Bunga! Bunga!
Great Moments in Practical Joking: The “Dreadnought Hoax”
In 1910, a bunch of English intellectuals called The Bloomsbury Group tricked the British Navy into allowing them to tour its most famous, state-of-the-art battleship - HMS Dreadnought - while posing as members of the Abyssinian royal family.
"The Bloomsbury Group’s members included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality." * None of which had much to do with battleships, but nevermind.
Disguised with skin darkeners and turbans (the main limitation of which was that the "royals" could not eat anything or their make-up would be ruined, they tricked the Royal Navy into showing them the RN’s flagship, the warship HMS Dreadnought, to a supposed “delegation of Abyssinian royals.”
On 10 February 1910 the trick began. The hoaxers had sent a telegram to the commanding officer of HMS Dreadnought, which was then moored in Weymouth, Dorset. The message said simply that the ship must be prepared for the visit of a group of princes from Abyssinia. The telegram was purportedly signed by Foreign Office Under-secretary Sir Charles Hardinge.
In Weymouth, the navy welcomed the princes with an honour guard. The Royal Navy did not have an Abyssinian flag, so the officers of HMS Dreadnought used the flag of Zanzibar, and played Zanzibar's national anthem; neither error seemed to faze the visitors.
The group inspected other ships in the fleet too. They distributed cards printed in Swahili and talked with each other in a broken Latin. To show their appreciation, they yelled invented words. They asked for prayer mats and bestowed fake military honours on some of the officers. One officer familiar with both Cole and Virginia Stephen failed to recognize either one, possibly because he heard the interpreter's strong German accent and was worried in case a German spy came on-board.
When they were on the train, one of the disguised imposters, Anthony Buxton, sneezed and blew off his false whiskers, but managed to stick them back before anyone noticed.
In London, the pranksters revealed the ruse by sending a letter and a group photo to the Daily Mirror. The Royal Navy briefly became an object of ridicule and demanded that the leader of the group be arrested. But, inconveniently, the jokesters had not broken any law.
During the visit to Dreadnought, the visitors had repeatedly shown amazement or appreciation by exclaiming, "Bunga! Bunga!" When the real Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, visited England some time later, he was chased by children shouting "Bunga! Bunga!"
Ironically, the Emperor afterwards requested to view the Navy's facilities, but the senior Admiralty officer in charge declined to grant his request-possibly to avoid further embarrassments.
In 1915 during the First World War, HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank a German submarine. Among the telegrams of congratulation was one which read "BUNGA BUNGA".
* Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_hoax
In 1910, a bunch of English intellectuals called The Bloomsbury Group tricked the British Navy into allowing them to tour its most famous, state-of-the-art battleship - HMS Dreadnought - while posing as members of the Abyssinian royal family.
"The Bloomsbury Group’s members included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality." * None of which had much to do with battleships, but nevermind.
Disguised with skin darkeners and turbans (the main limitation of which was that the "royals" could not eat anything or their make-up would be ruined, they tricked the Royal Navy into showing them the RN’s flagship, the warship HMS Dreadnought, to a supposed “delegation of Abyssinian royals.”
On 10 February 1910 the trick began. The hoaxers had sent a telegram to the commanding officer of HMS Dreadnought, which was then moored in Weymouth, Dorset. The message said simply that the ship must be prepared for the visit of a group of princes from Abyssinia. The telegram was purportedly signed by Foreign Office Under-secretary Sir Charles Hardinge.
In Weymouth, the navy welcomed the princes with an honour guard. The Royal Navy did not have an Abyssinian flag, so the officers of HMS Dreadnought used the flag of Zanzibar, and played Zanzibar's national anthem; neither error seemed to faze the visitors.
The group inspected other ships in the fleet too. They distributed cards printed in Swahili and talked with each other in a broken Latin. To show their appreciation, they yelled invented words. They asked for prayer mats and bestowed fake military honours on some of the officers. One officer familiar with both Cole and Virginia Stephen failed to recognize either one, possibly because he heard the interpreter's strong German accent and was worried in case a German spy came on-board.
When they were on the train, one of the disguised imposters, Anthony Buxton, sneezed and blew off his false whiskers, but managed to stick them back before anyone noticed.
In London, the pranksters revealed the ruse by sending a letter and a group photo to the Daily Mirror. The Royal Navy briefly became an object of ridicule and demanded that the leader of the group be arrested. But, inconveniently, the jokesters had not broken any law.
During the visit to Dreadnought, the visitors had repeatedly shown amazement or appreciation by exclaiming, "Bunga! Bunga!" When the real Emperor of Ethiopia, Menelik II, visited England some time later, he was chased by children shouting "Bunga! Bunga!"
Ironically, the Emperor afterwards requested to view the Navy's facilities, but the senior Admiralty officer in charge declined to grant his request-possibly to avoid further embarrassments.
In 1915 during the First World War, HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank a German submarine. Among the telegrams of congratulation was one which read "BUNGA BUNGA".
* Source: Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_hoax
posted by John Barry at 1/27/2009 11:00:00 AM
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