding to Category 4 major hurricane status on the modern-day Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Beginning on August 11, the hurricane slowly curved to the north, then gained an easterly component to its movement, and was at its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (210 km/h) about midday.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
Coming ashore at an "oblique" angle, the storm crossed the coast at modern Burrwood, Louisiana, and traversed the Mississippi River Delta. The storm made landfall in Mississippi between Biloxi and Pascagoula early on August 12. The hurricane quickly weakened as it continued inland and turned toward the east, likely deteriorating below tropical storm status while over southern Georgia, although because the hurricane database does not utilize tropical depression status for storms before 1871, it is listed as maintaining tropical storm intensity as it crossed the southeastern U.S.; by August 14, it had remerged into the western Atlantic Ocean. Ship reports from the vicinity of the system indicate it regained some strength once over open waters, although it only persisted a couple more days before it disappeared on records.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
Storm conditions battered New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 11, with winds of up to roughly 50 mph (80 km/h) and heavy rainfall. The hurricane wrought a great deal of damage throughout southeastern Louisiana. At least 35 to 40 people drowned when a low-lying community at the eastern end of Lake Pontchartrain was inundated with flood waters up to a depth of 12 feet (3.7 m), a result of intense and persistent winds generating a significant storm surge. It was reported that in the town "there is hardly a house remaining".


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
A railroad wharf near the lake was largely destroyed, and another settlement called Milneburg was flooded; residents were rescued by boat. In Plaquemines Parish, where vast areas of land were left underwater, the hurricane was the most severe since 1812. At least 20 additional people drowned, although it was suspected that since up to 200 fishermen along the Mississippi River would have had extreme difficulty finding shelter amid the rapidly rising waters, the death toll was likely substantially higher.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
The storm flattened sugarcane fields across the parish: "the knowing ones will say that two thousand hogshead of sugar less will be made here", according to a post-storm account. Monetary losses from the destruction totaled over $250,000. Rice and corn crops were also ruined, and 300 head of cattle drowned in the flood on Cat Island.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
At La Balize (now known as Pilottown), ominous weather conditions on the night of August 9 preceded the onset of gathering clouds and "a violent storm", characterized by building seas and torrents of rain and wind such that water was driven under roof shingles, "leaving not a dry spot to lay our heads". Sea water swamped the town overnight on August 10, and it was not until around noon when the storm let up and waters receded with a shift in winds. Property damage was widespread and many trees were blown down.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
The hurricane beached several watercraft, destroyed wharves, and inflicted losses that "can hardly by estimated", but were initially judged at up to $10,000. No lives were lost in Balize. Further down the storm's track, Biloxi, Mississippi, experienced a gale beginning on the morning of August 11 and lasting until early the next morning. Tides ran 10 ft (3.0 m) above average at Biloxi, and in Mobile, Alabama, residents also found wind-driven rain seeping "through cracks and crevices not known before to exist" in dwellings "always waterproof to ordinary showers".


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
Waters rose enough to cause minor inundations, but not nearly at the same severity as those that occurred in other areas. Heavy storm conditions extended as far east as Pensacola, Florida, where 3.03 in (77 mm) of rain fell, accompanied by frequent thunder and lightning. The overall death toll from the hurricane was at least 47.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Two
Over a week after the dissipation of the first system, another tropical storm formed to the east of Florida on August 23. The storm tracked generally northeastward, roughly paralleling the East Coast of the United States as it peaked with sustained winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) on August 25. These winds would have made it a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Continuing in the same general direction, the hurricane began to weaken shortly after attaining peak intensity, and the last official data point for the storm places it east of New England on August 26.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Two
The hurricane was undetected until modern-day reanalysis reconstructed its path based on reports from ships in the area. On August 24, the vessel Mary Rusell encountered the storm and sustained some damage. A day later, a heavy southeasterly gale left the vessel Rocius in a "sinking condition"; her captain and crew were rescued by the crew of the Zurich.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Three
The third storm discovered in contemporary reanalysis was identified based on meteorological reports from a single ship, the Ocean Spray, which experienced a northeast gale shifting to northwest on September 11. Given the intensity of the winds, the cyclone is estimated to have been a Category 1 hurricane, although due to a nearly complete lack of information on the system, its track is unknown with the exception of a single set of coordinates well to the southeast of Newfoundland.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Four
A hurricane in the middle of September affected some of the same areas along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico as the August hurricane. It was first detected on the evening of September 10 in the southeastern Gulf, although its track may be far off from the actual storms movement due to a lack of available information. Its first data point in the hurricane database lists it as possessing sustained winds of 100 mph (160 km/h), placing it at Category 2 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The storm followed a broad northward curve through the central Gulf of Mexico, making landfall along the Mississippi River Delta of Louisiana on the night of September 14. It continued toward the north-northeast, dissipating on September 16.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Four
Once again, Balize, Louisiana was directly in the hurricane's path, and suffered heavily as a consequence. The storm lasted from the afternoon on Friday, September 14 to late Saturday morning. Local reports indicate heavy rain and large hail fell in association with the cyclone, and in Balize, nearly every structure was destroyed; any buildings that withstood the initial winds were swept away by the ensuing inundation. Floodwaters killed ten people at one location alone in Plaquemines Parish. Residents of the hardest-hit communities were forced to wade to safety, in some cases through water shoulder-high.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Four
Northerly winds drove water from Lake Pontchartrain that had already been built up by northeasterly winds southward over small fishing and resort towns along the southern bank of the lake. Sheds, wharves, and bathhouses along that section of the lake were destroyed. Several people drowned in flood waters that covered lower Plaquemines Parish. The hurricane drove several ships, including the steamer Galveston, ashore.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Four
An article published in The Times-Picayune contrasted this hurricane with the cyclone of August, noting that the two storms were of similar intensity, and although the September system did not last as long in any one location, hydrology played a more significant role: "in August the swamps were nearly dry and the waters from the lake found a natural outlet; whereas, yesterday, the swamp being full, the water rose in the streets of Milneburgh and covered the railroad track for some distance." In New Orleans proper, heavy rain and gusty winds were reported, but no flooding was observed.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Four
The worst damage from the hurricane most likely occurred in Biloxi, where the coastline itself was altered by up to 20 to 30 ft (6.1 to 9.1 m) and the lighthouse was swept out to sea. A hotel collapsed amid the disaster, killing at least one person, and loose debris covered the town. At East Pascagoula, Mississippi, the sea rose well beyond that of any storm in around 40 years, and nearby a wharf was totally destroyed. Initial estimates placed total damage in the area at $40,000. The storm was just as severe in Mobile, Alabama, and the majority of the $1 million in losses there was from lost cotton stored on flooded wharves. At Pascagoula, water reportedly rose 7 ft (2.1 m) in 20 minutes.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Tropical Storm Five
The fifth known storm of the year was yet another cyclone first identified in post-season reanalysis. Forming on September 18 well to the north of Puerto Rico, efforts made to piece together wind observations from ships reveal a track that curved toward the northwest, passing about midway between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda before heading northeast. Based on available information, the cyclone is estimated to have remained at tropical storm intensity for its entire existence. It is last noted southeast of New England on September 21.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Six
The third hurricane was known to have existed prior to reanalysis formed in the south-central Gulf of Mexico. Ludlum (1963) describes the storm along the Gulf Coast, but a reconstruction of its track further south, including its intensification, was made possible by ship reports. In particular, a schooner along the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula encountered stormy conditions around September 30 with southeasterly winds and was driven northward through the Gulf. The storm moved toward the north for a few days, reaching its peak with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) early on October 2. It likely made landfall on the Atchafalaya Basin around noon on October 2 before passing west of New Orleans, weakening to a tropical storm before moving into central Mississippi. Strong winds at New Orleans lasted more than 24 hours.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Six
The New Orleans area was hit harder than in the two prior storms to strike the Gulf Coast; the most densely populated areas were now located in the eastern semicircle of the storm, which is one of the most intense quadrants. Residents in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana reported the storm to be the worst wind event they had ever experienced. Coinciding with the beginning of the annual season of sugar production, the storm destroyed vast fields of sugar cane south and southwest of New Orleans and flattened many sheds used to store farming equipment.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Six
Winds throughout the region of south-central Louisiana inflicted "unparallelled destruction", causing major structural damage. It was reported to be nearly impossible to walk through the streets of the city at the height at the storm; the winds came with over 5 in (130 mm) of rain. Thirteen people died in the hurricane at New Orleans. A five-story brick building succumbed to the force of the hurricane and crashed onto the city below; caught in its path were two other buildings. This particular incident killed two people. Many other buildings suffered damaged roofs and broken glass, and telegraph and police wires were brought down.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Six
The easterly winds created a storm surge on Lake Pontchartrain and inundated eastern and northern areas of New Orleans. The dynamics of the flood were considered "unprecedented", having come within 0.75 mi (1.21 km) of the Mississippi River. Flood waters rose until early on October 4, when they slowly began to recede. The Jackson Railroad, on the western and northwestern shore of the lake, was flooded up to a depth of 5 ft (1.5 m), and 11 mi (18 km) of track were washed out.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Six
Numerous families in residents near the railroad were forced to leave their homes and seek shelter upon the onset of rising waters. Numerous coal boats and steamboats were swamped and sunk in and around Baton Rouge, which experienced its first severe hurricane strike in many years. Countless trees were uprooted along the Mississippi, and crop damage continued its prevalence going further north. Natchez saw the highest winds in the town since a tornado in 1840, and although the hurricane struck further west than the previous two, gale winds still extended eastward to Pensacola.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Seven
The final known storm of the season existed in late October, and followed roughly the same track as Tropical Storm Five, forming in the southwestern Atlantic basin and curving northward between the U.S. and Bermuda. Its track is only known between October 20 and October 24, and it was also not recognized until subsequent reanalysis. It was determined to have attained the equivalence of Category 2 hurricane intensity based on reports from many ships. Its last data point places it southeast of Nova Scotia early on October 24.


1860 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Seven
The hurricane is thought to have only been a threat to shipping interests, and numerous ships encountered dangerous conditions in association with the cyclone. A few vessels sustained significant damage: the Gondar experienced winds "with such violence that the top gallant mast was broken off by the cap, the maintopsail was blown to pieces and the ship thrown on her beam ends."


1860 Birthday Honours
The 1860 Birthday Honours were appointments by Queen Victoria to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of the Queen, and were published in The London Gazette on 18 May 1860.


1860 Birthday Honours
The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged by honour, with classes (Knight, Knight Grand Cross, etc.) and then divisions (Military, Civil, etc.) as appropriate.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
The election in 1860 for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford was a competition between two candidates offering different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship. One was Monier Williams, an Oxford-educated Englishman who had spent 14 years teaching Sanskrit to those preparing to work in British India for the East India Company. The other, Max Müller, was a German-born lecturer at Oxford specialising in comparative philology, the science of language.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
He had spent many years working on an edition of the Rig Veda (an ancient collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns), and had gained an international reputation for his scholarship. Williams, in contrast, worked on later material and had little time for the "continental" school of Sanskrit scholarship that Müller exemplified. Williams regarded the study of Sanskrit as a means to an end, namely the conversion of India to Christianity. For Müller, his work, while it would assist missionaries, was also valuable as an end in itself.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
The election came at a time of public debate about Britain's role in India in the wake of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Opinions were divided on whether greater efforts should be made to convert India or whether to remain sensitive to local culture and traditions. Both men battled for the votes of the electorate (the Convocation of the university, consisting of over 3,700 graduates) through manifestos and newspaper correspondence.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
Williams laid great stress in his campaign on the intention of the original founder of the chair, that the holder should assist in converting India through dissemination of the Christian scriptures. Müller's view was that his work on the Rig Veda was of great value for missionary work, and published testimonials accordingly. He also wanted to teach wider subjects such as Indian history and literature to assist missionaries, scholars, and civil servants – a proposal that Williams criticised as not in accordance with the original benefactor's wishes.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
The rival campaigns took out newspaper advertisements and circulated manifestos, and different newspapers backed each man. Although generally regarded as the superior to Williams in scholarship, Müller had the double disadvantage (in the eyes of some) of being German and having liberal Christian views. Some of the newspaper pronouncements in favour of Williams were based on a claimed national interest of having an Englishman as Boden professor to assist with the work of governing and converting India.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election
Special trains to Oxford were provided on the day of the election, 7 December 1860, for non-residents to cast their votes. At the end of the hard-fought campaign, Williams won by a majority of over 220 votes. Thereafter, he helped to establish the Indian Institute at Oxford, received a knighthood, and held the chair until his death in 1899. Müller, although deeply disappointed by his defeat, remained in Oxford for the rest of his career, but never taught Sanskrit there. The 1860 election was the last time that Convocation chose the Boden professor, as this power was removed in 1882 as a result of reforms imposed by Parliament. As of 2017, the professorship is still in existence, and is now the last remaining Sanskrit professorship in the United Kingdom.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
The position of Boden professor at the University of Oxford was established by the bequest of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Boden of the Bombay Native Infantry, who died in 1811. His will provided that on the death of his daughter (which occurred in 1827), his estate should pass to the university to fund a Sanskrit professorship. His purpose was to convert the people of India to Christianity "by disseminating a knowledge of the Sacred scriptures among them".


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
The university statutes governing the chair provided that the professor should be chosen by the members of Convocation – all those who had obtained the Oxford degree of Master of Arts, whether or not they taught in the university – rather than by the professors and college fellows. At the time of the 1860 election, there were 3,786 members of Convocation. According to the religious historian Gwilym Beckerlegge, the professorship was regarded at the time as "prestigious and handsomely remunerated". An editorial in the British national newspaper The Times in 1860 said that the professorship was "one of the most important, most influential, and most widely known institutions at Oxford, not to say in the whole civilised world." It paid between £900 and £1,000 per year for life.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
The first Boden professor, Horace Hayman Wilson, was elected in 1832 and died on 8 May 1860. The election for his successor came at a time of public debate about the nature of British missionary work in India, particularly after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The East India Company, which controlled the British territories until they were absorbed into the British Empire in 1858, had had a general policy until 1813 of non-interference with Indian customs, including religion. Christian missionaries required a licence to proselytize.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
In practice, most could operate without a licence, except for Evangelicals, who were regarded as too radical in an age when Christians from other backgrounds were more prepared to be tolerant of other faiths. As the Evangelical movement grew in strength, it pressed for greater efforts to bring Christianity to India, and so the company relaxed its approach to missionaries in 1813. After 1858, the British government was reluctant to provoke further unrest by interference with local traditions and religion, but many of those charged with running India were themselves Evangelicals sympathetic to efforts to convert the country.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
As Beckerlegge has commented, "the furtherance of Christian mission had become inextricably bound up with attempts to define Britain's role in India and indeed to justify Britain's presence in India." The issue was whether Britain was there simply to govern India or to "civilise" it, and if the latter, whether to draw up or destroy India's existing culture and religion. Many of those who supported increased missionary work in India, says Beckerlegge, regarded the events of 1857 as "nothing less than a divine judgment" on Britain's failure to bring Christianity to the country.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
There were two schools of thought on whether Sanskrit should be taught for the purpose of assisting the administration and conversion of India, or for its own merits. The East India Company had provided instruction in Sanskrit to its employees at its college at Haileybury, Hertfordshire, and the College of Fort William in Calcutta, to educate them in local culture. For some, this led to an interest in Indian religion and culture as revealed in the Sanskrit texts.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Background
This was in contrast to the situation in continental Europe, where scholars examined Sanskrit as part of the "science of language", comparative philology, rather than for reasons of imperial administration. Fewer European scholars visited India, but many British Sanskritists had lived and worked there. Some British scholars in other fields had strong doubts in any event about Sanskrit, as a "crude linguistic forgery pieced out of Latin and Greek", or as proving little "except a thoroughly unwelcome kinship between Briton and Brahmin", in the words of the American academic Linda Dowling.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates
Although five men indicated their intent to seek the chair in 1860 or were proposed in their absence, in the end the two who contested the election were Monier Williams and Max Müller. Williams (known later in life as Sir Monier Monier-Williams) was the son of an army officer and was born in India. He studied briefly at Balliol College, Oxford, before training at Haileybury for the civil service in India. The death of his brother in battle in India led to him to return to Oxford to complete his degree.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates
He also studied Sanskrit with Wilson before teaching this and other languages at Haileybury from 1844 until 1858, when it closed following the Indian rebellion. He prepared an English–Sanskrit dictionary, at Wilson's prompting, which the East India Company published in 1851; his Sanskrit–English dictionary was supported by the Secretary of State for India. As the Dutch anthropologist Peter van der Veer has written, Williams "had an Evangelical zeal" according with the views that had inspired Boden to establish the chair.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates
Müller was from the German duchy of Anhalt-Dessau and took up Sanskrit at university as a fresh intellectual challenge after mastering Greek and Latin. At this time, Sanskrit was a comparatively new subject of study in Europe, and its connections with the traditional classical languages had attracted interest from those examining the nature and history of languages. He obtained his doctorate from Leipzig University in 1843, aged 19, and after a year studying in Berlin he began work in Paris on the first printed edition of the Rig Veda (an ancient collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns).


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates
What was supposed to be a brief visit to England for research in 1846 turned into a lifelong stay. The Prussian diplomat Baron von Bunsen and Wilson persuaded the directors of the East India Company to provide financial support for Oxford University Press to publish the Rig Veda. Müller settled in Oxford in 1848 and continued his Sanskrit research, becoming Taylorian Professor of Modern European Languages in 1854 after three years as the deputy professor; in this post he was paid £500 per year, half the stipend of the Boden chair. A British subject from 1855, he was elected a fellow of All Souls College in 1858, "an unprecedented honour for a foreigner at that time", in the words of his biographer, the Indian writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates
Three other scholars indicated an intention to stand for the chair, or were nominated by others, but withdrew before the ballot. The candidacy of Edward Cowell, Professor of Sanskrit at the Government College in Calcutta, was announced in The Times on 28 May 1860, where it was said that Wilson had pronounced him "eminently qualified" to succeed him. He later wrote from India refusing to stand against Müller. Ralph Griffith, a former Boden scholar who was a professor at the Government Sanskrit College in Benares, announced his candidacy in August 1860, but withdrew in November. James R. Ballantyne, principal of the college in Benares, was proposed in June 1860 by friends based in England, who described him as the "chief of British Sanscrit scholars".


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates, Müller's manifesto
Müller announced his candidacy on 14 May 1860, six days after Wilson's death. His submission to Convocation referred to his work in editing the Rig Veda, saying that without it missionaries could not fully learn about the teachings of Hinduism, which impeded their work. He therefore considered that he had "spent the principal part of my life in promoting the object of the Founder of the Chair of Sanskrit."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates, Müller's manifesto
He promised to work exclusively on Sanskrit, and said that he would provide testimonials from "the most eminent Sanskrit scholars in Europe and India" and from missionaries who had used his publications to help "overthrow the ancient systems of idolatry" in India. In due course, he was able to provide a list of missionary societies that had requested copies of the Rig Veda from the East India Company, including the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates, Williams's manifesto
Williams declared his intention to stand for election on 15 May 1860, one day after Müller. In his written submission to Convocation, he emphasised his suitability for appointment in the light of Boden's missionary wishes. After giving details of his life and career, particularly his experience in Sanskrit obtained at Haileybury, he stated that for the past 14 years "the one idea of my life has been to make myself thoroughly conversant with Sanskrit, and by every means in my power to facilitate the study of its literature."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Candidates, Williams's manifesto
He assured voters that, if elected, "my utmost energies shall be devoted to the one object which its Founder had in view;—namely 'The promotion of a more general and critical knowledge of the Sanskrit language, as a means of enabling Englishmen to proceed in the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion.'" Unlike Müller, he regarded the study of Sanskrit "as chiefly a means to the missionary conversion of the Hindus rather than as an end in itself", as Dowling puts it. In this way, Dowling says, he could attempt to deflect attention from his "modest abilities in classical Sanskrit" when compared to Müller's "internationally acknowledged achievements". Moreover, the appeal to Boden's original intentions came during a period when Convocation tended to pay little attention to the expressed wishes of benefactors.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
There are Two Candidates, with ample Testimonials. The Organs of Public Opinion have thought the contest not unworthy of their notice. What then is the result? By common consent both are pronounced scholars of world-wide reputation. But one of them is specially and earnestly recommended to Convocation by a great number of our Countrymen in India itself. These Englishmen, educated by him, grateful for his instruction, and personally attached to him, are a machinery existing ready to hand for the great work to be done.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
They have no Votes to give, but their voice from that distant land should ring in our ears and hearts. They know their man, they know the Natives, they are in daily communication with them. Is it wise to disregard their opinion? The Professorship is not for Oxford alone. It is not for 'The Continent and America'. It is for India. It is for Christianity. Let us then Vote for the man who is well-known and loved in India, and who, even by the voice of his opponents, is declared to be a trustworthy depositary of the Christian interests of a Christian Foundation. M.A.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
In August 1860, Müller wrote to the members of Convocation about his plans to teach a broad range of topics in addition to Sanskrit, including comparative philology, Indian history, and literature. Simply teaching the language "would be but a mean return" for Boden's generosity, he wrote. In this way, he would help to supply "efficient" missionaries, "useful" civil servants, and "distinguished" Boden scholars.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
In turn, Williams wrote that if Boden had left instructions that the man elected should be the one "most likely to secure a world-wide reputation for the Sanskrit Chair, I confess that I should have hesitated to prosecute my design." However, this was not the case and it would be "unjustifiable" in terms of the statutes governing the chair if the professor were to lecture on wider topics.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
In his view, the Vedic literature was "of less importance" and the philosophical literature was "very mystical and abstruse", whereas "the classical or modern" period (the laws, two heroic poems, and the plays) was the "most important". Reminding his readers that he had edited two Sanskrit plays, he stated that the literature of the third period constituted the Sanskrit scriptures, not ("as has hitherto been believed") the Veda, "still less the Rig Veda".


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
He commented that Müller's edition of the Rig Veda was requiring "an expenditure of time, labour, money, and erudition far greater than was ever bestowed on any edition of the Holy Bible", adding that Boden did not intend to "aid in the missionary work by perpetuating and diffusing the obsolescent Vedic Scriptures." He claimed that his own approach to Sanskrit scholarship, with his dictionaries and grammar books, was "suited to English minds", unlike Müller's "continental" and "philosophical" approach, which dealt with texts no longer relevant to modern Hindus that missionaries would not benefit from studying.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
In a letter to The Times published on 29 October 1860, Müller took issue with Williams. To the claim that it would be unjustifiable to teach history, philosophy, and other subjects as Boden professor, he quoted from one of Wilson's public lectures in which he had said that it had always been his intention to offer "a general view of the institutions and social condition, the literature, and religion of the Hindus."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
He noted that he had published in all three areas into which Williams divided Sanskrit literature, and disputed Williams's views on the relative importance of Vedic literature with reference to a review of one of his publications by Wilson. Williams, he said, "stands as yet alone" in asserting that the heroic poems and the plays, not the Vedas, were the real scriptures. He refused to accept Williams's estimate of the labour involved in the edition of the Rig Veda, and said that to compare his little effort with that carried out on the Bible was "almost irreverent."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
He concluded by attempting to rebut the claim that Boden would not have wanted the Vedic scriptures to be supported. He noted that the Bishop of Calcutta (George Cotton) had written that it was of "the greatest importance" for missionaries to study Sanskrit and its scriptures "to be able to meet the Pundits on their own ground", and that the bishop's view was that nothing could be more valuable in this work that Müller's edition, and Wilson's translation, of the Rig-Veda."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
After this letter, Williams complained about Müller conducting his campaign in the newspapers and misrepresenting what Williams was saying. Müller asked three professors and the Provost of Queen's College to consider the accuracy of his letter, and they pronounced in his favour. In Beckerlegge's view, all these replies and counter-replies did was "illustrate the increasingly heated tone of the exchanges" between the two men and their supporters. It was "as if the protagonists were prospective members of Parliament", in the words of one modern scholar.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
Terence Thomas, a British lecturer in religious studies, records "insults regarding the nationality of Max Müller and the proficiency of Monier Williams as a Sanskritist being bandied back and forth by their supporters." For example, one of the Boden scholars at Oxford, Robinson Ellis, claimed that Williams had not been able to prove that he could read a Sanskrit text. When challenged, he later amended this to a claim that Williams could only read a text when he could compare it to another one, describing this as "mechanical labour which is paid for at the public libraries at Paris and Berlin at the rate of half a crown a year."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Rival campaigns
Each had a committee of helpers; Williams had two, one in London, the other in Oxford. He spent over £1,000 on his campaign – as much as the Boden professor was paid in a year. In June 1860, Müller complained in a letter to his mother about having to write to each one of the "4,000 electors, scattered all over England"; he said that sometimes he wished he had not thought of standing for election, adding "if I don't win, I shall be very cross! ".


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
According to Beckerlegge, there was a view held by many of those involved in the keenly fought struggle between Williams and Müller that more depended on the result than simply one man's career – missionary success or failure in India, "and even the future stability of British rule in this region" (in the light of events in India a few years previously) might depend on the abilities of the Boden professor. Victory would depend on each side's ability to persuade non-resident members of Convocation to return to Oxford to cast their votes.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Each candidate had their supporters: Müller was backed by scholars of international merit, whereas Williams was able to call upon Oxford-based academics and those who had served in India as administrators or missionaries. Both candidates claimed support from Wilson – "as if the principle of apostolic succession was involved in the appointment", says Chaudhuri. The Times reported on 23 May that friends of Williams placed considerable weight upon a private letter to him from Wilson, "indicating Mr. Williams as his probable successor."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
In return, Wilson was revealed to have said "two months before his death" that "Mr. Max Müller was the first Sanskrit scholar in Europe". The source of this information was W. S. W. Vaux, of the British Museum, who described his conversation with Wilson in a letter to Müller in May 1860. In reply to Vaux's comment that he and others wanted Wilson's successor to be "the finest man we could procure", Vaux quoted Wilson as saying that "You will be quite right if your choice should fall on Max Müller."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
The Times published a list of leading supporters for each candidate on 27 June 1860, noting that many people were not declaring support for either "since they wish to see whether any person of real eminence announces himself from India". Müller was backed by Francis Leighton, Henry Liddell and William Thomson (the heads of the colleges of All Souls, Christ Church, and Queen's), Edward Pusey, William Jacobson and Henry Acland (the Regius Professors of Hebrew, of Divinity, and of Medicine) and others. Williams had the declared support of the heads of University and Balliol colleges (Frederick Charles Plumptre and Robert Scott), and fellows from ten different colleges.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
On 5 December 1860, two days before the election, friends of Müller took out an advertisement in The Times to list his supporters, in response to a similar record circulated on behalf of Williams. By then, Müller's list included the heads of 11 colleges or halls of the university, 27 professors, over 40 college fellows and tutors, and many non-resident members of the university including Samuel Wilberforce (the Bishop of Oxford) and Sir Charles Wood (the Secretary of State for India). A list published on the following day added the name of Charles Longley, Archbishop of York, to Müller's supporters. Overall, the public supporters for each candidate were about the same in number, but while Müller was backed by "all the noted Orientalists of Europe of the age", Williams's supporters "were not so distinguished", according to Chaudhuri.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Newspapers and journals joined the debate, some in strong terms. One evangelical publication, The Record, contrasted the two candidates: Müller's writings were "familiar to all persons interested in literature, while they have destroyed confidence in his religious opinions"; Williams was described as "a man of sincere piety, and one who is likely, by the blessing of God on his labours, to promote the ultimate object which the founder of the Professorship had in view."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Other newspapers highlighted the nationalities of the candidates; as Beckerlegge has put it, "voting for the Boden Chair was increasingly taking on the appearance of being a test of patriotism." The Homeward Mail (a London-based newspaper that concentrated on news from, and relating to, India) asked its readers whether they wanted "a stranger and a foreigner" to win, or "one of your own body". A writer in The Morning Post said that voters should "keep the great prizes of the English universities for English students".


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
The Morning Herald said that it was "a question of national interest", since it would affect the education of civil servants and missionaries and therefore "the progress of Christianity in India and the maintenance of British authority in that empire". It anticipated that Britain would be ridiculed if it had to appoint a German to its leading academic Sanskrit position.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Müller was not without support in the press. An editorial in The Times on 29 October 1860 called him "nothing more nor less than the best Sanscrit scholar in the world." It compared the situation to the 1832 election, when there had also been a choice between the best scholar (Wilson) and a good scholar "who was held to have made the most Christian use of the gift" (William Hodge Mill).


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Williams, it said, appeared as "the University man ... , the man sufficiently qualified for the post, and, above all, as the man in whose hands, it is whispered, the interests of Christianity will be perfectly safe." His proposal not to teach history, philosophy, mythology or comparative philology "seems to strip the subject very bare" and would, it thought, leave the post as "an empty chair." It stated that Müller "best answers to the terms of Colonel Boden's foundation."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
His field of study – the oldest period of Sanskrit literature – "must be the key of the whole position", whereas Williams was only familiar with the later, "less authentic, and less sacred" writings. The editorial ended by saying that Oxford "will not choose the less learned candidate; at all events, it will not accept from him that this is the true principle of a sound Christian election."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
Pusey, the influential "high church" Anglican theologian associated with the Oxford Movement, wrote a letter of support to Müller, reproduced in The Times. In his view, Boden's intentions would be best advanced by electing Müller. Missionaries could not win converts without knowing the details of the religion of those with whom they were dealing, he wrote, and Müller's publications were "the greatest gifts which have yet been bestowed" on those in such work.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
He added that Oxford would gain by electing him to a position where Müller could spend all his time on work "of such primary and lasting importance for the conversion of India." Beckerlegge finds Pusey's support noteworthy, since Pusey would not have agreed with Müller's particular "broad" approach to Christianity, and was thus providing a judgment on the academic abilities of the candidate best placed to advance missionary work in India.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Supporters and newspapers
One anonymous writer of a letter to the press in support of Müller, shortly before the election, expressed it thus: "A man's personal character must stand very high, and his theological opinions can afford but little ground for animadversion on either hand, when he unites as his unhesitating supporters Dr. Pusey and Dr. Macbride" – a reference to John Macbride, described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "a profoundly religious layman of the 'old' evangelical school". However, Dowling describes Müller as "impercipient of the subtle twists of theological argument, the fine shadings and compunctions of Victorian religious feeling" – a weakness that was held against him.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Election
The election was held on 7 December 1860 in the Sheldonian Theatre. Three special trains were laid on between Didcot and Oxford that afternoon to meet passengers travelling from the west of England, and one additional train was provided between Oxford and London via Didcot in the evening. A London-bound train from the north of England called additionally at Bletchley to allow onward connections to Oxford for passengers from places such as Liverpool, Manchester and Birkenhead. Evangelical clergymen turned out in force to vote. Over about five and a half hours of voting, 833 members of Congregation declared for Williams, 610 for Müller.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Election
Historians have advanced various views as to why, even though Müller was generally regarded as the superior scholar, he lost to Williams. Beckerlegge suggests several possible factors: unlike Williams, Müller was known as a writer and translator rather than a teacher of Sanskrit, he did not have links to the East India Company or the Indian Civil Service that he could call upon for supporters, and he had not been educated at Oxford.


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Election
In his obituary of Müller, Arthur Macdonell (Boden professor 1899–1926) said that the election "came to turn on the political and religious opinions of the candidates rather than on their merits as Sanskrit scholars", adding that "party feeling ran high and large numbers came up to vote." Similarly, Dowling has written that "in the less cosmopolitan precincts outside Oxford ... the argument that Müller was 'not English' told heavily against him" since "the argument was (and was meant to be, of course) unanswerable."


1860 Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, Election
She adds that Tories opposed him for his liberal political views, traditionalist factions within Oxford rejected "Germanizing" reform, and "the Anglican clergy ... detected unbelief lurking in his umlaut". The American historian Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay takes the view that the three motives for people voting against Müller cannot be disentangled. Those who supported Indian missionary work, Dowling writes, saw it as the key to continued British rule, and there was no need to take a chance by electing Müller, who had "a reputation for unsound religious opinions", since Williams was a scholar "of distinction known for his conservatism and piety."