who helped lead the arab revolt against the ottoman empire

The Arab Revolt (Arabic: الثورة العربية, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya; Turkish: Arap İsyanı) or Great Arab Revolt (Arabic: الثورة العربية الكبرى, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubrā) was officially initiated by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, at Mecca on June 10, 1916 (9 Sha'ban of the Islamic calendar for that year) although his sons ‘Ali and Faisal had already initiated operations at Medina starting on 5 June[8] with the aim of securing independence from the ruling Ottoman Turks and creating a single unified Arab state stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen.

Arab Revolt

Kingdom of Hejaz
 British Empire

Though the Sharifian revolt has tended to be regarded as a revolt rooted in a secular Arab nationalist sentiment, the Sharif did not present it in those terms; rather, he accused the Young Turks of violating the sacred tenets of Islam and called Arab Muslims to sacred rebellion against the ostensibly "impious" Ottoman government.[9] Contrarily, Turks as well as many Arab leaders accused rebelling tribes of betraying the Muslim Caliphate during a campaign against imperialist powers which were trying to divide and govern the Muslim lands.[10] Ultimately, the revolt failed to generate significant support from within the Ottoman Empire's Arab provinces, and remained largely limited to tribal levies from the Arabian Peninsula loyal to Sharif Hussein.[11]

The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire dates from at least 1821. Arab nationalism has its roots in the Mashriq (the Arab lands east of Egypt), particularly in countries of Sham (the Levant). The political orientation of Arab nationalists in the years prior to the Great War was generally moderate. The Arabs' demands were of a reformist nature, limited in general to autonomy, greater use of Arabic in education, and changes in conscription in the Ottoman Empire in peacetime for Arab conscripts that allowed local service in the Ottoman army.

The Young Turk Revolution began on 3 July 1908 and quickly spread throughout the empire. As a result, sultan Abdul Hamid II was forced to announce the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the reconvening of the Ottoman parliament. This period is known as the Second Constitutional Era. In the elections held in 1908, the Young Turks through their Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) managed to gain the upper hand against the Liberal Union led by Prince Sabahaddin. The CUP preached a message that was a mixture of Pan-Islamism, Ottomanism, and Pan-Turkicism, which was adjusted as the conditions warranted. At its heart, the CUP were Turkish nationalists who wanted to see the Turks as the dominant group within the Ottoman Empire. The new parliament was composed of 142 Turks, 60 Arabs, 25 Albanians, 23 Greeks, 12 Armenians (including four Dashnaks and two Hunchaks), 5 Jews, 4 Bulgarians, 3 Serbs, and 1 Vlach. The CUP in the parliament gave more emphasis to centralization and a modernization program.

At this stage, Arab nationalism was not yet a mass movement, even in Syria where it was strongest. Many Arabs gave their primary loyalty to their religion or sect, their tribe, or their own particular governments. The ideologies of Ottomanism and Pan-Islamism provided strong competition for Arab nationalism. The vast majority of the Arabs living in the Ottoman Empire were primarily loyal to their own families, clans, and tribes and in terms of broader loyalties, saw themselves as Muslims rather than as Arabs, which in practical terms meant support for the Ottoman Empire, whose sultan also claimed to be the caliph.[12] Traditional Islamic theory preaches the message that all Muslims, regardless of their ethnicity or race, should live together in the Ummah, where usually been interpreted to mean one state, and for centuries Muslims living under Ottoman rule, whether they be Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Albanians, and so forth all saw themselves as united by a common religion and state. In the Ottoman Empire, Sunni Islam was the state religion, and the sultan-caliph was the supreme religious-political leader, thus making the crown and the faith one and the same. Before 1914, of the ten million or so Arabs living under Ottoman rule, only a mere 350 were involved in various feuding nationalist groups, most of whom wanted only autonomy rather than independence.[12]

Arab members of the parliament supported the countercoup of 1909, which aimed to dismantle the constitutional system and restore the absolute monarchy of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The dethroned Sultan attempted to regain the caliphate by putting an end to the secular policies of the Young Turks, but was in turn driven away to exile in Selanik by the 31 March Incident (where the Young Turks defeated the countercoup) and eventually replaced by his brother Mehmed V ReÅŸad.

In 1913, intellectuals and politicians from the Arab Mashriq met in Paris at the First Arab Congress. They produced a set of demands for greater autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. They again demanded that Arab conscripts to the Ottoman army should not be required to serve in other regions except in time of war. None of this involved Sharif Hussein of Mecca, a man who spent most of his life living in Constantinople, who spoke better Turkish than he did Arabic, and until 1916 had been regarded by almost everyone as a loyal Ottoman official.[12] Hussein, a man with grandiose ambitions, had first started to fall out with his masters in Constantinople when the dictatorship comprising a triumvirate known as the Three Pashas, comprising General Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha and Cemal Pasha representing the radical Turkish nationalist wing of the CUP seized power in a coup d'Ã©tat in January 1913 and began to pursue a policy of centralization, which crimped Hussein's powerbase in the Hejaz more and more.[12] Hussein started to embrace the language of Arab nationalism only after he began his revolt against the Ottoman government in June 1916, and even then Arab nationalism was one out of the many arguments that he used to advance claims to rule most of the Middle East, which were just as often justified by the need to hold together the Islamic Ummah.[13] Hussein saw himself as the founder of a new empire, and looked down upon his fellow Ottoman Arabs as backward, ignorant people whom he was "destined" to rule.[12]

It is estimated that the Arab forces involved in the revolt numbered around 5,000 soldiers.[14] This number however probably applies to the Arab regulars who fought during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign with Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and not the irregular forces under the direction of T.E. Lawrence and Faisal. On a few occasions, particularly during the final campaign into Syria, this number would grow significantly. Many Arabs joined the Revolt sporadically, often as a campaign was in progress or only when the fighting entered their home region.[15] During the Aqaba raid, for instance, while the initial Arab force numbered only a few hundred, over a thousand more from local tribes joined them for the final assault on Aqaba. Estimates of Faisal's effective forces vary, but through most of 1918 at least, they may have numbered as high as 30,000 men. The Hashemite Army comprised two distinctive forces: tribal irregulars who waged a guerrilla war against the Ottoman Empire and the Sharifian Army, which was recruited from Ottoman Arab POWs, and fought in conventional battles.[16] In the early days of the revolt, Faisal's forces were largely made up of Bedouin and other nomadic desert tribes, who were only loosely allied, loyal more to their respective tribes than the overall cause.[17] The Bedouin would not fight unless paid in advance with gold coin,[18] and by the end of 1916, the French had spent 1.25 million gold francs in subsidizing the revolt.[17] By September 1918, the British were spending Â£220,000/month to subsidize the revolt.[17] Faisal had hoped that he could convince Arab troops serving in the Ottoman Army to mutiny and join his cause, but the Ottoman government sent most of its Arab troops to the front-lines of the war, and thus only a handful of deserters actually joined the Arab forces until later in the campaign.[19] The Hashemite forces were initially poorly equipped, but later were to receive significant supplies of weapons, most notably rifles and machine-guns from Britain and France.[20]

Ottoman troops in the Hejaz numbered 20,000 men by 1917.[19] At the outbreak of the revolt in June 1916, the VII Corps of the 4th Ottoman Army was stationed in the Hejaz to be joined by the 58th Infantry Division commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Ali Necib Pasha, the 1st Kuvvie- Mürettebe (Provisional Force) led by General Mehmed Cemal Pasha, which had the responsibility of safeguarding the Hejaz railroad and the Hicaz Kuvvei Seferiyesi (Expeditionary Force of the Hejaz) which was under the command of General Fakhri Pasha.[19] In face of increasing attacks on the Hejaz railroad, the 2nd Kuvvie- Mürettebe was created by 1917.[19] The Ottoman force included a number of Arab units who stayed loyal to the Sultan-Caliph and fought well against the Allies.[19] The term Arab Revolt is actually a misnomer as it implies that the majority of the Ottoman Arabs rebelled, when in fact the majority stayed loyal.[12] During the First World War, between 100, 000 and 300, 000 Arabs served in the Ottoman Army.[12] The Ottoman troops enjoyed an advantage over the Hashemite troops at first in that they were well supplied with modern German weapons.[19] In addition, the Ottoman forces had the support of both the Ottoman air forces, air squadrons from Germany and the Ottoman gendarmerie.[21] Moreover, the Ottomans relied upon the support of Ibn Rashid, the King of Ha'il whose tribesmen dominated what is now northern Saudi Arabia and tied down both the Hashemites and the Saud forces with the threat of their raiding attacks.[22] The great weakness of the Ottoman forces was they were at the end of a long and tenuous supply line in the form of the Hejaz railroad, and because of their logistical weaknesses, were often forced to fight on the defensive.[19] Ottoman offensives against the Hashemite forces more often faltered due to supply problems than to the actions of the enemy.[19]

The main contribution of the Arab Revolt to the war was to pin down tens of thousands of Ottoman troops who otherwise might have been used to attack the Suez Canal, allowing the British to undertake offensive operations with a lower risk of counter-attack. This was indeed the British justification for starting the revolt, a textbook example of asymmetrical warfare which has been studied time and again by military leaders and historians alike.[citation needed]

The Ottoman Empire took part in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, under the terms of the Ottoman–German Alliance. Many Arab nationalist figures in Damascus and Beirut were arrested, then tortured. The flag of the resistance was designed by Sir Mark Sykes, in an effort to create a feeling of "Arab-ness" in order to fuel the revolt.[23]

When Kitchener was Consul-General in Egypt, contacts between Abdullah and Kitchener had eventually culminated in a telegram of 1 November 1914 from Kitchener (recently appointed as Secretary of War) to Hussein wherein Great Britain would, in exchange for support from the Arabs of Hejaz,

“...guarantee the independence, rights and privileges of the Sharifate against all foreign external foreign aggression, in particular that of the Ottomans”[24]

The Sharif having indicated that he could not break with the Ottomans immediately, it was not until the following year, over the period July 14, 1915 to March 10, 1916, a total of 10 letters, 5 from each side, were exchanged between Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein. Hussein's letter of 18 February 1916 appealed to McMahon for £50,000 in gold plus weapons, ammunition and food claiming that Feisal was awaiting the arrival of ‘not less than 100,000 people’ for the planned revolt and McMahon's reply of 10 March 1916 confirmed British agreement to the requests and concluded the ten letters of the correspondence. Hussein, who until then had officially been on the Ottoman side, convinced that his assistance on the side of the Triple Entente would be rewarded by an Arab empire encompassing the entire span between Egypt and Persia, with the exception of imperial possessions and interests in Kuwait, Aden, and the Syrian coast, decided to defect over to the Allied camp because of rumours that Sharif Ali Haidar, leader of the competing Zaid family for the position of Sharif of Mecca, was in increasing favour with the Ottoman government, and that he would soon be deposed.[25] The much publicized executions of the Arab nationalist leaders in Damascus led Hussein to fear for his life if he were deposed in favour of Ali Haidar.[14] Hussein had about 50,000 men under arms, but fewer than 10,000 had rifles.[26] On June 5, 1916 two of Hussein's sons, the Emirs Ali and Faisal, began the revolt by attacking the Ottoman garrison in Medina, but were defeated by an aggressive Turkish defence led by Fakhri Pasha.[27] The revolt proper began on June 10, 1916, when Hussein ordered his supporters to attack the Ottoman garrison in Mecca.[28] In the Battle of Mecca, there ensued over a month of bloody street fighting between the out-numbered, but far better armed Ottoman troops and Hussein's tribesmen.[14] The Hashemite forces in Mecca were joined by Egyptian troops sent by the British, who provided much needed artillery support, and finally took Mecca on July 9, 1916.[14] The indiscriminate Ottoman artillery fire, which did much damage to Mecca, turned out to be a potent propaganda weapon for the Hashemites, who portrayed the Ottomans as desecrating Islam's most holy city.[14] Also on June 10, another of Hussein's sons, the Emir Abdullah attacked Ta'if, which after an initial repulse settled down into a siege.[14] With the Egyptian artillery support, Abdullah took Ta'if on September 22, 1916.[14]

French and British naval forces had cleared the Red Sea of Ottoman gunboats early in the war.[29] The port of Jidda was attacked by 3500 Arabs on 10 June 1916 with the assistance of bombardment by British warships and seaplanes.[26] The seaplane carrier HMSÂ Ben-my-Chree provided crucial air support to the Hashemite forces.[30] The Ottoman garrison surrendered on 16 June.[26] By the end of September 1916 Arab armies had taken the coastal cities of Rabegh, Yenbo, Qunfida, and 6000 Ottoman prisoners with the assistance of the Royal Navy.[26] The capture of the Red Sea ports allowed the British to send over a force of 700 Ottoman Arab POWs (who primarily came from what is now Iraq) who had decided to join the revolt led by Nuri as-Sa'id and a number of Muslim troops from French North Africa.[30] Fifteen thousand well-armed Ottoman troops remained in the Hejaz.[26] However, a direct attack on Medina in October resulted in a bloody repulse of the Arab forces.

In June 1916, the British sent out a number of officials to assist the revolt in the Hejaz, most notably Colonel Cyril Wilson, Colonel Pierce C. Joyce, and Lt-Colonel Stewart Francis Newcombe.[31] Herbert Garland was also involved. In addition, a French military mission commanded by Colonel Edouard BrÃ©mond was sent out.[31] The French enjoyed an advantage over the British in that they included a number of Muslim officers such as Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho, Claude Prost, and Laurent Depui (the latter two converted to Islam during their time in Arabia).[31] Captain Rosario Pisani of the French Army, though not a Muslim, also played a notable role in the revolt as an engineering and artillery officer with the Arab Northern Army.[31]

The British government in Egypt sent a young officer, Captain T. E. Lawrence, to work with the Hashemite forces in the Hejaz in October 1916.[29] The British historian David Murphy wrote that though Lawrence was just one out of many British and French officers serving in Arabia, historians often write as though it was Lawrence alone who represented the Allied cause in Arabia.[31]

David Hogarth credited Gertrude Bell for much of the success of the Arab Revolt. She had travelled extensively in the Middle East since 1888, after graduating from Oxford with a First in Modern History. Bell had met Sheikh Harb of the Howeitat in January 1914 and thus was able to provide a "mass of information" which was crucial to the success of Lawrence's occupation of Aqaba covering the "tribal elements ranging between the Hejaz Railway and the Nefud, particularly about the Howeitat group." It was this information, Hogarth emphasized, which "Lawrence, relying on her reports, made signal use of in the Arab campaigns of 1917 and 1918."[32]

Lawrence obtained assistance from the Royal Navy to turn back an Ottoman attack on Yenbu in December 1916.[33] Lawrence's major contribution to the revolt was convincing the Arab leaders (Faisal and Abdullah) to co-ordinate their actions in support of British strategy. Lawrence developed a close relationship with Faisal, whose Arab Northern Army was to be become the main beneficiary of British aid.[34] By contrast, Lawrence's relations with Abdullah were not good, so Abdullah's Arab Eastern Army received considerably less in way of British aid.[35] Lawrence persuaded the Arabs not to drive the Ottomans out of Medina; instead, the Arabs attacked the Hejaz Railway on many occasions. This tied up more Ottoman troops, who were forced to protect the railway and repair the constant damage.

On December 1, 1916 Fakhri Pasha began an offensive with three brigades out of Medina with the aim of taking the port of Yanbu.[34] At first, Fakhri's troops defeated the Hashemite forces in several engagements, and seemed set to take Yanbu.[36] It was fire and air support from the five ships of the Royal Navy Red Sea Patrol that defeated the Ottoman attempts to take Yanbu with heavy losses on December 11â€“12, 1916.[36] Fakhri then turned his forces south to take Rabegh, but owing to the guerrilla attacks on his flanks and supply lines, air attacks from the newly established Royal Flying Corps base at Yanbu, and the over-extension of his supply lines, he was forced to turn back on January 18, 1917, to Medina.[37]

The coastal city of Wejh was to be the base for attacks on the Hejaz railway.[33] On 3 January 1917, Faisal began an advance northward along the Red Sea coast with 5100 camel riders, 5300 men on foot, four Krupp mountain guns, ten machine guns, and 380 baggage camels.[33] The Royal Navy resupplied Faisal from the sea during his march on Wejh.[38] While the 800-man Ottoman garrison prepared for an attack from the south, a landing party of 400 Arabs and 200 Royal Navy bluejackets attacked Wejh from the north on 23 January 1917.[38] Wejh surrendered within 36 hours, and the Ottomans abandoned their advance toward Mecca in favor of a defensive position in Medina with small detachments scattered along the Hejaz railway.[39] The Arab force had increased to about seventy-thousand men armed with twenty-eight-thousand rifles and deployed in three main groups.[39] Ali's force threatened Medina, Abdullah operated from Wadi Ais harassing Ottoman communications and capturing their supplies, and Faisal based his force at Wejh.[39] Camel-mounted Arab raiding parties had an effective radius of 1000 miles (1600 km) carrying their own food and taking water from a system of wells approximately 100 miles (160 km) apart.[40] In late 1916, the Allies started the formation of the Regular Arab Army (also known as the Sharifian Army) raised from Ottoman Arab POWs.[31] The soldiers of the Regular Army wore British-style uniforms with the keffiyahs and unlike the tribal guerrillas, fought full-time and in conventional battles.[21] Some of the more notable former Ottoman officers to fight in the Revolt were Nuri as-Said, Jafar al-Askari and 'Aziz 'Ali al-Misri.[41]

The year 1917 began well for the Hashemites when the Emir Abdullah and his Arab Eastern Army ambushed an Ottoman convoy led by Ashraf Bey in the desert, and captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the Bedouin into loyalty to the Sultan.[42] Starting in early 1917, the Hashemite guerrillas began attacking the Hejaz railroad.[43] At first, guerrilla forces commanded by officers from the Regular Army such as al-Misri, and by British officers such as Newcombe, Lieutenant Hornby and Major Herbert Garland focused their efforts on blowing up unguarded sections of the Hejaz railroad.[43] Garland was the inventor of the so-called "Garland mine", which was used with much destructive force on the Hejaz railroad.[44] In February 1917, Garland succeeded for the first time in destroying a moving locomotive with a mine of his own design.[44] Around Medina, Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho of the French Military Mission carried out his first railroad demolition attack in February 1917.[45] Captain Raho was to emerge as one of the leading destroyers of the Hejaz railroad.[45] In March 1917, Lawrence led his first attack on the Hejaz railroad.[46] Typical of such attacks were the one commanded out by Newcombe and Joyce who on the night of July 6/7, 1917 when they had planted over 500 charges on the Hejaz railroad, which all went off at about 2 am.[46] In a raid in August 1917, Captain Raho led a force of Bedouin in destroying 5 kilometers of the Hejaz railroad and four bridges.[47]

In March 1917, an Ottoman force joined by tribesmen from the Kingdom of Ha'il led by Ibn Rashid carried out a sweep of the Hejaz that did much damage to the Hashemite forces.[37] However, the Ottoman failure to take Yanbu in December 1916 led to the increasing strengthing of the Hashemite forces, and led to the Ottoman forces to be forced more and more onto the defensive.[37] Lawrence was later to claim that the failure of the offensive against Yanbu was the turning point that ensured the ultimate defeat of the Ottomans in the Hejaz.[36]

In 1917, Lawrence arranged a joint action with the Arab irregulars and forces under Auda Abu Tayi (until then in the employ of the Ottomans) against the port city of Aqaba. This is now known as the Battle of Aqaba. Aqaba was the only remaining Ottoman port on the Red Sea and threatened the right flank of Britain's Egyptian Expeditionary Force defending Egypt and preparing to advance into Sanjak Maan of the Syria Vilayet.[40] Capture of Aqaba would aid transfer of British supplies to the Arab revolt.[48] Lawrence and Auda left Wedj on 9 May 1917 with a party of 40 men to recruit a mobile camel force from the Howeitat, a Syrian tribe renowned for fighting on camels.[48] On 6 July, after an overland attack, Aqaba fell to those Arab forces with only a handful of casualties.[48] Lawrence then rode 150 miles to Suez to arrange Royal Navy delivery of food and supplies for the 2500 Arabs and 700 Ottoman prisoners in Aqaba; soon the city was co-occupied by a large Anglo-French flotilla (including warships and sea planes), which helped the Arabs secure their hold on Aqaba.[48] Even as the Hashemite armies advanced, they still encountered sometimes fierce opposition from local residents. In July 1917, residents of the town of Karak fought against the Hashemite forces and turned them back. Later in the year British intelligence reports suggested that most of the tribes in the region east of the Jordan River were "firmly in the Ottoman camp."[49] The tribes feared repressions and losing the money they had received from the Ottomans for their loyalty.[50] Later in the year, the Hashemite warriors made a series of small raids on Ottoman positions in support of British General Allenby's winter attack on the Gaza-Bersheeba defensive line which led to the Battle of Beersheba).[51] Typical of such raids was one led by Lawrence in September 1917 that saw Lawrence destroy a Turkish rail convoy by blowing up the bridge it was crossing at Mudawwara and then ambushing the Turkish repair party.[52] In November 1917, as aid to Allenby's offensive, Lawrence launched a deep-raiding party into the Yarmouk River valley, which failed to destroy the railroad bridge at Tel ash-Shehab, but which succeeded in ambushing and destroying the train of General Mehemd Cemal Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman VII Corps.[53] Allenby's victories led directly to the British capture of Jerusalem just before Christmas 1917.

By the time of Aqaba's capture, many other officers joined Faisal's campaign. A large number of British officers and advisors, led by Lt. Col.s Stewart F. Newcombe and Cyril E. Wilson, arrived to provide the Arabs rifles, explosives, mortars, and machine guns.[54] Artillery was only sporadically supplied due to a general shortage, though Faisal would have several batteries of mountain guns under French Captain Pisani and his Algerians for the Megiddo Campaign.[54] Egyptian and Indian troops also served with the Revolt, primarily as machine gunners and specialist troops, a number of armoured cars were allocated for use.[54][55] The Royal Flying Corps often supported the Arab operations, and the Imperial Camel Corps served with the Arabs for a time.[56] The French military mission of 1,100 officers under BrÃ©mond established good relations with Hussein and especially with his sons, the Emirs Ali and Abdullah, and for this reason, most of the French effort went into assisting the Arab Southern Army commanded by the Emir Ali that was laying siege to Medina and the Eastern Army commanded by Abdullah that had the responsibility of protecting Ali's eastern flank from Ibn Rashid.[31] Medina was never taken by the Hashemite forces, and the Ottoman commander, Fakhri Pasha, only surrendered Medina when ordered to by the Turkish government on January 9, 1919.[57] The total number of Ottoman troops bottled up in Medina by the time of the surrender were 456 officers and 9,364 soldiers.[57]

Under the direction of Lawrence, Wilson, and other officers, the Arabs launched a highly successful campaign against the Hejaz Railway, capturing military supplies, destroying trains and tracks, and tying down thousands of Ottoman troops.[58] Though the attacks were mixed in success, they achieved their primary goal of tying down Ottoman troops and cutting off Medina. In January 1918, in one of the largest set-piece battles of the Revolt, Arab forces (including Lawrence) defeated a large Ottoman force at the village of Tafileh, inflicting over 1,000 Ottoman casualties for the loss of a mere forty men.[59]

In March 1918 the Arab Northern Army consisted of

In April 1918, Jafar al-Askari and Nuri as-Said led the Arab Regular Army in a frontal attack on the well-defended Ottoman railroad station at Ma'an, which after some initial successes was fought off with heavy losses to both sides.[61] However, the Sharifian Army succeeded in cutting off and thus neutralizing the Ottoman position at Ma'an, who held out until late September 1918.[62] The British refused several requests from al-Askari to use mustard gas on the Ottoman garrison at Ma'an.[62]

In the spring of 1918, Operation Hedgehog, a concerted attempt to sever and destroy the Hejaz railroad, was launched.[63] In May 1918, Hedgehog led to the destruction of 25 bridges of the Hejaz railroad.[64] On 11 May Arab regulars captured Jerdun and 140 prisoners. Five weeks later, on 24 July Nos. 5 and 7 Companies of the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade commanded by Major R. V. Buxton, marched from the Suez Canal to arrive at Aqaba on 30 July, to attack the Mudawwara Station.[65] A particularly notable attack of Hedgehog was the storming on August 8, 1918, by the Imperial Camel Corps, closely supported by the Royal Air Force, of the well-defended Hejaz railroad station at Mudawwara.[66] They captured 120 prisoners and two guns, suffering 17 casualties in the operation. Buxton's two companies of Imperial Camel Corps Brigade continued on towards Amman, where they hoped to destroy the main bridge. However 20 miles (32 km) from the city they were attacked by aircraft, forcing them to withdraw eventually back to Beersheba where they arrived on 6 September; a march of 700 miles (1,100 km) in 44 days.[65] For the final Allied offensive intended to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, Allenby asked that Emir Faisal and his Arab Northern Army launch a series of attacks on the main Turkish forces from the east, which was intended to both tie down Ottoman troops and force Turkish commanders to worry about their security of their flanks in the Levant.[67] Supporting the Emir Faisal's army of about 450 men from the Arab Regular Army were tribal contingents from the Rwalla, Bani Sakhr, Agyal, and Howeitat tribes.[68] In addition, Faisal had a group of Gurkha troops, several British armored car squadrons, the Egyptian Camel Corps, a group of Algerian artillery men commanded by Captain Pisani and air support from the RAF to assist him.[69]

In 1918, the Arab cavalry gained in strength (as it seemed victory was at hand) and they were able to provide Allenby's army with intelligence on Ottoman army positions. They also harassed Ottoman supply columns, attacked small garrisons, and destroyed railroad tracks. A major victory occurred on 27 September when an entire brigade of Ottoman, Austrian and German troops, retreating from Mezerib, was virtually wiped out in a battle with Arab forces near the village of Tafas (which the Turks had plundered during their retreat).[70] This led to the so-called Tafas massacre, in which Lawrence claimed in a letter to his brother to have issued a "no-prisoners" order, maintaining after the war that massacre was in retaliation for the earlier Ottoman massacre of the village of Tafas, and that he had at least 250 German and Austrian POWs together with an uncounted number of Turks lined up to be summarily shot.[70] Lawrence later wrote in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom that "In a madness born of the horror of Tafas we killed and killed, even blowing in the heads of the fallen and of the animals; as though their death and running blood could slake our agony".[71] In part due to these attacks, Allenby's last offensive, the Battle of Megiddo, was a stunning success.[72] By late September and October 1918, an increasingly demoralized Ottoman Army began to retreat and surrender whenever possible to British troops.[73] "Sherifial irregulars" accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel T. E. Lawrence captured Deraa on 27 September 1918.[74] The Ottoman army was routed in less than 10 days of battle. Allenby praised Faisal for his role in the victory: "I send your Highness my greetings and my most cordial congratulations upon the great achievement of your gallant troopsÂ ... Thanks to our combined efforts, the Ottoman army is everywhere in full retreat".[75]

The first Arab Revolt forces to reach Damascus were Sharif Naser's Hashemite camel cavalry and the cavalry of the Ruwallah tribe, led by Nuri Sha'lan, on 30 September 1918. The bulk of these troops remained outside of the city with the intention of awaiting the arrival of Sharif Faisal. However, a small contingent from the group was sent within the walls of the city, where they found the Arab Revolt flag already raised by surviving Arab nationalists among the citizenry. Later that day Australian Light Horse troops marched into Damascus. Auda Abu Ta'yi, T. E. Lawrence and Arab troops rode into Damascus the next day, 1 October. At the end of the war, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force had seized Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon, large parts of the Arabian peninsula and southern Syria. Medina, cut off from the rest of the Ottoman Empire, would not surrender until January 1919.

The United Kingdom agreed in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence that it would support Arab independence if they revolted against the Ottomans. The two sides had different interpretations of this agreement. In the event, the United Kingdom and France reneged on the original deal and divided up the area in ways that the Arabs felt were unfavourable to them under the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. Further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised support for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. For a brief period, the Hejaz region of western Arabia became a self-declared state — but have not been universally recognised as such — under Hussein's control. It was eventually conquered by Ibn Saud in 1925 as part of his military and socio-political campaign for the unification of Saudi Arabia.[76]


what is the main religion in greece today

Religion in Greece is dominated by the Greek Orthodox Church, which is within the larger communion of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It represented 90% of the total population in 2015[1] and is constitutionally recognized as the "prevailing religion" of Greece. Religions with smaller numbers of followers include Islam (comprising 2%[1] of the population), Catholicism (comprising less than 1%[1] of the population), Evangelicalism, Hellenic Paganism, Sikhism and Hinduism.

Religion in Greece

Religion in Greece (2017)[1]

As of 2015, 93% of the population of Greece were Christians.[1]

The Greek Orthodox Church, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Communion, is accorded the status of "prevailing religion" in Greece's constitution, and Greece is the only country in the world where an Eastern Orthodox Church is clearly recognized as a state religion. Since 1850, Greek Orthodoxy within Greece is handled by the Church of Greece.[2] Its members comprise between 88%[3] and 95-98%[4][5] of the population, the most recent Pew report gave a percentage of 90% as 2015 numbers.[1]

The status of the Orthodox church as the "prevailing religion" is largely based on the role the church played for the preservation of the Greek nation through the years of the Ottoman Empire but also for the role the church played in the Greek War of Independence. As a result, many[who?] attribute to the modern Greek nation an ethnoreligious identity.

Furthermore, the mainstream Orthodox clergy's salaries and pensions are paid for by the State at rates comparable to those of teachers. All Greek students in primary and secondary schools in Greece attend Christian Orthodox instruction, although there is an exemption system for students who do not want to attend, as long as the exemption is requested by both parents. In addition, the Constitution prohibits proselytism from other religions.[citation needed]

Catholics made up less than 1% of the total population in 2015.[1]

Indigenous Catholic Greeks number approximately 50,000[4] and are found all over Greece; the majority, however, live in the Cyclades and the Ionian Islands. The presence of Catholics in the Greek islands is mostly a heritage from the time of the Venetian domination from the Middle Ages. The Catholic community has increased in size in recent years due to immigration and today number over 200,000.[4]

Catholic Greeks of the Byzantine Rite (Uniates) number approximately 5,000[4] and mostly live in Athens.

Protestants, including Greek Evangelical Church and Free Evangelical Churches, stand at about 30,000.[6][7] The Free Apostolic Church of the Pentecost was founded by Dr. Leonidas Feggos in 1965. The official church, Eastern Orthodox, and the State reluctantly gave permission for Pentecostal churches to operate legally. The process of receiving permission from the Ministry of Education and Religion to operate as a church is becoming easier. Assemblies of God, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and other Pentecostal churches of the Greek Synod of Apostolic Church have 12,000 members.[8] The Independent Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost is the biggest Protestant denomination in Greece with 120 churches.[9] There are no official statistics about Free Apostolic Church of Pentecost, but the Orthodox Church estimates the followers at 20,000.[10]

The presence of Armenians in Greece dates back centuries (from the Byzantine period), when Armenians settled in Thessalia, Macedonia, Thrace and the islands of Crete and Corfu for various reasons such as war or business.

The Armenians in Greece acquired the character of a community after the 1920s, when 70,000 to 80,000 survivors of the Armenian Genocide fled to Greece. Today, emigration to North America has diminished the Armenian population of Greece. The number now counts for roughly 20,000-35,000 Greco-Armenians.

Some thousands people are members of the Supreme Council of Ethnic Hellenes, the foremost organisation of Hellenic ethnic religion.[11][12] Over 100,000 people are "sympathisers".[13] On 9 April 2017 the Hellenic ethnic religion was officially recognized by the Greek state.[14]

The Jewish community in Greece currently amounts to roughly 7,500 people, concentrated mainly in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos, Chalkis, Ioannina, Trikala and Corfu, while very few remain in Kavala and Rhodes.[15] It is composed largely of two groups, the Romaniotes, Jewish communities dating back to Antiquity, and the Ladino-speaking Sephardim, who arrived from Spain and settled chiefly in Thessaloniki during Ottoman times.

The number of Greek citizens followers of Islam is estimated to be at 97,604 people or 0.95% of the total population, according to the 1991 census.[16] They live mostly in Western Thrace and are turkish, slavonic (Pomaks) and romani (Gypsies) speakers. Immigrant Muslims are estimated between 200,000-300,000.[17] In 2015, Islam was the religion of 2% of the total population of Greece.[1]

Sikhs have been in Greece since the World Wars, as part of the British Indian Army. Guru Nanak is also known to have passed through Greece during one of his journeys. However, actual immigration to Greece began in the 1970s. It reached its peak during the 1990s-2000s. As of 2017, Sikhs are estimated to number 20,000-25,000. There are eight Gurudwaras in Greece, most of them based in Central Greece and only one being in Crete. Gurudwaras are often officially documented as personal properties, community centres or libraries, due to the paperwork needed and also due to the lack of recognition of Sikhs by the Greek Government. Sikhs often face racism and discrimination by the Greek public, who confuse them with Muslims, as well as legal challenges, mostly due to the distinct appearance (The Five Ks). Sikhs are not allowed to wear their turbans and ride motorcycles without helmets, as in Britain, where their contributions in the war efforts were recognized and they were allowed to not wear helmets. Young Sikhs often face difficulties when recruited for the mandatory conscription, due to their long hair, beard and turbans. Sikhism is still not an officially recognized in Greece and Sikhs are often not included in censuses. Media coverage of Sikhs is minimal and their religion is often reported as a mix of Hinduism and Islam, while it has a separate belief system and many differences. Sikh Gurudwaras have faced numerous attacks, including gunshots and molotov cocktails, all of which received no media coverage. On March 1, 2006, the Greek government passed a law allowing cremation, [18] a move welcomed by both Sikhs and Hindus. Since the 2008 economic crisis many Sikhs have migrated to other countries, many of whom being Britain,Canada, and Germany

The number of the followers is not so high amongst the Greeks but it has increased during the last decades because of the immigration of people from East Asia, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia in Greece. Sri Lankan and Southeast Asian migrant workers working in Greece are usually sent back to their home country to be cremated, due to cremation being banned in Greece Today there are three religious centers, in Athens, Thessaloniki and Corinth.

Hinduism in Greece has a small following. There is a small Hindu community in Athens. There are 25 PIOs and 12 NRIs in the city. On March 1, 2006, the Greek government passed a law allowing cremation. The law was welcomed by the Indian community in Athens.

Other minor faiths in Greece include Jehovah's Witnesses (who number about 28,000[19]), Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons and Scientologists. Groups that constitute less than 1 percent of the population includes Baha'is.[20]

Saint Andrew Church of Patras

Catholic church of Thessaloniki

Catholic (Capuchin) church of Chania

Evangelical church in Katerini

Monastir Synagogue (Thessaloniki)

Beth Shalom Synagogue

Anglican Church of Saint Paul in Athens (arch. Stamatios Kleanthis)

Ritual performed by Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes

Eski Mosque, Komotini


dash is a proposed eating plan to help with

The DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is a dietary pattern promoted by the U.S.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services) to prevent and control hypertension. The DASH diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy foods; includes meat, fish, poultry, nuts, and beans; and is limited in sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, red meat, and added fats. In addition to its effect on blood pressure, it is designed to be a well-balanced approach to eating for the general public. DASH is recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as one of its ideal eating plans for all Americans.[1]

DASH diet

The DASH diet is based on NIH studies that examined three dietary plans and their results. None of the plans were vegetarian, but the DASH plan incorporated more fruits and vegetables, low fat or nonfat dairy, beans, and nuts than the others studied. The DASH diet reduced systolic blood pressure by 6 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 3 mm Hg in patients with high normal blood pressure (formerly called "pre-hypertension"). Those with hypertension dropped by 11 and 6 mm Hg, respectively. These changes in blood pressure occurred with no changes in body weight. The DASH dietary pattern is adjusted based on daily caloric intake ranging from 1,600 to 3,100 dietary calories.[2]

The DASH diet was further tested and developed in the Optimal Macronutrient Intake Trial for Heart Health (OmniHeart diet).[3] "The DASH and DASH-sodium trials demonstrated that a carbohydrate-rich diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and that is reduced in saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol substantially lowered blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. OmniHeart demonstrated that partial replacement of carbohydrate with either protein (about half from plant sources) or with unsaturated fat (mostly monounsaturated fat) can further reduce blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and coronary heart disease risk."[4]

In January 2018, DASH was named the number 1 for "Best Diets Overall", "For Healthy Eating", and "Best Heart-Healthy Diet"; and tied number 2 "For Diabetes"(out of 40 diets tested) in the U.S. News & World Report's annual “Best Diets” rankings.[5]

Currently, hypertension is thought to affect roughly 50 million people in the U.S. and approximately 1 billion worldwide.[6][7] According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), citing data from 2002,[6][7] “The relationship between BP and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events is continuous, consistent, and independent of other risk factors. The higher the BP, the greater is the chance of heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease. For individuals 40–70 years of age, each increment of 20 mm Hg in systolic BP (SBP) or 10 mm Hg in diastolic BP (DBP) doubles the risk of CVD across the entire BP range from 115/75 to 185/115 mm Hg.”.[7]

The prevalence of hypertension led the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to propose funding to further research the role of dietary patterns on blood pressure. In 1992 the NHLBI worked with five of the most well-respected medical research centers in different cities across the U.S. to conduct the largest and most detailed research study to date.  The DASH study used a rigorous design called a randomized controlled trial (RCT), and it involved teams of physicians, nurses, nutritionists, statisticians, and research coordinators working in a cooperative venture in which participants were selected and studied in each of these five research facilities. The chosen facilities and locales for this multi-center study were: (1) Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, (2) Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, (3) Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, (4) Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and (5) Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[2]

Two DASH trials were designed and carried out as multi-center, randomized, outpatient feeding studies with the purpose of testing the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure. The standardized multi-center protocol is an approach used in many large-scale multi-center studies funded by the NHLBI. A unique feature of the DASH diet was that the foods and menu were chosen based on conventionally consumed food items so it could be more easily adopted by the general public if results were positive.[8] The initial DASH study was begun in August 1993 and ended in July 1997.[9] Contemporary epidemiological research had concluded that dietary patterns with high intakes of certain minerals and fiber were associated with low blood pressures. The nutritional conceptualization of the DASH meal plans was based in part on this research.[8]

Two experimental diets were selected for the DASH study and compared with each other, and with a third: the control diet. The control diet was low in potassium, calcium, magnesium and fiber and featured a fat and protein profile so that the pattern was consistent with a “typical American diet at the time”.[2] The first experimental diet was higher in fruits and vegetables but otherwise similar to the control diet (a “fruits and vegetables diet” [9]), with the exception of fewer snacks and sweets. Magnesium and Potassium levels were close to the 75th percentile of U.S. consumption in the fruits-and-vegetables diet, which also featured a high fiber profile. The second experimental diet was high in fruits-and-vegetables and in low-fat dairy products, as well as lower in overall fat and saturated fat, with higher fiber and higher protein compared with the control diet—this diet has been called “the DASH Diet”.[6] The DASH diet (or combination diet) was rich in potassium, magnesium and calcium—a nutrient profile roughly equivalent with the 75th percentile of U.S. consumption.  The combination or “DASH” diet was also high in whole grains, poultry, fish, and nuts while being lower in red meat content, sweets, and sugar-containing beverages.[10]

The DASH diet was designed to provide liberal amounts of key nutrients thought to play a part in lowering blood pressure, based on past epidemiologic studies.  One of the unique features of the DASH study was that dietary patterns rather than single nutrients were being tested.[8] The DASH diet also features a high quotient of anti-oxidant rich foods thought by some to retard or prevent chronic health problems including cancer, heart disease, and stroke.[2]

Researchers have also found that the DASH diet is more effective than a low oxalate diet in the prevention and treatment of kidney stones, specifically calcium oxalate kidney stones (the most common type).[11]

Participants ate one of the three aforementioned dietary patterns in 3 separate phases of the trial, including (1) Screening, (2), Run-in and (3) Intervention. In the screening phase, participants were screened for eligibility based on the combined results of blood pressure readings. In the 3 week run-in phase, each subject was given the control diet for 3 weeks, had their blood pressure measurements taken on each of five separate days, gave one 24-hour urine sample and completed a questionnaire on symptoms. At this point, subjects who were compliant with the feeding program during the screening phase were each randomly assigned to one of the three diets outlined above, to begin at the start of the 4th week. The intervention phase followed next; this was an 8-week period in which the subjects were provided the diet to which they had been randomly assigned. Blood pressures and urine samples were collected again during this time together with symptom & physical activity recall questionnaires. The first group of study subjects began the run-in phase of the trial in September 1994 while the fifth and final group began in January 1996.[9] Each of the three diets contained the same 3 grams (3,000 mg) of sodium, selected because that was the approximate average intake in the nation at the time. Participants were also given two packets of salt, each containing 200 mg of sodium, for discretionary use. Alcohol was limited to no more than two beverages per day, and caffeine intake was limited to no more than three caffeinated beverages.[10]

The DASH trial showed that dietary patterns can and do affect blood pressure in the high normal BP to moderately hypertensive adult population (systolic < 180 mm Hg & diastolic of 80 to 95 mm Hg).[9] Respectively, the DASH  or “combination” diet lowered blood pressures by an average of 5.5 and 3.0 mm Hg for systolic and diastolic, compared with the control diet. The minority portion of the study sample and the hypertensive portion both showed the largest reductions in blood pressure from the combination diet against the control diet. The hypertensive subjects experienced a drop of 11.4 mm Hg in their systolic and 5.5 mm Hg in their diastolic phases.[9]  The fruits-and-vegetables diet was also successful, although it produced more modest reductions compared with the control diet (2.8 mm Hg systolic and 1.1 mm Hg diastolic).[10] In the subjects with and without hypertension, the combination diet effectively reduced blood pressure more than the fruits-and-vegetables diet or the control diet did. The data indicated that reductions in blood pressure occurred within two weeks of subjects’ starting their designated diets,[10] and that the results were generalizable to the target sample of the U.S. population.[9] Side effects were negligible, but the NEJM study reports that some subjects reported constipation as a problem. At the end of the intervention phase, 10.1, 5.4 & 4.0 percent of the subjects reported this problem for the control, fruits-and-vegetables and combination diets, respectively, showing that the fruits and vegetables and combination diets reduce constipation. Apart from only one subject (on the control diet) who was suffering from cholecystitis, other gastrointestinal symptoms had a low rate of incidence.

The DASH-Sodium study was conducted following the end of the original DASH study to determine whether the DASH diet could produce even better results if it were low in salt and also to examine the effects of different levels of sodium in people eating the DASH diet.[2] The researchers were interested in determining the effects of sodium reduction when combined with the DASH diet as well as the effects of the DASH diet when at three levels of sodium intake. The DASH-Sodium trial was conducted from September 1997 through November 1999. Like the previous study, it was based on a large sample (412 participants) and was a multi-center, randomized, outpatient feeding study where the subjects were given all their food.[12] The participants were adults with prehypertension or stage 1 hypertension (average systolic of 120 to 159 mm Hg & average diastolic of 80 to 95 mm Hg) and were randomly assigned to one of two diet groups.[10] The two randomized diet groups were the DASH diet and a control diet that mirrored a “typical American diet”, and which was somewhat low in key nutrients such as potassium, magnesium and calcium. The DASH diet was the same as in the previous DASH study. After being assigned to one of these two diets, the participants were given diets that differed by 3 distinct levels of sodium content, corresponding to 3,000 mg, 2,400 mg or 1,500 mg/day (higher, intermediate or lower), in random order, for 30 consecutive days each.[10] During the two-week run-in phase, all participants ate the high sodium control diet. The 30-day intervention phase followed, in which subjects ate their assigned diets at each of the aforementioned sodium levels (high, intermediate and low) in random order, in a crossover design.[12] During the 30-day dietary intervention phase, each participant therefore consumed his or her assigned diet (either DASH or control) at all three sodium levels.

The primary outcome of the DASH-Sodium study was systolic blood pressure at the end of the 30-day dietary intervention periods. The secondary outcome was diastolic blood pressure. The DASH-Sodium study found that reductions in sodium intake produced significantly lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures in both the control and DASH diets. Study results indicate that the quantity of dietary sodium in the control diet was twice as powerful in its effect on blood pressure as it was in the DASH diet. Importantly, the control diet sodium reductions from intermediate to low correlated with greater changes in systolic blood pressure than those same changes from high to intermediate (change equal to roughly 40 mmol per day, or 1 gram of sodium).[13]

As stated by Sacks, F. et al., reductions in sodium intake by this amount per day correlated with greater decreases in blood pressure when the starting sodium intake level was already at the U.S. recommended dietary allowance, than when the starting level was higher (higher levels are the actual average in the U.S.).  These results led researchers to postulate that the adoption of a national lower daily allowance for sodium than the currently held 2,400 mg could be based on the sound scientific results provided by this study.[12] The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend eating a diet of 2300 mg of sodium a day or lower, with a recommendation of 1500 mg/day in adults who have elevated blood pressure; the 1500 mg/day is the low sodium level tested in the DASH-Sodium study.

The DASH diet and the control diet at the lower salt levels were both successful in lowering blood pressure, but the largest reductions in blood pressure were obtained by eating a combination of these two (i.e., a lower-salt version of the DASH diet). The effect of this combination at a sodium level of 1,500 mg/day was an average blood pressure reduction of 8.9/4.5 mm Hg (systolic/diastolic). The hypertensive subjects experienced an average reduction of 11.5/5.7 mm Hg.[10] The DASH-sodium results indicate that low sodium levels correlated with the largest reductions in blood pressure for participants at both pre-hypertensive and hypertensive levels, with the hypertensive participants showing the greatest reductions in blood pressure overall.

Following the publication of DASH and DASH-Sodium studies, the Welch Clinical Research teams published the OmniHeart[14] and OmniCarb studies.[15]


the long island railroad won the case because the harm to ms. palsgraf was not

The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was taking her daughters to the beach in August 1924. As two men attempted to board a train before hers, one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. After the incident, she began to stammer, and subsequently sued the railroad, arguing that its employees had been negligent while assisting the man, and that she had been harmed by the neglect. In May 1927 she obtained a jury verdict of $6,000, which the railroad appealed. Palsgraf gained a 3–2 decision in the Appellate Division, and the railroad appealed again. Cardozo wrote for a 4–3 majority of the Court of Appeals, ruling that there was no negligence because the employees, in helping the man board, did not have a duty of care to Palsgraf as injury to her was not a foreseeable harm from aiding a man with a package. The original jury verdict was overturned, and the railroad won the case.

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928), is a leading case in American tort law on the question of liability to an unforeseeable plaintiff. The case was heard by the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York; its opinion was written by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo, a leading figure in the development of American common law and later a United States Supreme Court justice.

A number of factors, including the bizarre facts and Cardozo's outstanding reputation, made the case prominent in the legal profession, and it remains so, taught to most if not all American law students in torts class. Cardozo's conception, that tort liability only occurs when a defendant breaches a duty of care the defendant owes to a plaintiff, causing the injury sued for, has been widely accepted in American law. In dealing with proximate cause, many states have taken the approach championed by the Court of Appeals' dissenter in Palsgraf, Judge William S. Andrews. Some legal scholars in recent years have criticized Cardozo for not taking into account Palsgraf's impoverished circumstances.

At the time of the 1928 New York Court of Appeals decision in Palsgraf, that state's case law followed a classical formation for negligence: the plaintiff had to show that the Long Island Railroad[a] ("LIRR" or "the railroad") had a duty of care, and that she was injured through a breach of that duty. It was not required that she show that the duty owed was to her.[1] Under New York precedent, the usual duty of utmost care that the railroad as a common carrier owed its customers did not apply to platforms and other parts of the station.[1]

Sunday, August 24, 1924, was a warm summer day in Brooklyn, and Helen Palsgraf, a 40-year-old janitor and housekeeper, was taking her two daughters, Elizabeth and Lillian, aged 15 and 12, to Rockaway Beach. Having paid the necessary fare, they were on the platform at the East New York station of the LIRR on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, when a train, not theirs, pulled in. As it began to move again, two men raced for the train, and one made it without incident, as the doors had not closed. The other, a man carrying a package, leapt aboard, with the help of a platform guard pushing him from behind as a member of the train's crew pulled him into the car. But in the process, the man lost the package, which dropped and exploded, for it apparently contained fireworks. Either the force of the explosion or the panicking of those on the platform caused a tall, coin-operated scale to topple onto Helen Palsgraf. No one was hurt enough to spend the night in the hospital, though several people, Palsgraf among them, were listed as injured.[2][3]

Contemporary accounts and witnesses at trial described the man as Italian in appearance, and there was speculation that the package was being taken for use at an Italian-American celebration of some sort; no great effort was made to identify the owner. Palsgraf's injury was listed in The New York Times as shock; she also suffered bruising. The distance between Helen Palsgraf and the explosion was never made clear in the trial transcript, or in the opinions of the judges who ruled on the case, but the distance from the explosion to the scale was described in the Times as "more than ten feet away" (3 metres).[2][3] Several days after the incident, she developed a bad stammer, and her doctor testified at trial that it was due to the trauma of the events at East New York station. She had not recovered from the stammer when the case came to court.[4]

Palsgraf brought suit against the railroad in the Supreme Court of New York, Kings County, a trial-level court, in Brooklyn on October 2, 1924. The summons was served the following month, and the defendant filed its answer on December 3. The case was heard on May 24 and 25, 1927, with Justice Burt Jay Humphrey presiding.[5] Humphrey had served for over twenty years on the county court in Queens before unexpectedly being nominated for election to the Supreme Court in 1925; he was noted for his courteous and friendly manner.[6] Manhattan lawyers tried the Brooklyn case: Matthew W. Wood, who worked from 233 Broadway (the Woolworth Building) represented Palsgraf, while Joseph F. Keany, whose office was at Pennsylvania Station, was for the railroad, along with William McNamara.[5] Wood was an experienced solo practitioner with two degrees from Ivy League schools; Keany had headed the LIRR's legal department for twenty years—McNamara, who tried the case, was one of the department's junior lawyers, who had advanced from clerk to counsel after graduation from law school.[7] At trial, Palsgraf testified that she had been hit in the side by the scale, and had been treated at the scene, and then took a taxicab home. She testified to trembling then for several days, and then the stammering started. Her health forced her to give up her work in mid-1926.[8] Wood called Herbert Gerhardt, an engraver, who had seen the man with the package hurry towards the train, and whose wife had been hit in the stomach in the man's rush. He testified that the scale had been "blown right to pieces".[9]

On the second day of the trial, Wood called Dr. Karl A. Parshall, Palsgraf's physician. He testified that he had treated Palsgraf occasionally for minor ailments before the incident at East New York, but on the day after found her shaken and bruised. He gave it as his opinion that Palsgraf's ills were caused by the accident.[10] Grace Gerhardt, Herbert's wife, was the next witness. She testified to being hit by one of "the two young Italian fellows" who were racing to make the train, and how one made it unaided and the other only with the help of two LIRR employees. She had nothing to say about the scale or Palsgraf, having seen neither.[11] Elizabeth and Lillian Palsgraf, the elder and younger daughter of the plaintiff, were next to testify and spoke of what they had seen. Wood indicated his only remaining witness was a neurologist, an expert witness, and McNamara for the LIRR moved to dismiss the case on the ground that Palsgraf had failed to present evidence of negligence, but Justice Humphrey denied it. The neurologist, Graeme M. Hammond of Manhattan, had examined Palsgraf two days before, observing her stammering, speaking only with difficulty. She told him of depression and headaches. He diagnosed her with traumatic hysteria, for which the explosion was a plausible cause, and said the hysteria was likely to continue as long as the litigation did, for only once it was resolved were the worries connected with it likely to vanish.[12]

Wood rested his case on behalf of the plaintiff; McNamara offered no evidence but again moved to dismiss, which Humphrey denied. The judge told the all-male jury that if the LIRR employees "omitted to do the things which prudent and careful trainmen do for the safety of those who are boarding their trains, as well as the safety of those who are standing upon the platform waiting for other trains, and that the failure resulted in the plaintiff's injury, then the defendant would be liable."[13] The jury was out for two hours and 35 minutes, including the lunch hour, and they awarded Palsgraf $6,000 ($84,500 today).[14] Pursuant to statute, she also recovered costs of $142, an amount added to the verdict.[15] A motion for a new trial was denied on May 27, 1927 by Justice Humphrey, who did not issue a written opinion, and a judgment was entered on the verdict on May 31, from which the LIRR appealed on June 14.[16] Once Palsgraf had gotten her jury verdict, the Gerhardts also sued the railroad, with Wood as their counsel.[17]

William H. Manz, in his article on the facts in Palsgraf, suggested that neither side spent much time preparing for trial. Wood did not contact his fact witnesses, the Gerhardts, until shortly before the trial, and Palsgraf was examined by Dr. Hammond the day before the trial started. McNamara, one of the most junior members of the LIRR's legal team, called no witnesses, and Manz suggested the entire defense strategy was to get the judge to dismiss the case.[18] In his later book, Judge Richard Posner indicated that the much-sued LIRR did not present a better case than the first-time plaintiff: "it put on a bargain-basement defense".

The LIRR's appeal took the case to the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, for the Second Department,[19] the state's intermediate appeals court. In its briefs before the Appellate Division, the LIRR argued that the verdict had been contrary to the law and the evidence. It stressed that it had no foreknowledge that the package was dangerous, and that no law required it to search the contents of passenger luggage. The brief stated that given this, there was no negligence in helping a man make a train, and even if there was, that negligence was not the proximate cause of Palsgraf's injuries.[20] Wood, for Palsgraf, argued that the jury verdict finding negligence was supported by undisputed facts, and should not be questioned by the appellate courts. The plaintiff's brief also suggested that the failure of the railroad to call as witnesses the employees who had aided the man should decide any inferences of negligence against it. Wood deemed the trainmen guilty of a "dereliction of duty", misconduct that was the proximate cause of Palsgraf's injuries.[21]

The lawyers argued the case before the Appellate Division in Brooklyn on October 21, 1927.[15] On December 9, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's judgment, 3â€“2. Albert H. F. Seeger wrote the majority opinion for the five justices hearing the case, and was joined by Justices William F. Hagarty and William B. Carswell.[19] Seeger had been born in Stuttgart and came to the United States as a child; he had been elected to the Supreme Court in 1917 and was elevated to the Appellate Division by Governor Al Smith in 1926. Aged 68 at the time of Palsgraf, he could serve only two more years before mandatory retirement.[22] Justice Seeger ruled that the finding of negligence by the jury was supported by the evidence, and speculated that the jury might have found that helping a passenger board a moving train was a negligent act. He wrote that while the set of facts might be novel, the case was no different in principle from well-known court decisions on causation, such as the Squib case, in which an explosive (a squib) was lit and thrown, then was hurled away repeatedly by people not wanting to be hurt until it exploded near the plaintiff, injuring him; his suit against the man who had set the squib in motion was upheld. The majority also focused on the high degree of duty of care that the LIRR owed to Palsgraf, one of its customers.[23]

Presiding Justice Edward Lazansky (joined by Justice J. Addison Young) wrote a dissent.[19] Lazansky, the son of Czech immigrants, had been elected New York Secretary of State as a Democrat in 1910. Elected to the Supreme Court in 1917, he had been designated presiding justice of the Second Department by Governor Smith earlier in 1927.[22] Lazansky did not question the jury finding of negligence, but felt that the employees' conduct was not the proximate cause of Palsgraf's injuries, since the man's conduct in bringing a package that might explode to a crowded passenger station was an independent act of negligence, rendering the neglect by the railroad too remote in causation for there to be liability.[24]

The LIRR was entitled by law to take the case to the New York Court of Appeals (the state's highest court) as there had been a dissent in the Appellate Division, and it did.[25] The railroad argued again that Palsgraf had failed to establish that she had come to harm through the railroad's negligence: that there was no negligence, and even if there was, that neglect had not harmed Palsgraf, since such injury was not "a natural and probable consequence of assisting a man to board a train".[20] Its brief alleged that the trainmen could not have stopped the man from boarding, and once he had flung himself onto the train, had little choice but to help him, "faced with such an emergency they cannot be charged with negligence because they elected to assist the man rather than stand idly by and leave him to his fate."[26] Wood, for his part, argued that negligence had been found by the jury, and by both majority and dissenting justices in the Appellate Division. He wrote that there were many facts from which the jury could have found negligence, including the fact that the train had not shut its doors as it departed (though whether this was to allow latecomers to board or because it was a summer day is uncertain).[27] The case was argued before the Court of Appeals in Albany on February 24, 1928.[28]

The Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Benjamin N. Cardozo, was a judge who was greatly respected; he later became a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. After a standout legal career, Cardozo had been elected to the trial-level Supreme Court in 1913, but was quickly designated by the governor for service on the Court of Appeals. He was in 1917 appointed a judge of that court, and in 1926 was elected chief judge by the voters.[29] In Palsgraf, Cardozo wrote for a 4–3 majority of the Court of Appeals, reversing the appellate judgment and directing that the case be decided for the defendant, the LIRR.[30] Cardozo was joined by Judges Cuthbert W. Pound, Irving Lehman and Henry Kellogg.[31]

Despite being the longest statement of the facts in any of the four appellate opinions generated by the case,[32] Cardozo's was described by Posner as "elliptical and slanted".[33] It has also been deemed "highly abstract".[32] According to Professor Walter O. Weyrauch in his 1978 journal article, "Cardozo's famous opinion reduced the complicated facts of the case to a bare minimum. Mrs. Palsgraf was transformed into a 'plaintiff' without age, family status, or occupation. The opinion omitted the nature of her injury, the amount of damages that she sought, and the size of the jury award."[34] For example, Cardozo describes Palsgraf (whom he does not name, nor mention her daughters) as standing on the LIRR's platform, rather than waiting for a train, thus downplaying her status as a customer entitled to a high degree of care by the railroad. The explosive package is described as small, though the witnesses had described it as large. The scales are described as being "at the other end of the platform, many feet away" from the explosion, but the record does not support this statement.[35] This characterization may have been based on testimony by Lillian Palsgraf, who had gone to buy a paper from a newsstand "at the other end of the platform", but who was yet close enough to see the package fall. Cardozo's characterization of distance would be challenged by the plaintiff in her motion for reargument, which would be denied with the rejoinder that however close she was to the explosion, she was not so close as to bring her within the zone of foreseeable risk.[36]

After the fact pattern, Cardozo began his discussion of the law with "the conduct of the defendant's guard, if a wrong in its relation to the holder of the package, was not a wrong in its relation to the plaintiff, standing far away. Relative to her it was not negligence at all."[37] Cardozo quoted Pollock on Torts and cited several cases for the proposition that "proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do."[37] Only if there is a duty to the injured plaintiff, the breach of which causes injury, can there be liability.[38] He defended his decision, "a different conclusion will involve us, and swiftly too, in a maze of contradictions."[37] Cardozo posed hypothetical situations: if a railway guard stumbles over a bundle of newspapers, and there are explosives within, will there be liability to an injured passenger at the other end of the platform? Will the result be different if the object containing the explosives is a valise instead? If there was negligence that day, Cardozo argued, it was only negligence that resulted in the fall and destruction of the package, and there was no wrong done by the railroad to Palsgraf for personal injury, "the diversity of incidents emphasizes the futility of the effort to build the plaintiff's right upon the basis of a wrong to some one else."[39] The chief judge instructed, "The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed".[40] Cardozo did not absolve the defendant who knowingly unleashes a destructive force, such as by shooting a gun, just because the bullet takes an unexpected path. This is not such a case, Cardozo held: even if the railway guard had thrown down the package intentionally, without knowing the contents he could not knowingly risk harm to Palsgraf, and would not be liable. Negligence cannot impose liability where an intentional act would not.[41]

Negligence, Cardozo emphasized, derives from human relations, not in the abstract. Negligence that does no one harm is not a tort. It is not enough, he found, to prove negligence by the defendant and damage to the plaintiff; there must be a breach of duty owed to the plaintiff by the defendant. He traced the history of the law of negligence, a concept not known in medieval times, and noted that it evolved as an offshoot of the law of trespass, and one could not sue for trespass to another. Had the railroad been negligent towards Palsgraf, it might have been liable, but "the consequences to be followed must first be rooted in a wrong", and there was no legal wrong done by the railroad to Palsgraf.[42] Thus, the lower courts were incorrect, and must be reversed, and the case dismissed, with Palsgraf to bear the costs of suit.[43]

William S. Andrews of Syracuse was a 69-year-old[44] judge, noted for his scholarship, who had been on the Court of Appeals since 1917. The son of Charles Andrews, a former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, William Andrews is best remembered today because he wrote an opinion in Palsgraf.[45] In that dissent, he was joined by Judges Frederick E. Crane and John F. O'Brien. Andrews began with a brief recitation of facts: that a railroad employee had negligently dislodged the package, the contents of which the trainman was unaware, and the subsequent explosion broke the scale and injured the plaintiff, "an intending passenger".[46] Andrews noted the fundamental difference among the judges concerning the law of negligence: whether there must be a duty to the plaintiff, the breach of which injured her, and whether, when there is an act that is a threat to the safety of others, the doer of it should be "liable for all its proximate consequences, even where they result in injury to one who would generally be thought to be outside the radius of danger".[46] Andrews believed that if there was a negligent act, the proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff, that should establish liability.[47]

Andrews found Cardozo's reasoning too narrow, and felt that the focus should be on the unreasonable act: driving down Broadway at high speed is negligent whether or not an accident occurs. Such an act is wrong to the public at large, not only to those who might be injured. "Due care is a duty imposed on each one of us to protect society from unnecessary danger, not to protect A, B or C aloneÂ ... In an empty world, negligence would not exist. It does involve a relationship between man and his fellows. But not merely a relationship between man and those whom he might reasonably expect his act would injure. Rather, a relationship between him and those whom he does in fact injure. If his act has a tendency to harm some one, it harms him a mile away as surely as it does those on the scene."[48]

Andrews pointed out that the law allows plaintiffs to recover from defendants who had no duty towards them: orphans may recover for their negligently-killed parents; a bereaved person may recover for negligence in the death of a spouse. An insurance company may sue in subrogation and recover the sum paid out from the person who started the fire. "Behind the cloud of words is the fact they hide, that the act, wrongful as to the insured, has also harmed the company."[49]

An event may have many causes, Andrews noted, and only some may be deemed proximate. Liability for negligence may only be found where that proximate cause exists, a term that the judge admitted was inexact. He suggested the analogy of a river, made up of water from many sources, and by the time it wound to sea, fully intermixed. But for a time, after water from a muddy swamp or a clayey bed joins, its origin may be traced. Beyond a certain point, it cannot be traced, and such is proximate cause, "because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point. This is not logic. It is practical politics."[50]

That point, beyond which there is no proximate cause, is drawn differently by different judges, and by different courts, Andrews explained. He listed factors that courts might consider, such as remoteness in time or space, and discussed some hypotheticals, such as a chauffeur who causes an accident, the noise of which startles a nursemaid into dropping a child, then returned to the case being decided,

Mrs. Palsgraf was standing some distance away. How far cannot be told from the record—apparently twenty-five or thirty feet. Perhaps less. Except for the explosion, she would not have been injured. We are told by the appellant in his brief "it cannot be denied that the explosion was the direct cause of the plaintiff's injuries." So it was a substantial factor in producing the result—there was here a natural and continuous sequence—direct connection. The only intervening cause was that instead of blowing her to the ground the concussion smashed the weighing machine which in turn fell upon her. There was no remoteness in time, little in space. And surely, given such an explosion as here it needed no great foresight to predict that the natural result would be to injure one on the platform at no greater distance from its scene than was the plaintiff. Just how no one might be able to predict. Whether by flying fragments, by broken glass, by wreckage of machines or structures no one could say. But injury in some form was most probable.[51]

Given that, Andrews concluded, the jury verdict should be upheld. "Under these circumstances I cannot say as a matter of law that the plaintiff's injuries were not the proximate result of the negligence. That is all we have before us."[51]

Wood, Palsgraf's lawyer, moved the Court of Appeals to allow reargument of the case, alleging that Cardozo had confused the position of Palsgraf with that of her daughter Lillian (at the newsstand), and complained about the chief judge's use of such terms as "distant" and "far away". Wood warned that the decision could have far-reaching adverse effects on innocent passengers.[52] The court denied the motion with a one-sentence statement likely written by Cardozo, "If we assume that the plaintiff was nearer the scene of the explosion than the prevailing opinion would suggest, she was not so near that injury from a falling package, not known to contain explosives, would be within the range of reasonable prevision."[36] Costs of $559.60 were due from Palsgraf to the railroad under Cardozo's order.[53] Posner doubted the sum was ever collected, noting that Palsgraf's family spoke to legal scholars and periodicals about the case in later years, and never mentioned an attempt to collect what would have been about a year's salary for the disabled former janitor.[54]

Helen Palsgraf remained embittered about the loss of her case. She became mute, and suffered from other health problems prior to her death on October 27, 1945, at the age of 61. At the time of her death, Palsgraf was living in Richmond Hill, Queens with her daughter Elizabeth. Her former attorney, Wood, maintained a law office in the Woolworth Building until his death in 1972 at age 96. His opposing trial counsel, McNamara, remained with the LIRR's legal department until his retirement in 1959, while McNamara's superior and counsel of record, Keany, continued as the railroad's general solicitor until he died in 1935. Justice Humphrey retired in 1936, a year after he gained notoriety for presiding over the marriage of heiress Doris Duke; he died in 1940.[55] Andrews retired at the end of 1928, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70; he died in 1936.[56] Cardozo was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover and served there until his death in 1938.[29]

After the Palsgraf case became prominent among lawyers, having been taught to many of them in law school, members of the family sometimes encountered startled reactions when lawyers learned their last name. Frank Palsgraf, Helen's grandson, told in 1978 of "being treated like a celebrity" by a prosecutor when called for jury duty, and causing the judge to reminisce about hard nights studying the case in law school. Nevertheless, the prosecutor struck him from the jury.[57] According to Posner, the later coverage of the family "makes it clear that, with the exception of Mrs. Palsgraf, the Palsgraf family was thrilled by its association with a famous case, notwithstanding the outcome".[58] In 1991, that association became closer, as Lisa Newell, first cousin four times removed of Judge Cardozo, married Palsgraf's great-grandson, J. Scott Garvey.[59]

Palsgraf came to the attention of the legal world quickly. Dean William L. Prosser of the University of California Law School wrote that the Appellate Division's decision fell into the hands of Professor Francis H. Bohlen of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Bohlen was at that time the Reporter compiling the first Restatement of Torts for the American Law Institute (ALI), and Cardozo was informally one of the advisers. In that task, Bohlen was having difficulty dealing with the concept of duty of care in negligence, especially involving unforeseeable plaintiffs, and Prosser related that Cardozo was treated to a learned discussion by the other advisers of a case that might come before his court and, convinced by the arguments, used them to decide Palsgraf.[60] Kaufman doubted this story, which was told to Prosser by Dean Young B. Smith of Columbia, noting that the only meeting of the advisers between the two appeal decisions in Palsgraf took place in New York on December 12–13, 1927, beginning only three days after the Appellate Division ruled, and the notes reveal that Cardozo was absent; the chief judge was hearing arguments all that week in Albany. Nevertheless, the discussions and materials from the Restatement compilation likely influenced Cardozo in his decision.[61]

Bohlen dwelt heavily upon Cardozo's opinion in Palsgraf in presenting the Tentative Draft of the Restatement to the ALI's annual meeting, which approved the section citing Palsgraf with little discussion.[62][b] Palsgraf quickly became well known in the legal community, and was cited in many cases, some of dubious relevance. According to Kaufman, "the bizarre facts, Cardozo's spin on the legal issue, the case's timing in relation to the Restatement project, its adaptability for law-school teaching, the policy-oriented dissent by Andrews, Cardozo's rhetoric, and Cardozo's nameâ€”all these factors combined to make Palsgraf a legal landmark."[59] According to Prosser, writing in his hornbook for law students, "what the Palsgraf case actually did was submit to the nation's most excellent state court a law professor's dream of an examination question".[63] But Professor (later Judge) John T. Noonan saw more than this, noting that Cardozo was then the nation's most prominent state-court judge: "The excitement of Palsgraf was not merely that it was a brilliant examination question; it was an examination question answered by Cardozo."[63]

The first mentions of Palsgraf in law reviews were case notes written by law students, appearing over the course of the year following the decision by the Court of Appeals. Professor Robert L. Goodhart, in the Yale Law Journal in 1930, was at the front of an avalanche of commentary to such an extent that by 1938, Louisiana State University professor Thomas A. Cowan deemed Palsgraf "a legal institution".[64] The case entered the standard legal casebooks, from which law students learn, in the early 1930s, usually to illustrate the necessary connection between defendant's misconduct and plaintiff's injury in negligence cases.[65] According to Posner, writing in 1990, "Palsgraf is now the subject of a large scholarly literature, and is, I believe, the only case reprinted in all American casebooks on tort law."[66] Manz wrote, "everyone who has sat in an American law school torts class can recall the basic facts—the crowded railroad platform, the running men, the dropped package, the explosion, and the falling scale. Palsgraf has become a sort of legal 'urban legend'—an allegedly true, but improbable, tale told and retold to each new class of law students."[67] Professor W. Jonathan Cardi noted, "in law school classrooms, 'Palsgraf Day' is often celebrated with food and drink, dramatic reenactments, interpretive poems, and even mock duels between Judges Cardozo and Andrews".[68]

Palsgraf was soon adopted by some state courts, at times in different contexts: Though some state courts outside New York approved it, others did not, sometimes feeling that foreseeability was an issue for the jury to consider.[69] According to Posner, writing in 1990, Cardozo's holding that there is no liability to a plaintiff who could not have been foreseen "has been followed by a number of states besides New York, but it remains the minority rule. Most states continue to muddle along with the nebulous 'proximate cause' approach, which emphasizes the proximity in time and space of the defendant's careless act to the plaintiff's injury; that was the approach taken by Judge Andrews's dissent in Palsgraf."[70]

The overwhelming majority of state courts accept that there must be a duty of care for there to be liability: the courts of Wisconsin, though, have stated that they have adopted Andrews' approach, and impose liability when there was a duty to any person, whether or not that person is the plaintiff.[71] The Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965) amended the earlier formulation only slightly, but the third Restatement (2009), takes an approach closer to that of Andrews in focusing on whether the defendant engaged in an activity that carried a risk of harm to another (not necessarily the plaintiff), and on whether the defendant exercised reasonable care. The new formulation makes foreseeability, or the scope of the risk, not a hurdle that must be overcome, as in Palsgraf, but a factor to be weighed with others when determining whether there was negligence.[72][73] Thus, according to law professor David Owen in his 2009 article, "the Restatement (Third) discards Judge Cardozo's elemental work in Palsgraf so long ago. And ... also rejects Judge Andrew's  [sic] valuable insight that juries should be offered a wide range of fairness factors, beginning with foreseeability, in figuring how far responsibility should extend".[74]

According to Posner, "Cardozo's 'bottom line' is that there is no liability to an unforeseeable plaintiff".[70] Don Herzog, in his 2017 book, deemed the Palsgraf principle to mean that "if anyone was wronged here, it was the man with the parcel. The guards' wronging him happened to harm Mrs. Palsgraf. But that doesn't mean they wronged Mrs. Palsgraf. And if they didn't wrong her, she can't conceivably prevail in a tort action. Cardozo is not thinking that if he were on the jury, he wouldn't find the railroad liable. He is saying it was a legal error to let the jury finding stand."[75] This is because "the crucial fact for Cardozo is that the parcel of explosives was unmarked. So reasonably careful conductors worry only that if they make it fall, it will breakÂ ... They have no reason to worry about the welfare of Mrs. Palsgraf."[76]

Cardozo has been praised for his style of writing in Palsgraf. Posner noted that in the facts of the case Cardozo "saw instantiated the basic principles of negligence law and was able to articulate them in prose of striking freshness, clarity, and vividness", in an opinion mostly written in short sentences and lacking footnotes or block quotes.[77] University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Kim Lane Scheppele noted that the opinion was "written by Judge Benjamin Cardozo at the height of his formidable powers".[78] Richard Polenberg, in his study of that jurist, stated, "Cardozo had a genius for making it seem that the results he reached were logical, inevitable, and legally unassailable".[79] Prosser stated, "with due respect to the superlative style in which both [Cardozo's and Andrews' opinions] are written, neither of them wears well on long acquaintance. Both of them beg the question shamelessly, stating dogmatic propositions without reason or explanation."[80] Herzog was also less enthusiastic, noting that "the majority opinion is unfortunately written in the curious idiolect I sometimes call Cardozo-speak."[76]

From its early days, there has been criticism of Palsgraf, and more recently, of Cardozo for authoring it. Cowan, writing in 1938, described its holding as limited to its facts, that given the identical circumstances recurring, the railroad would breach no duty to the new plaintiff by assisting a man with such a package in boarding.[81] Prosser in his 1953 article wondered "how can any rule as to the'scope of the risk' evolved from two guards, a package of fireworks and a scale aid in the slightest degree in the solution of this question? Is it proper, in Palsgraf itself, so utterly to ignore the fact that the plaintiff was a passenger[?] ... until the question is decided, is Palsgraf really definite authority even for Palsgraf ?"[82]

Noonan's 1976 book chronicled the unwillingness by legal scholars to utilize the "multitude of legal facts not mentioned by Cardozo and Andrews", even though the lower-court record in Palsgraf was reproduced in a civil procedure casebook in the 1950s.[83] Noonan criticized Cardozo for not taking Palsgraf's circumstances into account when making his decision, and listed factors that may have influenced Cardozo against the plaintiff, including that he was a lifelong bachelor who did not have Palsgraf's experience of caring for children, and he may have frowned upon Wood's representation of Palsgraf (likely on a contingent fee, something not favored at the time).[84] Posner, writing in 1990, disagreed with Noonan and with feminist critics following him, noting that judges take an oath to do equal justice to rich and poor, "so the fact that Mrs. Palsgraf was poor would not have been a principled ground for bending the rules in her favor".[85] Noonan had considered unjust the award of court costs against Palsgraf, and in her 2016 book, law professor Cathleen Kaveny agreed, "the penalty imposed on Palsgraf for seeking justice through the courts was to deprive her, a single mother, of the ability to support her childrenÂ ... All judges, however can develop empathy. And in telling the story of Helen Palsgraf, Judge Noonan makes a good case for why they should."[86]

In 2011, Cardi analyzed the present-day influence that Palsgraf has had on state courts. He found that neither Cardozo nor Andrews has won on the question of how duty of care is formulated, with courts applying policy analyses. "As to the proper doctrinal home for plaintiff-foreseeability, Cardozo has undoubtedly prevailed. Although a clear majority of jurisdictions state that duty is the proper home for plaintiff-foreseeability, Cardozo's vision of foreseeability as a categorical determination has not been widely adopted."[87] But, he noted, "Andrews may have found a back door to victory. Arguably the most important consequence of the Palsgraf decision, the resolution of the judge/jury question, appears to lean in Andrews' direction. A majority of courts prefer to leave foreseeability—even as a part of duty—to the jury."[87]

Scheppele put Palsgraf in social context, noting that 108 passengers were killed in railroad operations on the LIRR in 1924, a typical figure for it in the 1920s.

Social scientists of a more qualitative and historical bent would see the Palsgraf case as part of a long history in which the railroad industry imposed substantial costs on the broader society, costs that were never added to the ledgers of the railroads. Most train accidents were not litigated. Those that were shared the fate of Mrs. Palsgraf's: each case was taken on its own facts as an isolated, freak occurrence, and the broader consequence, in which death and injury became a normal byproduct of running the railroad, was disregarded. If judges could see—if not through statistics, then perhaps through the social history of the railroad industry—just how dangerous trains were and how much death and destruction they left in their path, they may have been less inclined to think that Mrs. Palsgraf's problem was that those two men carried fireworks onto the platform that day.[88]


who plays healy in orange is the new black

Michael John Harney (born March 27, 1956)[1] is an American actor of film, television, and theater. He is best known for starring on the SAG Award-winning Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black as Corrections Officer Sam Healy.

Michael Harney

Born in The Bronx, New York City, Harney went on to intensive study with legendary acting teachers William Esper and Phil Gushee,[citation needed] both of whom studied and taught with Sanford Meisner for many years at The Neighborhood Playhouse School Of The Theater. After studying acting for 7 years he went on to run The Michael Harney Acting Studio in New York City for 8 years.[citation needed] During his time in New York City, Harney acted in and/or directed over 80 plays[2] and one acts and starred in On The Waterfront on Broadway playing the role of Charlie Malloy.[3]

Throughout Harney's television career, he has performed in numerous blockbuster films such as Erin Brockovich and Ocean's Thirteen. Before starring on Orange Is the New Black, Harney starred as Detective Mike Roberts in the award-winning television police drama NYPD Blue and also in the HBO historical drama series Deadwood as Steve Fields. Harney first worked with Orange Is The New Black creator Jenji Kohan on the Showtime original dark comedy Weeds, starring opposite Mary-Louise Parker as Detective Mitch Ouellette.

In 2015, Harney returned to his film roots in the independent drama, Bad Hurt, produced by Sons of Anarchy star Theo Rossi which had its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.[4] Set in 1999, Bad Hurt chronicles Ed Kendall's (Harney) struggle with PTSD as a proud war veteran and father to son (Theo Rossi) and mentally ill adult daughter (Iris Gilad), and the challenges each of them face during the constant pursuit of maintaining a normal family dynamic.


who sang sleeping single in a double bed

"Sleeping Single In a Double Bed" is a song written by Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan, and recorded by American country music artist Barbara Mandrell. It was released in August 1978 as the first single from her album Moods. "Sleeping Single In a Double Bed" was Barbara Mandrell's twenty-sixth chart hit on Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles, the first of her six #1 singles on that chart. The single stayed at the top for three weeks (November 1978) and spent a total of eleven weeks in the top 40.[1] In early 1980, the song won an American Music Award for Favorite Country Single.

Sleeping Single in a Double Bed