THE POMPEII OF THE EAST - Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World - page 1

CHAPTER ONE
THE POMPEII OF THE EAST
TIME OF THE ASH RAIN
On April 10, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, recently escaped from the island of Elba, was back in
Paris and up to his usual tricks. While he charmed one old foe—the liberal journalist Benjamin
Constant—into composing a new French constitution guaranteeing democratic rights, he bul-
lied his friend General Davout into raising a half-million-man army. A reenergized Napoleon
intended to reclaim full dictatorial powers over France and as much of Europe as possible.
Over in Vienna, on April 10, the aristocratic elite of Europe had cut short their endless
round of balls and gourmandizing to hurry up the business of carving up the continent. Every
minor prince and dispossessed count of the Old Regime was there to haggle for a fiefdom,
while the Great Powers dealt land back and forth like cards in a game of baccarat. “We are
completing the sad business of the congress which is the most mean-spirited piece of work ever
seen,” wrote diplomat Emerich von Dalberg. 1 Meanwhile, the Duke of Wellington, who had
rushed from Vienna to organize the allied forces against Bonaparte, had just arrived in Brus-
sels to find it devoid of troops and munitions. With both sides from the twenty-year conflict
exhausted and in disarray, all of Europe awaited a messy conflagration, its outcome dubious.
Figure 1.1. A map of the nineteenth-century Dutch East Indies. Rubber, spices, rice, tobacco, nickel, and
tin were among the commodities sought after by European and Chinese traders. (Based on John Haywood,
Historical Atlas of the 19th Century World [New York: Barnes & Noble, 2002], 5.22).
Meanwhile, on the far side of the world, on Sumbawa—a remote island outpost of the
European war in the blue seas east of Java—the beginning of the dry season in April meant a
busy time for the local farmers. In a few weeks the rice would be ready, and the raja of Sang-
gar, a small kingdom on the northeast coast of the island, would send his people into the fields
to harvest. Until then, the men of his village, called Koteh, continued to work in the surround-
ing forests, chopping down the sandalwood trees vital to shipbuilders in the busy sea lanes of
the Dutch East Indies.
In the fields of Sanggar and the neighboring half-dozen island kingdoms, the people cultiv-
ated mung beans, corn, and rice, as well as cash crops for the lucrative regional market: cof-