Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard

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Benjamin Wegner Norregaard. A picture from his book The Great Siege: The Investment and Fall of Port Arthur (1906). Benjamin Wegner Norregaard.jpg
Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard. A picture from his book The Great Siege: The Investment and Fall of Port Arthur (1906).

Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard (3 October 1861 – 24 April 1935) was a Norwegian military officer, railway engineer, adventurer, journalist, diplomat and internationally renowned war correspondent. He spent several years in China and served as Minister of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government during the Boxer Rebellion. He later worked as a war correspondent for the Daily Mail and for Scandinavian newspapers, and covered several conflicts in East Asia and Europe. He is especially known for his books The Great Siege, on the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and War, on the Boxer Rebellion. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Railway engineering is a multi-faceted engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction and operation of all types of rail transport systems. It encompasses a wide range of engineering disciplines, including civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and production engineering. A great many other engineering sub-disciplines are also called upon.

A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. They were also called special correspondents.

China State in East Asia

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Contents

Career

Nørregaard graduated as an officer in 1881 and became a captain in the field artillery in the Norwegian Army in 1894. Described as an adventurer, [5] he left the country in 1895 without permission of his military superiors, effectively ending his military career, and in the following years, he lived in East Asia during a period marked by upheavals and war. He worked as a railway engineer for the Imperial Chinese Railways from 1896 to 1900. During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, he was employed by the Allies as head of the Ministry of Labour in the Tianjin Provisional Government, which governed the major city Tianjin and surrounding areas, a position he held from 1900 to 1902. He was also the architect of the new, monumental government building in Tianjin.

Field artillery artillery piece designed to deploy with army units in the field

Field artillery is a category of mobile artillery used to support armies in the field. These weapons are specialized for mobility, tactical proficiency, short range, long range, and extremely long range target engagement.

Norwegian Army army component of Norways defense forces

The Norwegian Army is an armed branch of the Kingdom of Norway. It currently operates in Northern Norway and in Afghanistan in Central Asia, as well as in Eastern Europe. The Army is the oldest of the Norwegian service branches, established as a modern military organization under the command of the King of Norway in 1628. The Army participated in various continental wars during the 17th, 18th and 19th century as well, both in Norway and abroad, especially in World War II (1939-1945). It constitutes part of the Norwegian military contribution as a charter member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949, as well as the European Union.

East Asia Subregion of Asia

East Asia is the eastern subregion of Asia, defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam belong to the East Asian cultural sphere. Geographically and geopolitically, the region includes China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea.

He rose to journalistic prominence as a war correspondent of the Daily Mail during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and during the First Balkan War (1912–13). He witnessed the Siege of Port Arthur and published the book The Great Siege: The Investment and Fall of Port Arthur (Methuen Publishing, 1906) and the book War (1908) on the Boxer Rebellion, which were "written with great journalistic talent." [5] From 1906 to 1908, he lived in St. Petersburg as a foreign correspondent of the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet and the Danish newspaper Vort Land , and gave a vivid portrayal of the revolutionary turmoil in Russia. In 1909, he relocated to Berlin as a correspondent for Morgenbladet. In the same year, he was appointed a "secret press envoy" to Berlin and Paris for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until 1911. From 1911, he was permanently employed by Morgenbladet . He also wrote for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter . During the First World War, he was among the leading commentators on the ongoing war in the neutral countries. [6] [7] In addition to writing on war and foreign policy, he was a food writer, and wrote humorous short stories.

<i>Daily Mail</i> British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper published in London

The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market newspaper published in London in a tabloid format. Founded in 1896, it is the United Kingdom's second-biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, while Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. Content from the paper appears on the MailOnline website, although the website is managed separately and has its own editor.

Russo-Japanese War war between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan

The Russo-Japanese War was fought during 1904-1905 between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan and the Yellow Sea.

First Balkan War 1910s war between the Balkan League and the Ottoman Empire

The First Balkan War, lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and comprised actions of the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success.

He was a son of the Norwegian colonel and aide-de-camp to king Charles Hans Jacob Nørregaard and Sophie Wegner. His mother was a daughter of the industrialist Benjamin Wegner and Henriette Seyler, of the Hamburg Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty. He was a brother of the noted lawyer Harald Nørregaard and of wine merchant and consul in Tarragona Ludvig Paul Rudolf Nørregaard. He married Wilhelmine Sissenère in 1898. She was formerly married to the Norwegian cabinet minister and Director-General of the Norwegian State Railways Hans Nysom. He had no children.

Hans Jacob Nørregaard was a Norwegian colonel, aide-de-camp to king Charles and Chairman of the Christiania Military Society.

Benjamin Wegner Norwegian businessman

Jacob Benjamin Wegner was a Norwegian business magnate, estate owner and timber merchant.

Harald Nørregaard Norwegian lawyer

Harald Nørregaard was a Norwegian supreme court advocate (høyesterettsadvokat), i.e. a lawyer with the right to appear before the Supreme Court of Norway. He founded the law firm now known as Advokatfirmaet Hjort in 1893 in Christiania, and was Chairman of the Norwegian Bar Association from 1904 to 1907. He was also one of Edvard Munch's closest friends since adolescence, adviser and lawyer. He owned several of Munch's most famous paintings. He was married to Aase Nørregaard née Carlsen (1869–1908), a painter and a close friend of Munch, and secondly to Marit Liv Nørregaard née Tillier (1885–1981), who was also a painter. Munch made several paintings and drawings portraying Nørregaard and his two wives.

He is mentioned as a military and foreign policy commentator in Morgenbladet during the First World War in the novel Lillelord by Johan Borgen.

<i>Morgenbladet</i> periodical literature

Morgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly, intellectual newspaper, covering politics, culture and science.

Johan Borgen Norwegian writer

Johan Collett Müller Borgen was a Norwegian author, journalist and critic. His best-known work is the novel Lillelord for which he was awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature in 1955.

Honours

Works

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References

  1. ↑ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, Store Norske Leksikon
  2. ↑ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Norsk biografisk leksikon , Vol. 10, 1949, pp. 299–301
  3. ↑ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon , 2nd ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 356
  4. ↑ Benjamin Wegner Nørregaard, in Nordisk familjebok , 1914, vol. 20, p. 373
  5. 1 2 Omang, Reidar (1959), Norsk utenrikstjeneste II: Stormfulle tider 1913–28. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, p. 52.
  6. ↑ Aftenposten Aften 2 October 1926 p. 2
  7. ↑ Hvem er hvem? 1912
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