The Juror

choice on the battlefield means some men will die. Commanders just have to hope that they make enough right choices so that casualties are limited and victory is secured. In nineteen oh four, there was one naval commander who unfortunately made all the wrong choices. His defeat was so total that it changed the course of history and is still studied to this day. Admiral Zenovi mad Dog Rosesvensky was

known for his strong command style. As the leader of Russia's Baltic Fleet, it was on him to oversee a huge number of ships in the oceans north of Europe. Everything changed in February of nineteen oh four, though, when Japanese Admiral togo Hehachiro led an assault on the Russian Port authority in modern day northeastern China, the Japanese were tired of the Russians encroaching on land and resources in

the Yellow Sea. The Russians were used to be in the strongest power in the region, and they paid no mind to their Chinese and Japanese neighbors. But Japan was a newly industrialized nation after the Meiji Restoration in eighteen sixty eight, which brought back imperial rule. The Japanese rolled over the Russians on land and sea, overwhelming them with superior tactics and technology. As such, Russia's only hope for reinforcements was Rososvensky's Baltic Fleet. But the problem is right

there in the name. The Baltic Fleet was in the Baltic Sea on the other side of Russia, over four thousand miles away by land and quite a bit farther by water, and they would have to travel all the way around the Eastern Hemisphere to reach the Yellow Sea. The Tsar renamed the Baltic Fleet the Second Pacific Fleet, and it began its long journey in October of nineteen

oh four. It took seven months for the fleet to travel around Africa and across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea to reach their destination, which is why it wasn't until May of nineteen oh five that the fleet finally arrived in the Strait of Tsushima, where they were to engage the enemy. But right away the balance was not in the russians favor. The sea was incredibly foggy, and so they could barely see anything or even communicate

from boat to boat with signals. Hey Hachiro meanwhile, had spent the long month since the Battle of Port Arthur outfitting his ships with Newtonis telegraph technology that allowed them to communicate wirelessly. His boats patrolled the straits watching for any sign of the Russians, and that's when Rosesvensky made a costly mistake. He kept his hospital ship lit, meaning

that it could be seen through the fog. In the old ways of war, a hospital ship was lit up so that the enemy would know not to fire on it. But this was the dawn of a new age, and he Hachiro had no knowledge of Western customs. Rosesvensky's next mistake was to assume that he Hachiro would bring his ships alongside the Russians for a broadside attack. This was the traditional attack, but once again he Hachiro was only

interested in new ways of war. Instead, he crossed the tee, a naval warfare tactic where a commander brings his ship in front of the enemy column instead of alongside, forming a tee shape. This allows the attacker to use all of their cannons, while the enemy can only use the few cannons on the front of their ships. Once he Hachiro caught sight of the Hospital ship, he crossed the tee and opened fire on the Russians. Rosesvensky tried to surrender,

but the Japanese didn't understand the Russian signals. They completely destroyed the Russian navy, killing ten thousand Russians while only losing a thousand Japanese sailors. The Russians soon had no choice but to seede control of the Yellow Sea to Japan. It was the first time an Eastern power had defeated a Western power in battle, and it gave the Japanese the confidence to continue to grow and expand their empire. Rosesvensky was wounded, but he survived and taken to a

Japanese hospital. While he was recovering, Hehachiro visited him, saying, defeat is a common fate of a soldier. There is nothing to be ashamed of in it. The even bigger lesson for Russia, though, was one of the dangers of hubris. They were not innately superior to their eastern neighbors. It was a lesson learned far too late, as Rosesvensky wasted months of his life and the actual lives of his men in his vain attempt to save his country's interests

in Asia. Curiously, the Japanese would learn the same lesson decades later, when they, like the Russians, over extended themselves and foolishly attacked a different, newly industrialized power across the Pacific. But that's a curious story for another day. Why do we put people on trial? It seems like this question should have an obvious answer, but it doesn't. An idealist might say that trials exposed truth and hand out justice.

A cynic might say that they exist simply to strike fear into potential criminals, hopefully preventing crime in the future. Both would agree, though that, whatever the driving motivation, criminal proceedings provide closure to the victims of a crime. If someone has wronged you, there is immense relief in theory, at least in seeing the wrongdoer condemned by an official body and punished for their ax. But what if the perpetrator of a crime has no understanding of the laws.

What if human law was not designed to govern them at all. Scattered throughout history are a handful of peculiar cases where judges and juries had to determine the guilt of not a person but an animal. From the ninth to the twentieth century, there were at least one hundred and ninety six cases of animal trials conducted in civilized nations.

The majority of these recorded cases were in mainland Europe France, to be precise, and while just under two hundred cases spread across ten centuries doesn't sound like a lot, it has provoked intense study among historians and has produced some fascinating stories. For example, in thirteen eighty six, the Norman city of Falaise conducted a trial for a pig who was accused of eating an infant. The pig was sentenced

to maiming and death. Once the sentence was delivered, it was wounded on the head and four lane and then marched to the gallows before an enormous crowd. On the way to the rope, it was allegedly dressed in a new suit, as was customary for prisoners of the time, and pigs are famously ravenous creatures, so it's not a surprise that the filet's trial is not the only pig

that has been found guilty of murder. In fourteenth century seven ye a pig and its six piglets were put on trial for the death of a five year old boy. The owner of the animal was also tried for negligence, and yet by the time the court reached its verdict, only the animal was punished. The pig was to be put to death. The piglets, by the way, were spared. Although they were also found covered in blood on the scene of the crime, it was impossible to determine whether

they were also guilty. Reasonable doubts cleared the piglets of wrongdoing, and in some cases these animals on trial would not face the judge undefended. In the early fifteen hundreds, for example, a young French attorney named Bartholomew Chessenie successfully defended the rats of Utun, who had been accused of eating the bar crop. Overall, you can divide European animal trials into

two categories, secular and ecclesiastical. A secular trial would pertain to domestic animals under human control, such as dogs, livestock, birds, and beasts of burden, but animals that were not under human control, such as rats and insects, would fall under the jurisdiction of the church, thus ecclesiastical. Oh And on occasion there would be an overlap with local folklore, as was the case with a rooster that in fourteen seventy

four laid an egg. The court could not determine whether the egg had become a basilisk or a cockatrice, but both carried the same sentence death for the bird in question. No one seems to have considered that this was a female chicken that had been misidentified as a rooster. It's strange to consider that these sorts of trials occurred at all, and that they were not driven by hysterical mobs, but

by town officials, bishops, and lawyers. From the Middle Ages into the early Renaissance, animals were considered as much of their respective communities as the people themselves. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the Middle Ages were rife with animal crime. Europe had been ravaged by the Black Death, and if they could have found the rats guilty of mass slaughter by spreading plague, they surely would have done so.

After the Dark Ages, the symbolic importance of a trial mattered more than justice or deterence in a chaotic time. The trial didn't exist for the victims or the perpetrators. It was held for the community at large. Proof it seems that social order mattered, and that no one was above the law, not even an animal. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the

show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.