Battle of Gallipoli and Henry Moseley

The Battle of Gallipoli & Henry Moseley: The single most costly death of the war.

Yesterday, I had plans to write about the Armistice - the closure of the World War 1 (WW1) - that ended on the 11th of Nov 1918. But then, I had to change my plans to make way for an Eulogy to T N Seshan, who passed away on the 10th November. Notwithstanding the Maharashtra तमाशा, that is getting played out all across the media, I am tempted to pen this article in memory of Henry Moseley, a gifted scientist, who became a victim of the bloody WW1. 

Among the millions of soldiers who perished in World War 1, were our very own brethren - the Indian Soldiers - who fought under the British against the enemy on several battle fronts, including in the epic battle  of Gallipoli. War is the single most idiosyncratic, disgusting beastly human greed for conquest, which if not controlled can lead to disastrous consequences as evidenced in the two World Wars. One of those millions of soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in service of their motherland, during the World War 1, was the genetically gifted genius scientist, Henry Moseley. In the words of Issac Asimov, ‘Moseley’s death is the single most costly death of the war’. Although I had written about it in brief earlier, I am tempted to write again. 

This year - 2019 - has been declared as the International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT) in memory of the 150th year of the discovery of the PT by the legendary Russian chemist - Mendeleev. However, the modern periodic table, which is omnipresent in all schools and colleges and science labs, owes its genesis to the contributions of a genetically gifted British Scientist, Henry Moseley, whose findings - rightly called the Moseley’s Law - made this possible. Moseley was one of those millions of soldiers, who died in the Gallipoli battle (WW1)on the 10th of August 1915, at a very young age - 27 years. In his untimely death, the whole of humanity was robbed of Moseley’s genius scientific contributions. His death is all the more poignant for what he might have achieved, had it not been for the senseless WW1. In just 40 months of his scientific research career, Moseley created the basis for the modern periodic table by predicting the elements that would fill in the gaps and showed that x-rays could be a supreme analytical tool.

Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley, fondly known to his family as Harry, comes from an extraordinarily gifted family with scientific connect. His father, Henry Nottidge Moseley, was a naturalist and a Professor at the Oxford, who  was part of the scientific team on the famous Challenger Expedition, which was one of the preeminent expeditions conducted between 1872 and 1876. It was the first expedition, which was organised specifically to gather data on a wide range of ocean features, including ocean temperatures, seawater chemistry, currents, marine life, and the geology of the seafloor.  Moseley’s grandfather too had connect with science. He was a conchologist (a zoology scientist dealing with the shells of mollusks) and fellow of the famed Royal Society. Harry, as a child, exhibited great interest in science and with his sister, painstakingly surveyed surrounding countryside to catalog as much of the native flora and fauna as he could find. His childhood interest in science clearly foretold what great future of scientific research lies ahead for him. But most unfortunately the Gallipoli battle abruptly and most tragically cut short his bright scientific career.

Ever since the findings in 1869, by Mendeleev, the Periodic Table relied on the concept of atomic weight for the positions of the chemical elements. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev had examined the chemical properties of each element, and grouped those with similar properties together. However, in a few notable cases – such as that of argon and potassium – Mendeleev had to break the sequence of atomic weight to keep similar properties in the same groups. These ‘pair reversals’ raised logical questions on the principle of using atomic weight as the basis for the periodic table. It was not until the arrival of Moseley, on the scientific scene, that this problem was scientifically and rationally solved. Moseley through his ground breaking experiments formulated a law (later befittingly called the Moseley’s law), which proved (what Bohr and others had suspected) that the frequency of x-rays is proportional to the atomic charge. The elements could now be ordered according to their atomic number and the mystery thus solving the mystery of the ‘pair reversals’ and leading to what we now use - the Modern Periodic Table, which is based on the atomic number and not the atomic weight. This paved the way for creating and positioning gaps in the periodic table, where elements of a certain atomic number were found to be missing. This path breaking finding by Moseley laid the groundwork for a vast treasure hunt of hitherto unknown chemical elements that were discovered much later by chemists after more than 30 years of searching for the missing elements. Moseley’s scientific prediction for new elements had worked the way he had professed. 

Most unfortunately the Battle of Gallipoli abruptly ended the life of Moseley, thus eluding humanity of his future scientific contributions. The very battle of Gallipoli which took the life of Moseley has a deep connecting scar with India. While researching for curating the “Cricket Connects : India Australia”, I came across the historic connect that Indian soldiers shared with the Australians during the Battle of Gallipoli, which also took the life of many Indian soldiers alongside that of Moseley. The Indian and Australian soldiers, referred to as the ANZAC (Australia, New Zealand Army Corps), fought shoulder to shoulder during the World War I at Gallipoli under the British flag. Fighting alongside the ANZAC were the British soldiers which included Henry Moseley. The extent of the Indian participation in Gallipoli has come to light post the book “ Die in Battle Do Not Despair- The Indians in Gallipoli, 1915”, by the distinguished  Australian historian, Professor Peter Stanley.  Moseley and the Indian soldiers (ANZACs) fought in the trenches and on the frontline and in the process thousands perished, including Moseley, and several thousand more were either wounded or scarred for life. While the battle itself was a defeat for the ANZAC, the soldiers were relentless in their heroic gallantry and displayed incredible valour, courage and endurance in the most hostile environment in which this battle was fought.

Why and how Moseley got entangled in the battle of Gallipoli is now history. Young scientist Moseley, accompanied by his mother, had gone for a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Australia. The news of the declaration of war reached Australia. The young Moseley felt it was his duty to join his soldier brethren to join this war and fight for his country. His mother, family and friends tried hard to persuade him to change his mind. Unfortunately Moseley’s patriotic feelings and love for his country ensured that the advice of friends and family fell on his deaf ears. He rushed back to his country and left Australia on a ship for San Francisco from where he caught the first train to New York. From there he went home to England and enlisted his name in the British Army and obtained a commission as lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. Moseley was posted to Gallipoli, where he joined the ANZAC to take on the mighty Turkish Ottoman Empire. It was on the ill fated day - August 10, 1915 - Moseley was in the midst of sending a military order from the deadly trenches of the Gallipoli Peninsula, when he was hit on the head by the sniper’s bullet, which unfortunately killed him. He was just 27 years of age and waiting to celebrate his 28th birthday that was three months away. With the death of Moseley the world of science lost one of its greatest minds, in the trenches of Gallipoli. 

The international scientific community was outraged at the loss of Moseley, who had so much to offer for the cause of science and in the benefit of society, which was not to be. His death raised a question, whether genius scientists, whose service could otherwise be used for the greater good of the nation, should really be risked on the battle field. Perhaps the world learnt hard lessons from the death of Moseley. The outcome was no scientists were directly involved in WW2. However the scientists did play a decisive role but not directly in combat. The scientists were used in a completely different way in the WW II including in the infamous Manhattan project. It was during the WW2,  that the scientists - for better or worse - developed among other applications radar, programmable computers, atomic bomb, Penicillin etc. These war applications by scientists had much greater impacts on World War II than what the scientists could contribute by serving in the front line, which Moseley did. 

Next  time when you look at the Periodic Table, please do spare a thought and offer prayers for Moseley, who made his supreme sacrifice in service of his motherland foregoing the brightest of scientific career that was welcoming him.