BBC History Magazine 2014-02

MAGAZINE BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINE uary 2014Febru s www.historyextra.com MEDIEVAL VICE AND VILLAINY PLUS AND MonumentsMen: saving treasur...

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MEDIEVAL VICE AND VILLAINY MAGAZINE BRITAIN’S BESTSELLING HISTORY MAGAZINE

Febru uary 2014 s www.historyextra.com

AND M o n u m e nt Men: savin s g treasures in WW2

B it i ri ht Debated by Niall Ferguson, Margaret MacMillan, David Reynolds, Gary Sheffield and more

God, drugs and rock and roll How postwar culture took the place of religion

PLUS

r e d r u m l a y Victorian ro an scandal rm e -G lo g n A n a d e rk a A bloody killing that sp

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FEBRUARY 2014

ON THE COVER: MAY 1916, STEEL HELMETED BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE PRACTISE THEIR ATTACK AS THEY HURDLE A TRENCH; PHOTO BY PAUL POPPER– POPPERFOTO–GETTY IMAGES. QUEEN VICTORIA: ALAMY. THIS PAGE: JENI NOTT/GERAINT LEWIS/REX FEATURES

WELCOME In the year of the First World War centenary, one debate that’s sure to rage is about whether Britain was right to participate in a war that would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its citizens. It’s a subject that I know is close to many of your hearts, as the vast number of letters we’ve received about Max Hastings’ article on the topic last November revealed. For this month’s cover story I’ve interviewed Niall Ferguson, who approaches the matter from a very different angle to Hastings viewing the war as “the biggest error in modern history”. You’ll find the piece on page 22 and I’d be interested to know what you think about his arguments. Similarly provocative this month is our essay feature (page 44), written by Peter Watson. His latest research is on the history of religion and in his essay he considers how psychotherapy, drugs and music may have contributed to the declining belief in god during the postwar years. Once again, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of thoughts about it so please do get in touch with those. Finally, this month sees the release of the hiss torical blockbuster The Monuments Men, in which Ge e orge Clooney, Matt Damon et al act out the lives of a n Allied group who sought to save important cu u ltural items from destruction during the Second World War. Of course Hollywood does not always tell l the full story and so we’ve asked Nigel Pollard to offer a historian’s view of this little-known episode. Turn to page 51 for his fascinating account. Rob Attar Editor

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Britain in 1914 Through fascinating photographs, this special edition of BBC History Magazine explores 12 months that dramatically reshaped Britain. You can order your copy today for just £9.99, and subscribers get free UK P+P* Order online at buysubscriptions. com/1914 or call 0844 844 0250**

CONTACT US James Hawes While I was researching my forthcoming book on the long lead up to the First World War, I came across a story which is now completely forgotten but which obsessed the whole British press in its day: the murder of Queen Victoria’s cook in Bonn in 1865. 쎲 James tells the story of a Victorian royal murder scandal on page 56

Hannah Kent After living in Iceland I became fascinated with the country’s history. The 1800s – a time of extraordinary stories against a backdrop of poverty and deprivation – continues to pique my curiosity as a researcher. 쎲 You can read Hannah’s travel guide to Iceland in 1828 on page 86

Larry Siedentop I think the west has experienced a crisis of belief: it is no longer perhaps quite sure what it stands for, and it seems to me that there is a story that should be told in response to this if it is to take the part in the world that I think it should. 쎲 Larry talks about his new book, on morality in western culture, on page 63

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FEBRUARY 2014

CONTENTS Features

Every month 7 HISTORY NOW 7 The latest history news 10 Backgrounder: Ukraine 12 Lessons from history 13 Past notes

14 ANNIVERSARIES 18 LETTERS

39 How medieval London became a hotbed of corruption and sin

21 MICHAEL WOOD’S VIEW

Niall Ferguson explains why he thinks that Britain’s involvement in the First World War was a terrible mistake

28 Why Britain was right to go to war in 1914 Six experts offer different perspectives on the decision Britain faced in the summer of 1914

30 Amazing numbers from history Charlotte Hodgman discovers some startling statistics from centuries past

39 Medieval vice and villains Bruce Holsinger meets killers, thieves and prostitutes as he explores the sinful streets of 14th-century London

44 D-Day for God? Peter Watson considers the decline of religion and the rise of therapy, drugs and music in the postwar period

51 The real Monuments Men Nigel Pollard tells the story of the Second World War heritage heroes who are now the subject of a Hollywood film

56 Victorian royal murder The killing of Queen Victoria’s cook in 1865 soured relations between Britain and Prussia, as James Hawes reveals

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Experts review new releases, plus Larry Siedentop discusses his latest book Inventing the Individual

75 TV & RADIO

51 Preserving historic treasures from the desstruction of war

75 The pick of February’s programmes 78 History on film: dangerou us ‘toys’

80OUT & ABOUT 80 History explorer: Alexander Broadie on the Enlightenmen nt 84 Ten things to do in February 86 Ye olde travel guide: Reykjavik, 1828

91 MISCELLANY 91 Q&A and quiz 94 Get more from BBC Historry

98 MY HISTORY HERO Ed Miliband on Ruth First

36 SUBSCRIBE Save 27% % when you u subscribe e* to the digittal edition

Medieval crusaders

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Crusading for God and Gold The crusades we e d iven by re igious zeal But as the wr tings of a crusader from the me chant city of Genoa reveal profit was also a powerful motive Jonathan Phil ips tells his story 50

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e Ca on o th Cou c l f C e mo t t e o ﬁ i l e o d o Po e Ur an I s r no nc me t o t e F r t ru a e in N v mbe 1 95 t ed: Wh e er o de o on l ne n t o g in on ur r mo ey oes o e us em t l b r te h ch r h o God an u s i u e h s ou n y f r a pe an e C mp re h s w h t e c nﬁ en e ew t e s s e t o s o Ca a o of en a a he e c i ed he i i on f s o l a t r he r s der a tu e f C e a ea n 1 0 : Th y ﬁ s s t a de ne ﬁ t e th f he oo y n t e c mp or he a ey r ws he em in e th y d i ed am ng 8 00 m n and a e o e ch s h s ha e 8 s l di n he o n of o t u and wo ou ds f ep e c rns x e t or he e a ds ue o he o su s he ea a t ins nd m n of BC H to

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qu l y wh ch e e s b t nt l Th y s a ed t e r ou n y b ck o G noa n t e E e o St J mes h Apo l [ 4 J l ] a d t ey r i ed b ck n t e mo th f O t be 1 01 n t umph an co e ed n g ry He e i s ems ub t n i l r ﬁt ame an pa t i a i n in h ho y w r w re ot a od s The u s an a vo um of v d nce p od c d by l r c l w t r has gh y l d h s o an to l c r l g o s mo va on a th t p o th r ng of a t r t at r ve p op e o s t ut o e ov r e u a em f om t e Mu l ms n t e a e 1 9 s Ot er e s ns un ou t d y a o p a ed a a t n d aw ng p op e o t e c o s n me y t e d s r f r f me t e po i i ty f ﬁ an al d an a e a ho gh c u a i g wa an s ou d ng y e pe s v bu i e s t e a qu i on o l nd (m s c us d rs e u n d home ow v r ; an pa r n ge

Th t a d on im or a t r up o e r y ru a e s h s en ed o e e ve v ry ad p e : he e ut t n of he a i n c u a e s s u u l y ne o mon y g a b ng m r ha ts E g ne B r e an m n n h s o i n o Gen a w i ng n t e 1 2 s s a e : I wou d lmo t e m o hem [ h ] t e c u a e wa a m t er f nd f r n e e c pt s t f e t d he r m t r a p o p r ty Th Ve e i ns rom n n pa t n t e a k o Co s a t no l du ng he ou th ru a e 1 04) o p ed w h t e I a ans e s t nt d da n or mb r oe on r d ng n ma e i s o wa wi h Mu ims u i g ( s e i l ) t e 3 h c nt ry ro u ed he im l t c t r o yp r p e en ed y B r e a ove Th wr i gs f C f a o o Ge oa h we er o er s a ha ce o e s e s h s or he a ly d c d s o t e 1 th e tu y n t e st e au e h wa an e ew n ss nd a yman Un ke 51

*All offers, prices and discounts are correct at the time of being published and may be subject to change USPS Identiﬁcation Statement BBC HISTORY (ISSN 1469-8552) (USPS 024-177) February 2014 is published 13 times a year under license from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, 9th Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN, UK. Distributed in the US by Circulation Specialists, Inc., 2 Corporate Drive, Suite 945, Shelton CT 06484-6238. Periodicals postage paid at Shelton, CT and additional mailing ofﬁces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BBC HISTORY, PO Box 37495, Boone, IA 50037-0495.

GETTY IMAGES/AKG IMAGES/JAMES ALBON/BENJAMIN CARR/NARA ARCHIV VES

22 “It was the biggest error in modern history”

63 BOOKS

M

Music and drugs provided many with a ‘religious’ experience in the postwar era, argues Peter Watson on page 44

BBC History Magazine

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Get some holiday inspiration with your free history travel supplement, inside

56 “Prussia is likely to become the bête noir of Europe through a case of assault” 30 Just 17 women stood for parliament in 1918

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22 “CREATING AN ARMY FROM SCRATCH AND THEN SENDING IT INTO COMBAT AGAINST THE GERMANS WAS A RECIPE FOR DISASTROUS LOSSES” 5

The latest news, plus Backgrounder 10 Lessons from history 12

HISTORY NOW Have a story? Please email Matt Elton at [email protected]

Tracing the original ‘Great Wall of China’

LINDA NICHOLAS, FIELD MUSEUM, CHICAGO

A team of archaeologists in China has started work on the first detailed project to chart the country’s original defensive wall system. David Keys reports

omprising an estimated 30m tonnes of earth, it stretched for some 400 miles across north-east China and was a vital part of the area’s defences. Rather than being the famous Great Wall, however, this structure was a much earlier example, thought to be the oldest-known major defensive wall system in the world. Now, a team of archaeologists is tracing its route for the ﬁrst time in a bid to learn more about its importance and the methods used in its construction. Built by the north-eastern Chinese state of Qi, this earliest ‘great wall’ was con-

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structed some 230 years before the ﬁrst version of its more famous – and much larger – namesake. Recently discovered accounts of China’s history have revealed that the Qi wall was built in 441 BC and stretched from the valley of the Yellow river to the sea. Erected to resist a military threat from Qi’s main enemies – the states of Yue and Jin – the structure meant that enemy forces that wanted to invade Qi were faced with either a wall or a wide river. Its construction also reﬂected Qi’s relative weakness in the period, a situation that forced it to

First line of defence Archaeologists walk along the eroded remains of the Qi Great Wall in China. They have begun tracing its route to learn more about the way in which it was built

BBC History Magazine

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History now / News

EXPLORATION

Wreck points to New Zealand colonisation trip nalysis of wood salvaged from a shipwreck off New Zealand suggests that Dutch explorers may have been on a secret mission to colonise the islands in the early 1700s, more than 50 years before Captain James Cook landed there. Jonathan Palmer, a tree-ring-dating expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who led the study, said: “We report on a shipwreck that we think occurred before the landing by Cook in 1769 but after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642. In other words, this shipwreck is the ﬁrst evidence of European activity [in the area] during the intervening years.” Published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the research focuses on scraps of wood recovered from a 25metre-long ship found in 1983. Carbon dating and tree-ring analysis indicate that the ship was built between 1696 and 1714, and researchers concluded the vessel was likely to be Dutch because the species of wood identiﬁed come from southeast Asia, where the Dutch East India Company operated in the 17th century. Although there are no written records of a Dutch voyage to New Zealand in the period, Palmer and his colleagues suggest that competing naval powers may have kept their expeditions secret. What’s more, Cook claimed that native Maori had told him they had killed and eaten prior European visitors. Daniel Cossins

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pursue a mainly defensive rather than aggressive military strategy. The archaeologists, from Shandong University in China and Chicago’s Field Museum, have so far carried out a detailed ground-level survey of 30 miles of the wall and are now using satellite photography to trace other sections of its route. The survey has revealed that much of the structure was made of compacted earth, with 30m tonnes of very ﬁne windblown dust soil known as ‘loess’ having ﬁrst been transported to the site. It is thought that this, along with water and a chemical bonding agent – possibly burnt lime or animal blood – would have been poured in successive layers into boxlike timber ‘moulds’ in order to create a form of natural concrete. A dozen layers were laid down and compressed with mallets into a solid mass. By this stage, each layer was roughly 45cm thick. The mould would then have been disassembled and re-erected at 10 to 20-metre intervals to continue the process. As well as the defence system itself, the experts are also studying the

“This wall, like many subsequent structures, was largely a response to military threats from substantial armies” 8

landscape around the area in which the wall stood. Of particular interest is the comparative lack of evidence of settlement in an area between three and ﬁve miles in front of the wall. This suggests that this territory remained virtually uninhabited and, as a result, formed a kind of defensive ‘security zone’. The Qi wall is historically important because its construction marked the beginning of a military and geopolitical strategy of so-called ‘linear defence’ that was later reinvented or copied by major states and empires in many parts of the world. Indeed, numerous walls were subsequently built by other independent Chinese states between approximately 370 and 250 BC. The Great Wall of China itself was constructed around 210 BC along 1,800 miles of China’s northern border by the country’s ﬁrst emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Professor Gary Feinman, curator of anthropology at Chicago’s Field Museum and co-director of the survey project, said: “The Great Wall of Qi, like many similar subsequent structures in China, was largely a response to military threats from substantial armies. Long crosscountry walls were conceived as a highly effective way of blocking the advance of large numbers of charioteers and infantry. The centuries that saw such wall construction within China were times of great geopolitical rivalry and intense warfare.”

A woodcut of a Dutch ship. Evidence points to a bid to reach N New Zealand Z l d ALAMY/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Chinese warfare The ‘Terracotta Army’, designed to serve China’s ﬁrst emperor after his death. The statues portray the kind of troops likely to have been employed during the period that many of the country’s great walls were in use

BBC History Magazine

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED THIS MONTH…

A picket in County Durham, 1984. Newly released ﬁles show plans to close as many as 75 pits

Files show ‘secret plan to close UK coal pits’ Women march to demand the right to take part in the First World War, 1915. A new BBC project will explore how the conﬂict affected life around the UK FIRST WORLD WAR

BBC/REX FEATURES

Uncovering the stories of Britain’s WW1 home front T he ways in which the First World War shaped the lives of people around the United Kingdom is to be explored in a major new project. World War One At Home, which has been set up by the BBC in partnership with the Imperial War Museum, will feature 1,400 case studies in a series of television and radio documentaries. The ﬁrst will be aired on all of the BBC’s local radio stations in February, with later broadcasts set to take place in April, August and November. The research has been carried out with the support of experts funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and will be used to create a permanent online archive of all of the stories, featuring oral histories, audio clips and video footage. This material will be fully searchable and organised by themes, including the role of women, the impact on families and the experiences of soldiers from overseas. The BBC’s head of programmes for English regions, Craig Henderson, told BBC History Magazine: “Although we will be covering some of the war’s iconic ﬁgures, we have also been on the lookout for surprising stories that will, in many cases, be heard for the ﬁrst time. “I think the question that this project poses is whether, despite starting to understand the battleﬁelds, the mud and

BBC History Magazine

the conﬂict, we have really understood as a nation how the war’s effects rippled down the UK’s streets. I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I think that the project suggests that – if you look hard enough – you can ﬁnd evidence that nearly every street corner has some kind of story to tell about the war and the irrevocable change that it wrought.” Among the stories told by the project is that of Alice Weymouth, the owner of a Bristol pub whose horses were requisitioned by the government for use at the front. Angered by payment of 40 gold sovereigns, Weymouth threw the coins into her garden, of which only 38 were found in the subsequent decades. Dr Catriona Pennell, senior lecturer in history at the University of Exeter, said: “This has the potential to be an ambitious and interesting project: there is huge value in looking at the war from a grassroots level and relating it to the broader national and – I hope – international picture. Local stories will enable people to relate to an event that is in the relatively distant past and offer a vital alternative to the inevitable military focus of the centenary. I also hope that accounts that make us uneasy – and those that highlight the banality of war – are included”. Matt Elton

Find out more about the project at bbc.co.uk/ww1 from 24 February

Fears of the existence of a secret list of coal pits marked for closure may have been well-founded, according to newly released cabinet papers from 1984. Although the Conservative government and the National Coal Board claimed they wanted to close 20 pits, the previously conﬁdential ﬁles – held at the National Archives in Kew and released under the 30-year rule – reveal a plan to shut 75 over the course of three years.

‘Court brewer’s tomb’ discovered in Egypt A tomb thought to be that of a brewer who served an ancient Egyptian court has been found in Luxor. The vault, which features wall paintings depicting scenes of grain fermentation as well as religious rituals, was unearthed beneath a tomb belonging to a leading ofﬁcial of the 14th-century BC pharaoh Amenhotep III.

Stone Age hunters had extensive tooth decay Hunter-gatherers living in Morocco 13,700 years ago had extremely poor teeth, suggests a new study published in the PNAS journal. Scientists studied the dental condition of 52 skeletons found in the country over the past decade, with all but three showing signs of decay, cavities or lesions in more than half of their remaining teeth. The ﬁnd is among the earliest evidence of widespread human tooth decay and suggests that the high sugar content of some plants may have been problematic. Stay up to date with the latest stories at historyextra.com/news

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History now / Backgrounder Pro-EU protests in Kiev, like this one in December, have been a common sight in the past few months

Eastern Europe

In which direction will Ukraine turn – east or west? nti-government demonstrations in Kiev’s Independence Square have been persistent since last November, prompting violent responses from riot police armed with truncheons and tear gas. Demonstrators have denounced what they see as the corruption and incompetence of the regime led by president Viktor Yanukovych. But this is much more than an internal Ukrainian affair. The contest on the streets of Kiev is also a battle for inﬂuence between Russia and the European Union, both promising Ukrainians new forms of economic assistance and political association. Ukraine – which only achieved independence as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 – is often portrayed as poised between Europe’s east and west. Simple geography illustrates Ukraine’s pivotal position. As Europe’s second largest country, its territory reaches deep into that of modern Russia, but it shares borders too with several EU members, including Poland and Hungary. For historians, however, this tension is more subtle than simple ideas of east-west division, and concerns a lot more than, say, trade deals. President Putin made headlines in December with his agreement to cut by a third what Russia charges Ukraine for gas. But Russia’s – and Putin’s – sense of linkage to its geographical neighbour runs far deeper. Geoffrey Hosking, one of the UK’s leading historians of Russia and its inﬂuence, points out that “the origins of both states lie in Kiev, and in the medieval state known as Kievan Rus”. This means that Russians “think of the two countries as being very closely related. It’s like England and Scotland.”

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Putin sought to dramatise these deeper links last July when he visited Ukraine to join celebrations commemorating the conversion of Prince Vladimir of Kiev to Christianity in 988, a key moment in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin spoke of the “spiritual unity” of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples: “in this sense,” he said, “we are, without a doubt, one people”. Dr Andrew Wilson, Reader in Ukrainian Studies at University College London, points out that this version of history is reinforced in Russian school textbooks and mass media.

“It’s important to regard Ukraine more as a ‘shifting jigsaw’ than as a single coherent whole”

But it’s important, argues Dr Wilson, to see Ukraine – both its territory and its identity – as more of a “shifting jigsaw” than a single coherent unit. While some parts retain genuinely close links with Russia, other parts still reﬂect in their voting patterns today that they were once under, say, Polish rule. In the early modern period, Kiev and the lands around it were ruled as part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, making them open to inﬂuences such as the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. And Galicia in western Ukraine was ruled for a long period as part of the Habsburg empire. “You get a very strong current of Habsburg nostalgia there,” notes Wilson, symbolised by the revival of coffee shops in cities like L’viv (formerly Lemberg). “You can make the argument that this is a lost part of central Europe.” This western part of Ukraine, adds Professor Hosking, has “had a completely different history”. Many of its people are not Russian Orthodox but belong to the Uniate church – the Greek Catholic church as it is often known – that conducts its rite in Ukrainian and acknowledges the pope as

BBC History Magazine

MAP: MARTIN SANDERS - MAPART

Both the European Community and President Putin are making plays for Ukraine’s favours. Chris Bowlby looks at the republic’s varied history to explore its present dilemma

GETTY IMAGES/CORBIS/AKG IMAGES

TOP: A German photograph showing L’viv on 5 July 1941, shortly after retreating Soviet troops had murdered thousands of political prisoners ABOVE: The baptism of Vladimir, Prince of Kiev in the year 988, an event recently recalled by his namesake Putin

its spiritual head. Another part of today’s Ukraine with a very different past is Crimea, with its Greek and Tartar links, plus periods under both Ottoman and Russian rule. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made its own re-ordering of the Ukrainian jigsaw. Western Ukraine was taken by Stalin from Poland at the end of the Second World War. Crimea was transferred by Moscow to the Ukrainian republic within the USSR in the 1950s, but retains strong links with Russia, symbolised by the Russian Black Sea ﬂeet base in Sevastopol. And Soviet rule did bind Ukraine more tightly into Russian inﬂuence than ever, often at terrible cost. Millions of Ukrainians already part of the USSR in the 1930s died in famine engineered by Stalin. However, Soviet Moscow never dominated Ukraine culturally. Economic, political and military decisions were imposed from the centre, says Hosking, but Ukraine “did have a certain autonomy” in culture and education. While Russian was the dominant language, primary school children learned Ukrainian, many books were published in the language and, in the second half of the 20th century, “a strong Ukrainian

BBC History Magazine

national movement grew up in the Soviet Union of people who had been through a Ukrainian education”. Many of those nationalists now look towards western Europe for help. And the European response is also conditioned by deeper history. Poland has been especially active, says Andrew Wilson, reﬂecting its close links with Ukraine as well as its old strategic desire for buffer states between Poland and Russia. Sweden too has also been prominent in EU diplomacy, an initiative that led Putin’s government to mischievously recall the defeat of Swedish forces by Russians at the battle of Poltava in 1709. Germany also takes a close interest; its involvement, though, is tempered by memories of the appalling suffering of Ukraine, above all its Jews, at the hands of Germans during the Second World War. So all sides try to deploy history in the battle for inﬂuence in Ukraine. Protestors in Kiev argue that western links should shape Ukraine’s modern search for democracy and prosperity. President Putin combines the rhetoric of ancient spiritual bonds with warming winter offers of cheap gas and

trade deals – a reminder to its citizens, especially those in the east of the country, that they have long been dependent on Soviet-style heavy industry. But while Putin preaches profound Russian-Ukrainian kinship, there is one link he wants to discourage. The Ukrainian protestors’ criticism of corruption, powerful oligarchs and authoritarian politicians is something he is desperate to keep as far away from Russian streets as possible. And President Yanukovych, prevented from taking ofﬁce after a disputed election in 2004 when Ukrainians staged their ‘Orange Revolution’, also fears people power. Older history, suitably massaged, is much more to these presidents’ liking. Chris Bowlby is a presenter on BBC radio, specialising in history DISCOVER MORE BOOKS 왘 Russia and the Russians: A History

by Geoffrey Hosking (Harvard) 왘 The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation by Andrew Wilson (Yale)

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History now / Backgrounder

Lessons from history: Why did the execution of Kim Jung-un’s uncle shock us? The recent political killing in North Korea is, reasons Peter Jones, the continuation of a tradition well practised throughout history hen the young North Korean president, Kim Jong-un, ordered the execution of his uncle in December, the west was outraged. But he was not doing anything particularly surprising – or, indeed, unexpected – by historical standards. Murdering rivals for power, including family, has been standard practice everywhere since records began. For example, about a third of all Western Roman emperors were murdered or executed. Life at the bottom was just as lightly held. That does not mean that there were no laws against murder in civilian life, but it was an ill-deﬁned crime and, in the Roman world, self-defence was always grounds for acquittal. It was not difﬁcult, for instance, to engineer a street-ﬁght to ensure the desired end. As for battle, 50,000 were slaughtered by Hannibal’s army in one day at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC. For historians of any time and place, such occurrences are entirely commonplace. They were, and always have been, the way of the world. But that raises a problem: why is it that in most of the west in, say, the last 100 years or so – a mere pinprick in the history of mankind – such a cavalier attitude to life has become so completely unacceptable? In particular, why is it that capital punishment is now such anathema? After all, the execution of criminals was designed to serve some honourable civic purpose –

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Executions, like this 1785 Old Bailey hanging, didn’t greatly concern the population

“Why – over the last 100 years, a pinprick in the history of mankind – has such a cavalier attitude to life become so unacceptable?” of such overriding importance? Because of the comparative collapse of religious belief (“this life is all there is”)? Has our lack of everyday acquaintance with death (thanks mainly to modern medicine) made a difference? Or the rise of the all-protective welfare state? Perhaps the question should be redirected to one about ‘human rights’ and the ‘sanctity of life’ (an interestingly religious turn of phrase). But that, again, invites the question: why ‘human rights’ (invented, technically, in 1948)? And so on. These are big questions that to me still remain unanswered. Peter Jones is a classicist whose most recent book is Veni, Vidi, Vici: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Romans but Were Afraid to Ask (Atlantic Books, 2013)

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN

retribution, communal protection or, as the ancient Greek Protagoras argued, deterrence. What has changed in such a remarkably short period of time that, for example, membership of the EU depends on its abolition? It is the change that is so critical in answering the question: I ﬁnd myself still trying to establish quite what that change has been – and why, in the light of history, it has had such a dramatic effect so quickly. Is it because capital punishment was applied to such random, minor offences? However, that does not necessarily mean no case could be made for it under any circumstances. Is it our increased understanding of the workings of the human mind? But we still punish people we judge responsible for crime. Is it the irreversibility of the punishment? But that argument has always been available: why does it now seem

PAST NOTES THE GYMNASIUM

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID We take a look at what the press has been saying about St Valentine’s Day down the centuries…

“Six young ladies in an English boarding school purchased a very pretty valentine which they sent directed to ‘His Holiness the Pope, Rome’” Dundee Courier / 1869

“Pretty custom killed by vulgarity” Nottingham Evening Post / 1921 “Valentines in almost every conceivable form were pouring in at the General Post Office” Edinburgh Evening News / 1876

“St Valentine’s Day has fallen into desuetude – at least, so far as Manchester is concerned” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser / 1902 “‘Our postman was the bearer of a great many tokens of love, fun, jealousy &c., on Saturday morning last’” Grantham Journal / 1880

“Saint Valentine still lingers”

Aberdeen Evening Express / 1892

MARY EVANS

“The quick double rap of the postman makes many a heart throb on this morn” Dorset County Chronicle / 1867

“Female fight over a Valentine” Edinburgh Evening News / 1877

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By 1900, many cities in western Europe and the United States had public gymnasiums, like this well-equipped hall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

As we aim to work off the effects of Christmas excess, Julian Humphrys looks at the early history of the gym Why gymnasium? It’s derived from the Greek word for naked. Whereas we put our kit on when we go to the gym, the ancient Greeks got theirs off, taking their exercise in the nude. So did the Greeks invent the concept of going to the gym? Previous civilisations took physical exercise and set areas aside for it, but for the Greeks it was a central aspect of everyday life, producing not just ﬁt warriors but also well-rounded citizens. The Greek gymnasium was a place where philosophers rubbed shoulders with athletes; it was designed not just for exercise but also for discussion and study. What happened after the Greeks? In the Roman empire, physical education remained important for soldiers and athletes, but most Romans restricted themselves to mild forms of exercise at their bath houses. In medieval Europe, the body was seen by the church as corrupt and to attempt to improve it for its own sake was viewed as sinful. So when did the gymnasium make a comeback? Although a revival of interest in physical education can be seen in the

writings of 15th-century Italian humanists like Vittorino da Feltre, we have to wait until the 19th century for mass participation. In 1811, the Prussian Friedrich Jahn founded the Turnverein movement, seeing gymnastics as a way of fostering national unity and producing soldiers who would be better able to resist the unwelcome attentions of Napoleonic France. What about exercising for leisure? By the mid-19th century, individuals had woken up to the fact that some people had the money and inclination to spend time exercising – both to improve their physiques and as a social activity. French strongman Hippolyte Triat opened luxurious gymnasiums in Brussels and Paris. Soon much of Parisian high society was exercising under his instruction. By the 1860s, British gymnasiums included those in Liverpool, St Pancras (where the ‘German Gymnasium’ attracted 900 members within a year of opening) and Edinburgh, where the extraordinary apparatus at the open-air Royal Patent Gymnasium included a 100-foot long seesaw and a vast ‘rotary boat’ that allowed up to 600 people to row round in a circle!

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Dominic Sandbrook highlights events that took place in February in history

ANNIVERSARIES 4 February 1945

27 February 1881

Stalin pushes Churchill to the margins at Yalta

Boers bloody British noses at Majuba Hill

f we had spent 10 years on research,” grumbled Winston Churchill, “we could not have found a worse place in the world than Yalta.” For on 4 February 1945, when Britain’s unﬂagging prime minister arrived in the Crimean resort for a summit with Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin, he found it distinctly down-at-heel. The retreating Nazis had left much of the countryside burned and bleeding. Behind the elegant facades, the Crimean palaces were dusty and dilapidated. Yalta has gone down as one of the decisive summits in world history. The Big Three, as they were known, met the following afternoon, with Roosevelt acting as chairman. But the American president was tired and ill – he would die just months later – and it was Stalin who dominated. As the meetings drew on,

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Churchill was slowly pushed to the margins. It was Stalin, for example, who got his way over Poland: not only did the Allies agree to recognise his puppet communist government, but he got to keep the territory he had seized in 1939. The irony, of course, was that Britain had gone to war to save the Poles; now it was abandoning them to Moscow. Yet given the pressures of the war against Hitler, Churchill felt that he simply had no choice. In his ﬁnal words to the conference, he echoed Stalin’s talk of the future, and proposed a toast to “the broad sunlight of victorious peace”. Afterwards, boarding a British ship in Sebastopol harbour, he immediately demanded to have his clothes de-loused. Back in London he told his ministers that Stalin, unlike Hitler, could be trusted. He would soon change his mind.

Seated from left to right: Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin at Yalta at “one of the decisive summits in history”

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Redcoats ﬂee for their lives following shock defeat by Dutch ‘farm boys’ in Natal hen dawn broke on the morning of 27 February 1881, it found Sir George Pomeroy Colley in deﬁant form. A few hours earlier, the British commander-in-chief in Natal had marched his 405 men, resplendent in their red coats and white pith helmets, to the top of Majuba Hill. Below, in the long, dusty grass, they could see the tents of their Boer adversaries. Sir George had no artillery with him. There was no need, he thought: his men would wipe the ﬂoor with these Dutch farm boys. A few hours later, the Boers began their attack. And slowly but steadily, Sir George’s conﬁdence began to drain away. The Boer marksmen were better than he expected, keeping his men pinned back while their comrades inched up the hill. By one o’clock the Boers had captured Gordon’s Knoll, to the right of the summit. Yet still they hung back, picking the redcoats off one by one. By early afternoon they had virtually encircled the summit. Sir George ordered a ﬁghting retreat. But then another shot rang out. The commander fell, and now the red ranks broke. Suddenly British soldiers were ﬂooding desperately down the hill, ﬂeeing for their lives. A routine skirmish had turned into one of the greatest military disasters in British history. Majuba Hill marked the end of the First Boer War. But when war returned to South Africa almost two decades later, the lessons of history were not forgotten. “Remember Majuba,” British ofﬁcers said to themselves. Next time, they would not be so careless.

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The Soviet premier dominates a critical Allied summit

ALAMY

Dominic Sandbrook’s latest book is Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979 (Allen Lane)

Redcoats in action at the battle of Majuba Hill. Around 100 were killed in “one of the greatest military disasters in British history”

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Anniversaries 18 February 1268 At the battle of Wesenberg in modern day Estonia, the knights of the Livonian Order (one shown right) and an alliance of Russian princes fight to a bloody standstill.

8 February 1981 While leaving the derby between Olympiakos and AEK Athens, 21 Greek football supporters are killed in a crush outside Gate 7 at Karaiskakis Stadium in Piraeus.

17 February 1662 Frederick Coyett, the last governo or of Dutch occupied Taiwan, abandons the island to its Ming conquerors, who are led by Koxinga (pictured right).

18 February 1478

Clarence meets his end, but is it in a butt of Malmsey wine? Edward IV puts his treacherous brother to death and inspires one of Shakespeare’s most memorable stories f it were not for Shakespeare, perhaps George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, would be forgotten today. Yet it is the fate of “false, ﬂeeting, perjur’d Clarence” that launches the action of Shakespeare’s dark play Richard III. Clarence was the third son of Richard, Duke of York, whose challenge to Henry VI triggered the Wars of the Roses in 1455, when George was just six. In

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1461 George’s brother, Edward, became king, backed by England’s most powerful magnate, Warwick the Kingmaker. As Edward had no children, George was the likely heir. But he overplayed his hand. He married Warwick’s daughter, joined his father-in-law in rebellion, and then changed sides again, returning to Edward’s side just before Warwick was killed at the battle of Barnet. Ostensibly

Clarence had been forgiven. But his treachery was not forgotten. When his wife died, Clarence formed the idea of marrying Mary of Burgundy, whose father, Charles the Bold, was one of Europe’s most powerful ﬁgures. Unsurprisingly, Edward didn’t like the sound of that – and the two brothers’ relationship began to disintegrate. By June 1477, Clarence had been dragged into the Tower of London and charged with what Edward called his “unnatural, loathly treasons”. On 18 February he was executed; we do not know how. But mere beheading was not colourful enough for Shakespeare, who has Clarence drowned in a butt of sweet Malmsey wine. That sounds like a waste of good wine. Still, there’s no denying that it makes a memorable story.

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ALAMY

The 1st Duke of Clarence pays the price for crossing his brother, Edward IV, in this illustration

21 February 1804

Pen-y-Darren locomotive steams into history Trevithick’s invention pulls 10 tonnes of iron for 10 miles t the turn of the 19th century, south Wales was in a frenzy. The industrial revolution was in full swing; all the talk was of coal and iron. At night, furnaces blazed in the darkness. Everywhere there was noise and motion, trams, horses and people, servants at the temple of the new industrial capitalism. At the centre of all this excitement was an Englishman called Samuel Homfray, who had founded the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydﬁl. Homfray was open to innovation, and in 1802 he engaged a Cornish inventor, Richard Trevithick, to build a high-pressure steam engine to drive a hammer. Trevithick’s real interest, though, lay in building steam locomotives. Under Homfray’s supervision, he tried mounting the engine on wheels.

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Trevithick’s locomotive Catch Me Who Can does the rounds at his steam circus in London

Homfray liked what he saw so much that he bought the patent. Then he made a 500-guinea bet with a rival ironmaster, Richard Crawshay, wagering that his new locomotive could pull 10 tonnes of iron along the Merthyr Tydﬁl tramway, a distance of almost 10 miles. A date was set: 21 February 1804. And in its way, it deserves to be remembered as one of the most inﬂuential moments in history. By the time that Trevithick’s locomotive had been prepared for its big test, a large crowd had assembled to

watch the great moment. The iron was loaded onto ﬁve wagons, while 70 men also boarded the train, among them Homfray, Crawshay, various engineers and a government inspector. Steam went up, the wheels turned – and they were off. Underneath, some of the tramway’s plates buckled and cracked under the weight of the train. But they kept moving. Four hours later, the train eased to a stop. Homfray had won his bet, and the history of transport would never be the same again.

COMMENT / Christian Wolmar

ALAMY

“At Pen-y-Darren, Trevithick effectively invented the locomotive” There were several key moments in the story of the invention of the engine but the short journey of Richard Trevithick’s locomotive along the tracks at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks was arguably the most signiﬁcant. Trevithick had, effectively, invented the locomotive. The development of the railways was, in fact, a series of inventions to overcome a variety of technical and practical obstacles. The aim was not to invent a railway but to create a transport system. Ideally, the locomotives would not have needed tracks as then they would have simply become the forerunners of motorcars. However, because the roads in

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the early 19th century were little more than mud paths and the early steam engines were invariably heavy, there was no alternative but to put them on rails. Trevithick had developed several static engines which could be used to haul wagons by means of cables, but putting them on wheels so that they became a ‘travelling engine’ represented major progress towards the creation of railways. He would go on to exhibit his invention on a circular track near the present site of Euston station, giving the locomotive the playful title of Catch Me Who Can. Disillusioned by the failure of his Euston ‘railway’ to attract much attention,

Trevithick went to South America, hunting for gold and devising engines for pumping water in mines. He returned to the UK in 1827 and died six years later penniless but not forgotten. Christian Wolmar is the author of Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain (Atlantic, 2008) and To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Railway (Atlantic, 2013)

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Your views on the magazine and the world of history

LETTERS I enjoyed watching the short ﬁlm about the Ladies’ Riﬂe Club (History on Film, Christmas). I myself have a riﬂe medal won by my paternal grandmother in Poona. It was awarded to the 3rd Coy for the 1912/13 Inter-Company competition. I also have memories of my mother going to a riﬂe LETTER club. We were living at Deepcut, not far OF THE from Bisley, at the time (around 1958) MONTH and the Army Wives Club was, I suspect, her only respite from family life, which included myself and four siblings! Jenny Wears, Suffolk

쎲 We reward the writer of the letter of the month with our ‘History Choice’ book of the month. This issue it is Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769–1814 by Rory Muir. Read the review on page 65

Piombino and Lucca, and later the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, with considerable political power. She was also an extensive patron of the arts, establishing an academy of ﬁne arts and even ﬁnancing archaeological digs in Italy. The second sister, Pauline, or Paoletta, also held many titles. She was to be the only sibling of Napoleon who visited the fallen emperor in Elba during his period in exile. As for the third sister, Caroline, she probably had the worst relationship with Napoleon. A power-hungry woman, she was intensely jealous of Napoleon’s ﬁrst wife and she even supported her husband (one of Napoleon’s generals), in making peace with the anti-Napoleonic allies. We should also remember Alexandre Walewski, the illegitimate son of Napoleon, who was foreign minister under Napoleon III. Sophie Marton Budapest

The dangers of choice Unscathed by the war As usual, any article written by Michael Wood is interesting, passionate and powerful. However, I would like to offer a small correction. He mentions that Michael Williams states that “every town and village, every street, lost its boys” (Michael Wood’s View, Christmas). In fact, that is not true. There were 51 ‘thankful villages’ around the country that didn’t lose its boys, a number of which were fortunate enough not to lose anyone in the Second World War either. May I also state that it wasn’t just the “boys” of the Great War that lost their lives. Our girls also gave their lives in the service of their country! Phil Roberts Anglesey

Don’t forget Napoleon’s sisters An article in Decemberr’s Q&A section told the story of Napoleeon’s family after the fall of the emperor. However, it failed to mention any of Napoleon’s sisters, though th heir story is just as interesting. Elisa, the oldest of the sisters, had several titles. She was Princess of

Ronald Hutton suggests that we will never know what many prehistoric people thought (A Pagan Riddle We Will Never Solve, Christmas). That is undoubtedly true. However, he goes on to advocate a “policy of encouraging multiple interpretations of evidence” and “offering a range of interpretations of equal legitimacy” so as to enable members of the public “to make the best-informed possible choices for themselves”. This is a dangerously subjective approach. Choice is a modern obsession and it ﬁnds its way into places in which it does not belong. It has no place in the determination of a true understanding of the past. Wh iis choice Why h i necessaryy in the situation that Prof Hutton n is considering (that is, where the evidence is consistent with a variety of explanations, none o of which can be considered to havve a high probability)? Surely, tthe only appropriate response to this

Elisa Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon, led an interesting life of her own, says Sophie Marton

situation is to acknowledge the limits of the evidence. Anything more is not a “legitimate interpretation”; it is a piece of imaginative speculation. The distinction is important: legitimate interpretation respects and is grounded in the evidence, whereas imaginative speculation goes beyond it. The former results from justiﬁable induction, whereas the latter does not. Imaginative speculation is often fun and, on occasions, it may help us spot connections between pieces of evidence or to identify fertile ground in which to look for further evidence. However, we should not encourage anyone to mistake it for history in any meaningful sense of that term. Richard Godden London

Ronald Hutton replies: Mr Godden raises some interesting points but leaves me unsure of why he thinks that I am dangerously encouraging imaginative speculation. My acid test for validity of interpretation is that it is ﬁrmly grounded in the available material and textual evidence (and for all of prehistory we have only the former). My point is that the same evidence can be legitimately interpreted in different ways, which multiply the further back beyond history we go, and that this divergence can be celebrated rather than deplored.

Worthwhile endurance I read with much interest GH Bennett’s Arctic convoys article (The Worst Journey in the World, Christmas). My grandfather, Mac Davison, made what Bennett calls “the worst journey” on several occasions while serving with the Royal Navy. Returning home to Plymouth after the war, he was not, my father recalled, one to talk about such experiences. Only two stories were handed down to me. Firstly, how – in the often atrocious conditions – food became wet and rotten; loaves of bread were cut down until only an inch-sized cube was left that was ﬁt to eat. Secondly, that on one occasion the men gave their Royal Navy blankets to the sick and injured who they had seen while visiting a Russian

The opinions expressed by our commentators are their own and may not represent the views of BBC History Magazine or the Immediate Media Company

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BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

Looking back at women with guns

The men of the Arctic convoys – such as reader Martyn Davison’s grandfather – braved terrible conditions

SOCIAL MEDIA What you’ve been saying on Twitter and Facebook

@HistoryExtra: How should the Great Train Robbery’s Ronnie Biggs be remembered? @mggbuk1 He was a rogue, a scoundrel, a latterday Robin Hood, but not a hero... @cam1871 As a thief and a thug who ruined the life of Jack Mills @RKG2LI As a thief; a lucky thief sometimes, but a thief all the same @HistoryExtra: What is your reaction to newly released cabinet papers from 1984 which reveal a “secret coal pits closure plan”?

hospital. All these years later, it is moving to read that the endurance shown by those serving on the convoys, on warships and merchant vessels, was necessary for the wider effort to win the war. Martyn Davison Auckland

Useless tanks My late father was in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War and was on at least one Arctic convoy. One of the few comments that he ever made about delivering war material to Russia concerned British tanks. Although these were propagandised in the UK as intended for “our gallant Russian allies”, they were so unsuited to Russian conditions that my father remembered seeing large numbers of them simply dumped on the Russian dockside. James Wells MRINA Essex

IWM

Kennedy’s Vietnam errors Hugh Brogan is simply wrong when he says President Kennedy “had already started to withdraw troops” from Vietnam (What If Kennedy Had Lived?, December). When Kennedy became president, there were 700 American advisors in Vietnam; there were 16,000 when he died in November 1963. Supposedly, in October 1963, Kennedy approved a 1,000-a-month troop withdrawal beginning that December, but it never happened; at no time did he withdraw any troops. Nor is it correct to say that, after Kennedy’s death, President Johnson “allowed himself to be swayed by the

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generals”. I arrived in Vietnam in April 1966 as a young army ofﬁcer and was there for 14 months. We knew perfectly well the decisions on the war were made in Washington by Johnson’s civilian advisors, not in Saigon. The Johnson Vietnam policy was a “continuity” of the Kennedy policy, as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it years later. The Kennedy administration’s great error was the bungled overthrow and assassination of Vietnam’s mercurial president Ngo Dinh Diem, just three weeks before Kennedy’s own assassination. We were inexorably tied to that quagmire from November 1963 – and it was JFK who put us there. T Anthony Quinn Sacramento

Corrections 쎲 As a number of readers have pointed out, the author of ‘Amazing Grace’ was John Newton and not James Newton (Anniversaries, January). 쎲 In What the Papers Said (Christmas) the story about Christmas fraternisation actually derived from the Dundee Courier in 1915 rather than the Aberdeen Journal in 1940. Thanks to Raymond Ellis for alerting us to this.

WRITE TO US We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them. We may publish your letters on our website. Please include a daytime phone number and, if emailing, a postal address (not for publication). Letters should be no longer than 250 words. email: [email protected] Post:

Dennis Green The pit closure plan was always an open secret, part of an anti union strategy Gary Weightman Pits were already closing at around 20 a year, so 75 in three years would hardly have been a shock Jim Grundy The closure of the mines had little, if anything, to do with a future energy strategy. It was a politically motivated attack upon organised labour. It’s not as if the Tories are shy about it. No secret papers needed to ‘reveal’ that @HistoryExtra: What is your reaction to Michael Gove’s claim that “left-wing academics” are using Blackadder “to feed myths” about WW1? Lisa Jones Blackadder is one representation of WW1. Whether or not one supports the “Lions led by donkeys” stance, this programme shows how a particular group of people viewed WW1. It does not invalidate the efforts of the soldiers and those who were involved in the conflict Andrew James MacRae Blackadder, and any other film or TV series about WW1, is a useful teaching tool. The question when viewing it is not whether it is an accurate depiction of conditions in the trenches of WW1, but why the witty creators of Blackadder chose to set the series in WW1 and portray senior leaders as incompetent Peter Rayment If being appalled that a million of our young men were killed for not a lot is left wing, then I think we are all left wing

Letters, BBC History Magazine, Immediate Media Company Bristol Ltd, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN

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Comment

Michael Wood on… Chinese exploration

“Confucians thought their true interests lay inside their borders”

Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. His most recent TV series was King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons

Zheng He’s biggest vessels were the largest wooden ships ever built, though the idea that they might have been 400 feet long (or even bigger) is rejected now by experts in marine technology. Maximum length was probably around 250 feet, making them still twice as big as the ocean-going boats that sailed from the Red Sea to India during the Roman period. Five-masted with watertight compartments, a stern rudder, the compass, paper maps and gunpowder, they carried most of the inventions with which the west would later triumph. The Ming dynasty then was the greatest power on the planet, with maybe 200 million people. So why did they stop? Why were the ships dismantled and their logbooks destroyed? For some in the west, this is proof that China was backward-looking and rigid in its thought, with no desire for new knowledge; that the west was the fount of ‘progress’. As a famous ad for the McDonnell Douglas aerospace company put it: it would be like stopping moon exploration at Apollo 8. But that misunderstands Chinese history. The Chinese, after all, were the great technological innovators in history before the industrial revolution. Perhaps in the end, then, it comes down to how different civilisations think we should use technology. As the doyen of Ming historians, Theodore de Bary, sees it, the Chinese Confucian bureaucrats considered that their true interests lay inside their own borders, cultivating their soil, developing the inner life, searching for the harmony that had always been the goal of Chinese civilisation. And perhaps it was the west on the other hand, great as its achievements were, that had a restless desire to change and a compulsion to invade other people’s space, both moral and physical. In 1492, Columbus reached the Bahamas and, six years later, Vasco da Gama sailed into Cochin where Zheng He’s ‘treasure ships’ had docked nearly a century before. The Europeans would achieve amazing things in the age that followed, changing the world forever. But as China rises again, Zheng He’s story is another reminder that trying to understand history from only one viewpoint is usually a mistake.

REX FEATURES

We’ve started ﬁlming now on my forthcoming series The Story of China. On the ﬁrst shoot, we spent some time in Nanjing, a fascinating city with much to thrill the visitor, including the greatest surviving set of city walls anywhere in the world. We were focusing on the story of Zheng He, the admiral who, from 1405 onwards, led seven great voyages to India, Africa and the near east. In recent years, he’s become a national hero in China, his tale taught in schools as a symbol of Chinese naval prowess and technological know-how. But Zheng He is also now seen as an embodiment of the ideals of Chinese civilisation, a model in today’s cultural politics as China again goes out to the world. It hasn’t escaped the Chinese that where the western voyages of exploration were rapidly followed by colonisation, systematic violence, forcible conversion and remorseless cultural imperialism, expeditions during the Ming Dynasty didn’t try to subdue nonChinese peoples. Indeed, Zheng He himself, on his third voyage in 1409, made offerings at a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka and left a trilingual inscription (in Chinese, Tamil and Persian) thanking Allah, the Buddha and Vishnu, and invoking the blessings of the Hindu gods for a peaceful world built on trade and contact! These were by no means the ﬁrst such Chinese voyages. They had sailed to Africa and traded with Persia and the Gulf for centuries. In the Tang period (AD 618–906), their navigators had led expeditions to plot the meridian arc from Vietnam to Mongolia and to map the stars from Java to within 20 degrees of the south celestial pole. Zheng He’s ﬂeets then were not exploring the unknown: these were old routes round the Arabian Sea to east Africa. Mozambique was probably the southern limit of their journeys, though the tale of one junk that rounded the Cape of Good Hope is discussed by Joseph Needham in his great work Science and Civilisation in China. (That they went much further, as has been claimed recently, ‘discovered the world’ and ‘ignited the Renaissance’ is dismissed by all experts in the ﬁeld.)

ILLUSTRATION BY LYNN HATZIUS

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COVER STORY

“IT WAS THE

BIGGEST ERROR IN MODERN HISTORY”

As Niall Ferguson’s new programme on the First World War is due to air, he talks to Rob Attar about why he believes Britain made a terrible mistake in taking up arms a century ago

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Accompanies the BBC Two documentary The Pity of War

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A futile struggle? British soldiers in the trenches. “The cost of the First World War to Britain was catastrophic,” says Niall Ferguson. “It left the British empire in a much weakened state”

“Most of the combatants miscalculated in one way or another. They all exaggerated the benefits of going to war and underestimated the costs” BBC History Magazine

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Cover story

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What do you see as the main reasons for the outbreak of the First World War? It has been very tempting to assign blame to one country or another, and Germany has borne the brunt of the responsibility in the historical literature. However, my feeling is that we can’t simply replicate the war guilt clause of the Treaty of Versailles. As historians we need to recognise that there was a crisis of the international system in 1914, in which most of the combatants miscalculated in one way or another. They all exaggerated the beneﬁts of going to war and underestimated the costs. There was something inherently ﬂawed about the international system that encouraged those in power to make a series of blunders.

question why other assassinations didn’t cause world wars, but this particular one did. When you pose the question like that then you ﬁnd yourself trying to explain not only why the Serbian intelligence service covertly sanctioned a terrorist act by an extremist Bosnian Serb group but also why, when the Serbian government refused the pretty reasonable demands of the Austrian government to co-operate with an investigation into the terrorist act, the Russians backed the Serbs while the Germans backed the Austrians. Any answer to this question has to explain why this particular assassination produced not just a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but one also involving both Russia and Germany.

How important was the killing of Franz Ferdinand in terms of the outbreak of the war? I think it was the catalyst for an explosion. If one thinks simply in causal chains, then that was the ﬁrst shot of the First World War. Yet many assassinations happened in the early 20th century – it was an extremely popular way of making a political point if you were an extremist of the right or the left. So one has to

Many historians have singled out the German guarantee of military support to Austria-Hungary – the ‘blank cheque’ – as a decisive moment on the road to war. Do you agree? In my book The Pity of War I make it clear that the Germans made a series of miscalculations about what was in their own strategic interest, and one of those miscalculations was to believe that the

summer of 1914 was the best available moment for a showdown with Russia. This was a mistake because it almost certainly exaggerated Russia’s future strength. After all, Russia had been in a revolution nine years before [the 1905 revolution which did not bring down the regime but greatly unsettled it] and it was hardly as powerful as the German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg seems to have thought. Worse still, the Germans also appear to have overestimated the strength of their Austrian ally. In addition, the Germans miscalculated in thinking that they could wage a war on two fronts, knocking out France in order to focus on Russia, without bringing Britain into the war. The German decision to back the Austrians in their confrontation with the Serbs was therefore based on a series of major strategic errors. But before we revisit the blame game, it is important to bear in mind that the Austrians were the wronged party in 1914. The heir to their throne had been assassinated and the terrorists had been sponsored by the intelligence service of Serbia. If you change the names and dates and ask yourself how we would react today if, let’s say, the American BBC History Magazine

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Answering the call Army recruits take the oath in White City, London, December 1914. “Creating an army more or less from scratch was a recipe for disastrous losses,” claims Niall Ferguson

“The Liberals realised that if they did not go to war then they would fall from power. This was not a pleasant prospect for ministers” vice president, Joe Biden, was assassinated by a terrorist organisation clearly supported by the Iranian government, you see that the German position in 1914 was not entirely unreasonable. Really the Austrians were the ones in the right and those who lined up on the side of Serbia were essentially backing the sponsors of terrorism. Why do you think Britain decided to join the war? This is a hotly contested subject. If one looks at what the prime minister, Herbert Asquith and other ministers (including, of course, foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey) said in August 1914, then the answer is Belgium. This was the casus belli most often cited. The private deliberations of the government suggest, however, that Britain was doing more than just upholding the 1839 treaty that guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality. In the minds of Asquith, Grey and Winston Churchill (then ﬁrst lord of the Admiralty) Britain could not stand by and watch France defeated if it meant German dominance of the European continent and the Channel ports. Belgium provided a good legal basis for intervention and one that was also popular because the great British public, especially liberals, quickly appreciated the idea that Britain was standing up for a little country that was being invaded. However, in practice, the strategic calculation about the balance of power in Europe was the more important one. There was another part to this story, though, that doesn’t make it into most history books. The Liberal government on 2 August 1914 realised that if it did not go to war then it would fall from power, because Grey and Churchill would resign and Asquith would have felt obliged to go to the king and admit the government could not be continued. This was not a pleasant prospect for the ministers sitting around the government table. The majority of people around the cabinet table did not want war. They did not share Grey’s view that France had to be supported. They were desperately hoping that Lloyd George, the chancellor of the exchequer, would oppose intervention. But when they realised that if they didn’t act, the government would fall and the Conservatives would get in, they quietly lined up behind Grey, Churchill and Asquith. BBC History Magazine

Was Britain’s intervention in August 1914 crucial to the outcome? Without British involvement, could Germany have defeated France? I think that Britain’s intervention was crucial. Although Britain only had seven divisions ready in 1914, its ﬁnancial resources and huge potential power were also being made available. The knowledge that they had the resources of the British empire on their side was a pretty important source of comfort for the French, who were horribly mauled in the opening six months of the war. Half a million French soldiers were killed, permanently incapacitated or taken prisoner in this time, and under other circumstances it would have been highly likely that French resistance would have crumbled, as it did in 1870 and would again in 1940. The fact that the French did not collapse in, let’s say, 1915 or 1916 surely can be explained by the knowledge that British support would grow in strength and, of course, by 1916 Britain had sufﬁcient manpower in France to mount the Somme offensive and take some of the strain off the French army. Could Britain have lived with the consequences of defeat for France and Russia? The most controversial part of my book – and I think it is an argument that will go on until the day I die – was that Britain could indeed have lived with a German victory. What’s more, it would have been in Britain’s interests to stay out in 1914. What are the arguments against that? If you think that Germany was a dreadful tyranny ruled by the kaiser and militaristic Junkers [members of Prussia’s landed nobility], then a German victory in, say, 1916 would have been as bad as a German victory was in 1939/40. But I don’t think that that is plausible and I tried to show in the book that the Germany of 1914 was very different indeed from the Germany of 1939. It was, for example, more democratic than Britain in the franchise to the Reichstag; it was a state with a ﬁrmly established rule of law; a state with the biggest socialist party in Europe and so on. It was a very different kind of threat from the Germany of 1939. The second point that my critics have often made is that Britain could not historically

tolerate a hegemonic power on the European continent. One of the axioms of British foreign policy, they argue, had always been to stop such a dominant power existing – particularly to prevent a single European power controlling not just France and Germany but also Belgium and potentially the Netherlands. In other words it was about the Channel ports and Britain’s security. That argument, which is very seductive, has one massive ﬂaw in it, which is that Britain tolerated exactly that situation happening when Napoleon overran the European continent, and did not immediately send land forces to Europe. It wasn’t until the Peninsular War that Britain actually deployed ground forces against Napoleon. So strategically, if Britain had not gone to war in 1914, it would still have had the option to intervene later, just as it had the option to intervene after the Revolutionary Wars had been under way for some time. This is an important distinction that people often miss. Historically it was very remarkable that Britain intervened as early as it did and especially remarkable that it sent land forces immediately on the outbreak of the war. In fact, doing this was a terriﬁcally expensive thing because, being unprepared for a large-scale land war, Britain had to learn land warfare on the job. Creating an army more or less from scratch and then sending it into combat against the Germans was a recipe for disastrous losses. And if one asks whether this was the best way for Britain to deal with the challenge posed by imperial Germany, my answer is ‘no’. The right way for Britain to proceed was not to rush into a land war but rather to exploit its massive advantages at sea and in ﬁnancial terms. Even if Germany had defeated France and Russia, it would have had a pretty massive challenge on its hands trying to run the new German-dominated Europe, and would have remained signiﬁcantly weaker than the British empire in naval and ﬁnancial terms. Given the resources that Britain had available in 1914, a better strategy would have been to wait and deal with the German challenge later when Britain could respond on its own terms, taking advantage of its much greater naval and ﬁnancial capability. 25

Cover story

Should Britain today feel pride for its actions in the First World War, or should it feel shame? Pride and shame are not feelings that an academic historian wants to arouse in readers 26

Niall Ferguson argues that Britain in 1914 was no more civilised than Germany

When you think about that, it’s somewhat absurd because in terms of civilisation the differences between Britain and Germany in 1914 were vanishingly small. To say that it was for civilisation that the great European powers spent four and a quarter years slaughtering young men would almost be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. So I think we need to look back on this centenary not with pride, not with shame, but with understanding, with sympathy for those who lost their lives or otherwise suffered. Above all, I think we need to look back with a kind of sorrow that such dreadful decisionmaking could produce such a calamity. Finally, I really hope we can learn something from this. We’re not going to learn anything if all we do in this centenary is say it was all the fault of the Germans. That represents a complete failure to progress.

“We’re not going to learn anything if all we do is say it was all the fault of the Germans. That represents a complete failure to progress” or television viewers. My aim is to improve our understanding. We need to, of course, feel sympathy for the men like my grandfather who fought in the First World War, because their sufferings were scarcely imaginable. The death toll, which was greater than the Second World War, was the most painful thing that Britain has ever experienced in war. But we should also feel dismay that the leaders, not just of Britain, but of the European states, could have taken decisions that led to such an appalling slaughter. In the end the war was a bizarre battle between empires within western civilisation – it was a kind of European or western civil war. When you ask yourself what it was for, answers like the creation of a pan-Slav state in the Balkans or the upholding of Belgian neutrality seem ludicrously small compared with the cost in terms of human life and treasure. So I feel a sense of sorrow that 10 million people (more by some estimates) died prematurely and often violently because the statesmen of the European empires gambled on war for really quite low stakes. My grandfather, who survived the war (albeit having been gassed and shot through the chest), was given a medal that said he’d fought in “the great war for civilisation”.

To me it’s depressing that books are still being produced churning out this kind of line when so much has been written in the last 100 years to create a much more nuanced account. The hope I have is that this television ﬁlm will reignite interest in the book The Pity of War and encourage people to realise that we should not think of this as some great victory or dreadful crime, but more as the biggest error in modern history. Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch professor of history at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous bestselling books and has presented a number of series on British TV. Niallferguson.com DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson

(Penguin, new edition, 2009) TELEVISION 왘 The Pity of War is due to be

aired soon on BBC Two. Turn to page 75 for more details on the BBC’s WW1 centenary season Turn the page to discover what six more historians think of Britain’s decision to go to war in August 1914 BBC History Magazine

BBC

What about the moral dimension – did Britain have a duty to get involved in the First World War? It had a legal obligation under the 1839 treaty to uphold Belgian neutrality, so would have had to renege on that commitment. But guess what? Realism in foreign policy has a long and distinguished tradition, not least in Britain – otherwise the French would never complain about ‘perﬁdious Albion’. For Britain it would ultimately have been far better to have thought in terms of the national interest rather than in terms of a dated treaty. The cost, let me emphasise, of the First World War to Britain was catastrophic and it left the British empire at the end of it all in a much weakened state. True, the empire had grown territorially, but its ﬁnancial position was fundamentally altered. It had accumulated a vast debt, the cost of which really limited Britain’s military capability throughout the interwar period. Then there was the manpower loss – not just all those aristocratic ofﬁcers but the many, many, many skilled workers who died or were permanently incapacitated in the war. Arguments about honour, of course, resonate today as they resonated in 1914 but you can pay too high a price for upholding that notion of honour, and I think in the end Britain did. Let me put it a different way. If it was the right thing to intervene in 1914 with an immediate deployment of ground forces, why did the government not introduce conscription in the years before the confrontation with Germany? It was absurd to have a commitment to Belgium that could only be honoured with a handful of divisions. The problem about British policy in 1914 is that it was neither one thing nor another. It was not a credible continental commitment, which would have required conscription and a much larger land army. Nor was it a clearly thought-through maritime strategy to deal with the possibility of a German victory over France and Russia. The whole point of The Pity of War is to say that it was a grave pity that Britain in 1914 had this mixed-up hybrid strategy. If we had clearly chosen a continental commitment with conscription in the years before 1914 we might have avoided the war altogether because we’d have deterred the Germans. But we didn’t deter the Germans, as with only six or seven divisions to deploy against them we didn’t seem to constitute a fatal threat to their war plans.

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The First World War A British recruitment poster. Germany’s invasion of Belgium transformed Britain’s appetite for war

TOPFOTO

Following on from Niall Ferguson’s argument on page 22, we asked six expert historians for their views on Britain’s decision to enter the First World War. They all came to a similar conclusion Interviews by Matt Elton

Why Britain was right to go to war in 1914 Margaret MacMillan: Even if Britain had stayed out of the war in August 1914, it would have been difficult for it to stay on the sidelines We can never know for certain what would have happened if Britain had stayed out of the First World War, but we can guess. If Germany’s war plans against France had succeeded – and, without the British Expeditionary Force, they might well have – Paris would have been surrounded again. Although the French might well have surrendered, this is a big question mark: we should not make the mistake of assuming that the France of 1914 was the same as the France of 1940. The country then was far more united, with better forces and leadership than it had in the Second World War. France might well have fought on, and it would have become increas-

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ingly difﬁcult for Britain to stay on the sidelines. Think, as British statesmen did at the time, about what a German victory might have meant. German demands would have been drastic: France would lose part of its northern coast, and Belgium and Luxembourg would have been gobbled up. A Europe dominated by such a Germany would have been an unhappy place: it would have been disastrous for Britain economically and in every other way. So, yes, I think Britain was probably right to enter the war. Margaret MacMillan is the author of The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War (Proﬁle, 2013)

Peter Hart: The challenges that Britain faced could only have been answered with war British foreign policy had long been worked out based on the necessity of maintaining the status quo on mainland Europe by acting to contain the expansion of any wayward power appearing to be threatening domination. Traditionally, this had involved creating coalitions while contributing only a small army on the continent. Meanwhile, as an aggressive imperial power, Britain had used its naval strength to harvest new colonies, protect maritime trade and concentrate troops at key locations. Since its defeat of France in 1871, Germany had threatened domination of Europe while also challenging the supremacy of the Royal Navy through a provocative naval race.

During the July Crisis of 1914, Britain was not central to events and initially favoured a negotiated settlement. Yet the invasion of Belgium, the possibility of outright defeat for France and the threat to the Channel ports were challenges that, given the sensibilities of the age, could only be answered by war. Britain was perfectly well equipped for the traditional maritime role that had served it well. Unfortunately, the war would demand an enormous British military commitment on the western front, for which the army was ill-prepared. This tragedy is one that we cannot seem to forgive or forget. Peter Hart is the author of The Great War: 1914–1918 (Proﬁle, 2013) BBC History Magazine

Nigel Jones: The German invasion of Belgium persuaded the British government that war was necessary Britain’s government was divided in August 1914, with a clutch of ministers threatening to resign in protest at the war and bring down the government. However the event that changed their minds, and swung not only the cabinet but the vast majority of the country behind the war, was Germany’s brutal, unprovoked and unnecessary invasion of Belgium, whose neutrality both she and Britain had guaranteed. In spirit, if not in scale, this was a bestial action similar to that of the Nazis 20 years later. Some 6,000 Belgian civilians

Gary Sheffield: It is now difficult to capture the sense of moral outrage at Germany’s actions When Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914, British entry into the war became inevitable. The sense of moral outrage at Germany’s ﬂagrant ﬂouting of an international treaty to which the country was a signatory is difﬁcult to capture in this more cynical age, but it was real enough. Even more importantly, a fundamental tenet of British security had, for centuries, been to keep the Low Countries out of the hands of a hostile power. In this respect, Britain went to war against Germany in 1914 for the same basic reason that it had fought against expansionist Revolutionary France in 1793. For centuries British leaders had been concerned with the maintenance of the balance of power. For Britain to stand by while its fellow democracy, France, was defeated, and an authoritarian, aggressive Germany gained hegemony in Europe would have been a strategic catastrophe. While Britain was protected by the battleships of the Royal Navy and thus all but invulnerable to invasion, German domination of the European continent would have been as much a threat as Napoleon’s had been a century before. If Britain had stayed out in 1914 it is all too likely it would have found itself at war with Germany in the not-too-distant future, except – having betrayed its friends in their moment of deepest need – without allies. As was well understood at the time, the world faced worse things than war in August 1914. Gary Shefﬁeld is professor of war studies at the University of Wolverhampton. His most recent book is The First World War in 100 Objects (Carlton, 2013) BBC History Magazine

were murdered in cold blood, and the prospect that such a barbarous militarist power could dominate Europe and threaten Britain’s vital sea links concentrated British minds wonderfully. Hindsight is a great thing, and the war’s horrendous casualty toll tends to make paciﬁsts of us all. But there are worse things than battles: as the French resistance writer Jean Dutourd put it in the Second World War: “War is less costly than slavery.” Nigel Jones is the author of Peace and War: Britain in 1914 (Head of Zeus, 2014), to be reviewed in our next issue

David Reynolds: To understand Britain’s decision, we must look at its historical ties with Europe In the circumstances that Britain faced in August 1914, I think that going to war was an understandable decision. The Germans had invaded Belgium and were threatening France, and historically Britain has never felt comfortable with a hostile power occupying the ports just across the English Channel. So although there was no immediate threat to British territory, it seems to me that, in terms of Britain’s historical tradition, this choice made sense. It was a difﬁcult decision for the Liberal cabinet, particularly David Lloyd George, who was a radical but had anti-war roots. Deeply sceptical at the end of July, he became convinced by the invasion of Belgium and, in September, gave a big speech in which he called the Prussians the “roadhogs of Europe”, bulldozing their way over – as he put it – ﬁve foot ﬁve nations who had to stand up against the storming Prussian Junker. His evolution over those few weeks is a very striking indication of the way in which British opinion developed. David Reynolds is the author of The Long Shadow (Simon & Schuster, 2013)

Heather Jones: The cabinet delayed involving Britain in the war for as long as it possibly could The decisions made by the British cabinet in the ﬁrst days of August 1914 had truly devastating consequences. Yet the reality was that, by the time the British cabinet agonised over the decision to go to war, they had little choice. The cabinet’s decisions on 2 August were based on the facts as they knew them. They expected a short war. They also initially expected that Britain would only provide naval and ﬁnancial support to France rather than sending in a land army. Britain’s army was tiny compared to its French, German and Russian counterparts – few could have imagined how it would expand, the length of the war, or the scale of British casualties. By 2 August, most of the major decisions that caused the war had already been taken in Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and elsewhere. The British government had, in fact, delayed getting involved for as long as possible: the foreign secretary, Edward Grey, had proposed a conference to ﬁnd a peaceful solution to the crisis only to be rebuffed. The cabinet had even privately discussed turning a blind eye and not entering the war if Germany only breached a small corner of Belgium, but it rapidly became clear that its army was intent on invading the whole country with a view to ruthlessly occupying it. Could Britain have stayed out of the war? The reality was that even those states that remained neutral at the outset – such as Italy or the US – ultimately found themselves forced to take sides and enter the conﬂict. Based on what they knew in those early August days, the British cabinet believed entering the war was the right decision. Heather Jones is a specialist in First World War Studies at the London School of Economics

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History in numbers

Think that numbers should be left to accountants? Then think again. The humble statistic can give lovers of history valuable, fascinating and preconceptionbusting insights into the huge changes that have swept through the world over the centuries. With this in mind, we’ve asked eight historians to share some surprising statistics from their fields of expertise – from the Roman empire to the Second World War… Interviews by Charlotte Hodgman ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES ALBON

4

The number of years' wages that a pound of wool – twice dyed in best quality Tyrian purple – would cost a Roman soldier during the first century AD Since c1500 BC, purple – a dye produced from the gland secretions of types of shellﬁsh – was the colour of kings, priests, magistrates and emperors, with the highest quality dye originating in Tyre, in ancient Phoenicia (now modern Lebanon).

Its cost was phenomenal. In the ﬁrst century AD, a pound of wool, twice dyed in best quality Tyrian purple, cost around 1,000 denarii – more than four times the annual wage of a Roman soldier. The AD 301 Edict of Diocletian (also know as the Edict of

History’s bi 30

BBC History Magazine

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million

WWW.JAMESALBON.COM

The number of fleeces exported annually from England by c1300

Maximum Prices), which attempted to control runaway inﬂation in the empire, lists the most expensive dyed silk as costing 150,000 denarii per pound! Meanwhile the, admittedly satirical, poet Martial claimed that a praetor’s purple cloak actually cost 100 times more than a soldier’s pay. The reasons behind the astronomical cost lie in the obtaining of the dye itself. This procedure involved a lengthy process of ﬁshing – using wicker traps primed with bait – followed by the extraction of minute quantities of the dye by a long, laborious and smelly process from thousands of shellﬁsh. Pliny the Elder explained the process and gave production statistics which

indicate the vast number of shells required. Pliny stated that if a mollusc gland weighed a gram (in modern weights), more than 3.5m molluscs would produce just 500 pounds of dye. Pliny the Elder was not exaggerating. In modern times, Tyrian purple has been recreated, at great expense. When the German chemist Paul Friedander tried to recreate the colour in 1909, he needed 12,000 molluscs to produce just 1.4 ounces of dye, enough to colour a handkerchief. In 2000, a gram of Tyrian purple, made from 10,000 molluscs according to the original formula, cost 2,000 euros.

England has often been referred to as the Australia of the Middle Ages, a reference to its booming wool trade (something that Australia experienced in the 19th century). By the 14th century, English farmers had developed breeds of sheep that produced ﬂeeces of varying weight and quality, some of which were among the best in Europe. English wool was widely sought after by the cloth-makers of Flanders and Italy who needed ﬁne wool to produce the rich scarlet cloths worn by kings, nobles and bishops. The 14th century had seen a huge growth in the cloth trade, particularly in Ypres, Ghent and Bruges. To keep up with the high demand, English wool producers expanded their ﬂocks, often going to great trouble to keep them from harm. Many kept their sheep on hill pastures during the summer, moving them to sheltered valleys in the winter. Others built sheep houses or sheepcotes where the animals could shelter in the worst weather and where food, such as peas in straw, was kept. It is often assumed that monasteries such as Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, which kept thousands of sheep, met Europe’s increasing demand for wool, but in fact the combined ﬂocks of peasants, each of whom kept 30–50 animals, outnumbered those of the great estates. To gather the ﬂeeces of these scattered ﬂocks needed organisation – a role that was ﬁlled by entrepreneurs, woolmen or woolmongers who bought the wool and sent it to the ports. Some of the big producers – monasteries and lay landlords – often acted as middlemen, collecting the local peasant wool and sending it with their own. Finances, too, were complicated, and there was much use of credit during the period. An Italian or Flemish merchant would often advance money to a producer, such as a monastery, on the condition that he would buy their wool, sometimes quite cheaply. These contracts usually stretched into the future, so that a monastery might have sold its wool four years in advance.

Peter Jones is author of Veni, Vidi, Vici (Atlantic Books, 2013)

Chris Dyer is emeritus professor of regional and local history at the University of Leicester

g numbers BBC History Magazine

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History in numbers

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6

The life expectancy in weeks for newly arrived horses in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War

The percentage of English men believed to have served in arms for king or parliament at one time or another during the Civil War The Civil War of the 17th century saw huge numbers of men leave their towns and villages to go and ﬁght, as England, Scotland and Ireland were torn apart by the bitter conﬂict between the crown and parliament. The historian Charles Carlton has calculated that, proportionately, more of the English population died in the Civil War than in the First World War, and some 25 per cent of English men are thought to have served in arms for king or parliament at one time or another. The village of Myddle in Shropshire is the only parish in England for which we know exactly how many people went to war. This is thanks to the writings of yeoman Richard Gough, whose History of Myddle, written between 1700 and 1706, tells us that “out of these three towns – that’s to say the hamlets of Myddle parish – of Myddle, Marton and Newton, there went no less than 20 men, of which number 13 were killed in the wars...” Gough then proceeds to name the Myddle men who went to ﬁght, along with their occupations and whether

they lived or died. “Richard Chalenor of Myddle”, he writes, “being a big lad went to Shrewsbury and there listed, and went to Edgehill Fight which was on October 23rd 1642, and was never heard of afterwards in this country...” The experience of Myddle in the Civil War is by no means unique: it is remarkable simply for the information recorded by Gough. What’s more, his description of one John Mould – who “was shot through the leg with a musket bullet which broke the master bone of his leg” so that it remained “very crooked as long as he lived” – reminds us that, just as in modern wars, huge numbers of men returned to their daily lives physically scarred by the events of the Civil War. In the wake of the conﬂict, parliament, which was now in power, provided pensions for wounded parliamentarian soldiers, but offered nothing for those who had fought for the king. In 1660, however, when the monarchy was restored in the form of Charles II, the situation was turned on its head and injured royalists received ﬁnancial help. Others had to rely on the assistance of their charitable neighbours. Gough’s writings give historians a wonderful insight into the lives of ordinary soldiers in an era that is so often recorded by the gentry alone. And, to quote Gough himself, who was a young boy during the Civil War: “If so many died out of these three [hamlets], we may reasonably guess that many thousands died in England in that war.” Gough’s History of Myddle is a ﬁtting tribute to those men.

“It’s been calculated that, proportionately, more of the English population died in the Civil War than in the First World War”

Professor Mark Stoyle is author of The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda during the English Civil War (Exeter, 2011)

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Horses played an essential role in the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), but paid a terrible price: of the 518,704 horses and 150,781 mules and donkeys sent to British forces in South Africa during the conﬂict, around two thirds (347,007 horses, 53,339 mules and donkeys) never made it home. At the start of the war, British units travelled from a northern hemisphere winter to a South African summer, meaning that cavalry horses still had their winter coats and suffered severely from the heat. What’s more, the animals endured a long sea voyage of up to six weeks before they even reached South Africa. On arrival, horses were often given no time to recover from the voyage or acclimatise to South African conditions; instead they were rushed into action right away. What’s more, some 13,144 horses and 2,816 mules and donkeys were lost on the outward voyage. The constant demand for fresh animals meant that additional horses had to be imported but, in contrast to the ponies of the Boers, these imported horses could not eat South African foliage. It proved almost impossible to provide enough food for the animals, especially as Boer guerrillas constantly attacked British supply lines. After the war, cavalry ofﬁcer Michael Rimington recalled that the process of bringing animals to the front was “thirty days’ voyage, followed by a ﬁve or six days’ railway journey, then semi-starvation at the end of a line of communication, then some quick work followed by two or three days’ total starvation, then more work...”. Ignorance in horse care did not help either: one newly arrived soldier asked Rimington whether he should feed his horse beef or mutton, and the animals were often ridden until they simply collapsed. Little surprise, then, that the average life expectancy of a newly arrived horse in South Africa was just six weeks. Dr Spencer Jones is author of Stemming the Tide: Ofﬁcers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (Helion & Co, 2013) BBC History Magazine

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The number of women candidates who stood for election to parliament in 1918

penicillin as would ﬁll 60,000–70,000 two-litre bottles. The impact of this engineering triumph was intensiﬁed by the discovery in 1943 of a new strain of penicillium mould that was much more suitable for growing in the deep vats than the original British strain. This new strain was ﬁrst found on a melon in Peoria, Illinois, by a technician who later came to be known as Moldy Mary. By 1945, the American pharmaceutical company Merck was selling penicillin at $6,000 per billion units at a time when penicillin in Europe was still scarce. Three years later, the price had halved and Procaine penicillin, which was metabolised more slowly (meaning fewer injections), had been introduced. Although two large processing plants were built in Britain after the Second World War, demand for penicillin was so great and so unexpected that its cost – and that of other new drugs including streptomycin and cortisone – forced the new NHS to charge for medicines.

Thousands of women during the Edwardian era became politicised during the campaign for the parliamentary vote, so at ﬁrst glance it may seem surprising that only 17 women stood for election in 1918 – the ﬁrst in which women could participate in the representative process, both as voters and as parliamentary candidates. The Representation of the People Act, which received Royal Assent on 6 February 1918, was unclear as to whether women could stand as parliamentary candidates and opinions on the issue were divided. When the coalition government rushed through the Parliament (Qualiﬁcation of Women) Bill, which became law on 21 November 1918, a general election for 14 December had already been announced, with 4 December given as the date when nominations for parliamentary candidates had to be received. This gave women who wished to stand for election just three weeks in which to ﬁnd a seat, enter a nomination, choose an election agent, draw up election policy, secure the support of unpaid helpers, raise funds, organise meetings and publicity – and, perhaps most importantly of all, decide whether they would stand as an independent or seek the nomination of one of the main, male-oriented political parties of the day: Conservative, Liberal or Labour. Of the 17 women who stood as parliamentary candidates contesting 706 seats, only nine were adopted by the three main political parties. Christabel Pankhurst was the most well-known, but she stood for the Women’s Party, an organisation that she and her mother had founded in 1917. Christabel was the only woman candidate to receive the support of the coalition government, but lost out to her Labour rival by just 775 votes. Only one woman was elected to parliament in 1918 – Constance Markievicz. But, as a member of Sinn Fein, she refused to swear allegiance to the British crown and never took her seat in the Commons.

Robert Bud is keeper of science and medicine at the Science Museum, London

June Purvis is professor of women’s and gender history at the University of Portsmouth

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The price per ounce that the US government was paying for penicillin in 1943 In 1940, a team of scientists, led by pharmacologist Howard Florey, discovered the means of extracting penicillin from the very dilute solution produced by penicillium mould. After proving that the substance could cure infections in mice, the Oxford team tested penicillin on human patients – with remarkable results. But despite taking a small sample of the mould to America and discussing production methods with the US government laboratory and several US companies, by 1943, penicillin was being produced at scarcely more than the laboratory scale previously seen at Oxford. After testing the substance on patients, the US government purchased penicillin from its manufacturers at a price of $200 for a million units. This was equivalent to $1,000 an ounce at a time when gold cost just $35 an ounce. The big breakthrough for the drug came with developments in manufacturing techniques, which saw pharmaceutical companies such as Pﬁzer producing penicillin on a massive scale in huge vats. This meant that a single tank of 10,000 gallons could produce the equivalent amount of BBC History Magazine

33

History in numbers

500,000 The estimated number of German civilian deaths from strategic bombing during the Second World War

1,138

The number of London children recorded as dying of “teeth” in 1685

34

the pricking of needles”, which in turn generated “great heat”, and heat brought diseases caused by hot humours, such as fevers. In childhood, bodies were especially warm; ageing was deemed a cooling process. Thus, any extra warmth in children was believed to spell trouble health-wise. Doctors and parents went to great lengths to mitigate the hazards of teething. The most popular treatment was to “annoint the gummes with the braynes of a hare”. The midwifery expert François Mauriceau suggested giving children “a little stick of Liquorish to chomp on”, or “a Silver Coral, furnish’d with small Bells”, to “divert the Child from the Pain”. More extreme measures included cutting the gums with a lancet, or hanging a “Viper’s Tooth about the child’s Neck”, which by a “certayne hidden propertie, have vertue to ease the payne”.

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Dr Hannah Newton is author of The Sick Child in Early Modern England, 1580– 1720 (Oxford University Press, 2012)

Radio 4 programme A History of Britain in Numbers is available for download at bbc.co.uk/podcasts

David Edgerton is professor of modern British history at King’s College London

"The diseases listed in a 1685 London Bill of Mortality are bizarre: they include things like ‘frighted’ and ‘suddenly’"

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This statistic is taken from a 1685 London Bill of Mortality, which listed causes of death in London parishes. Poor women called ‘searchers’ were responsible for collecting the data; they were paid small sums to knock on doors to ﬁnd out causes of death. Searchers were widely feared because they were associated with infection. The diseases listed are bizarre: they include things like “frighted”, “suddenly” and “teeth”. The latter was short for “the breeding of teeth” – or teething as we would know it today. It was considered a major cause of infant disease and death in the early modern period: in 1664 the physician J.S. declared that teething “is alwayes dangerous by reason of the grievous Symptomes it produces, as Convulsions, Feavers, and other evils”. But how did teething cause disease? It was believed that living beings were made up of special substances called humours, which contained different amounts of heat and moisture. When the humours were balanced, the body was healthy, but when they became imbalanced, disease resulted. Teething was dangerous because it caused “sharp Pain like

The Blitz was the biggest thing to happen to Britain during the Second World War, and in many ways has come to deﬁne the whole of Britain’s experience of war on the home front. But what many people tend to overlook is that, inﬂicting 50,000 deaths, strategic bombings on Britain by German aircraft killed around a tenth of the number of those who died in similar attacks on Germany. Many of these attacks were carried out by Britain’s Bomber Command, which itself lost some 50,000 crew in the conﬂict. The story of Britain during the Second World War needs to be less ﬁxated on the Blitz, and recognise that Britain was itself the perpetrator of far heavier bombing raids on Germany. This was not an aberration, or a response to the Blitz, but rather a long-standing policy of the British state to use machines to wreck the German war economy.

Brutal Exposure: the Congo The International Slavery Museum invites you to discover a collection of photographs credited with representing one of the ﬁrst human rights campaigns.

The subsequent campaign led to public pressure and international scrutiny of King Leopold II’s administration, which came to an end in 1909.

Brutal Exposure: the Congo presents photographs taken by British missionary Alice Seeley Harris in the early 1900s documenting the exploitation and brutality carried out by Belgian forces in the Congo Free State.

Situated within the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the International Slavery Museum is the only museum of its kind to look at aspects of both historical and contemporary slavery, as well as being an international hub for resources on human rights issues.

When the hard-hitting photographs of Congolese rubber plantation workers were presented at lectures across Europe and America they exposed the deep-rooted hypocrisy of so-called ‘colonial benevolence’.

To book a group visit to the museum, call 0151 478 4788. To ﬁnd out more about Brutal Exposure: the Congo (24 January - 7 September 2014), visit liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/brutalexposure Merseyside Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, Liverpool

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Medieval crusaders

The looting of Jerusalem after its capture by Christians in 1099 during the First Crusade, shown in an illuminated manuscript from the 15th century

e crus cr ad des were driven by religious zeal. But, as the writings of usa sader from the merchant city of Genoa reveal, profit was also owe werful motive. Jonathan Phillips tells his story BBC History Magazine

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Cru usadin for God o and Gold

he Canons of the Council of Clermont, the ofﬁcial record of Pope Urban II’s pronouncement of the First Crusade, in November 1095, stated: “Whoever for devotion alone, not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the church of God can substitute this journey for all penance.” Compare this with the conﬁdent eyewitness assertions of Caffaro of Genoa as he described the division of spoils after the crusader capture of Caesarea in 1101: “They ﬁrst set aside one ﬁfteenth of the booty in the camp for the galley crews. The remainder they divided among 8,000 men, and gave to each as his share 48 solidi in the coin of Poitou, and two pounds of peppercorns, except for the rewards due to the consuls, the sea captains, and men of

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quality, which were substantial. They started their journey back to Genoa on the Eve of St James the Apostle [24 July]; and they arrived back in the month of October 1101 in triumph and covered in glory.” Here, it seems, substantial proﬁt, fame and participation in the holy war were not at odds. The substantial volume of evidence produced by clerical writers has, rightly, led historians to place religious motivation at the top of the range of factors that drove people to set out to recover Jerusalem from the Muslims in the late 1090s. Other reasons undoubtedly also played a part in drawing people to the cross, namely, the desire for fame; the possibility of ﬁnancial advantage although crusading was an astoundingly expensive business; the acquisition of land (most crusaders returned home, however); and patronage.

That said, one important group of early crusaders has tended to receive a very bad press: the reputation of the Italian crusaders is usually one of money grabbing merchants. Eugene Byrne, an eminent historian of Genoa writing in the 1920s, stated: “It would almost seem to them… [that] the crusade was a matter of indifference except as it affected their material prosperity.” The Venetians’ prominent part in the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204), coupled with the Italians’ persistent disdain for embargoes on trading in materials of war with Muslims during (especially) the 13th century, produced the simplistic stereotype represented by Byrne above. The writings of Caffaro of Genoa, however, offer us a chance to reassess this for the early decades of the 12th century, not least because he was an eyewitness and a layman. Unlike 51

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Medieval London

nCity Thievery, prostitution, bribery and murder… if you were looking for a rich stew of criminality, 14th-century London was the place to find it. Bruce Holsinger walks the mean streets of the medieval capital n the night of 6 January 1337, John le Whyte, an animal skinner down from Cambridge, broke into a mercer’s shop on the Lane of St Lawrence Jewry, around the corner from the London Guildhall. Among the goods that Whyte lifted from the shop of Geoffrey Punte were gold and silver rings, pearls, thread and bracelets – a nice haul, with a total value of 100 shillings. According to Punte’s suit against Whyte, preserved in one of the letter-books from the reign of Edward III, these goods had been “feloniously stolen at night”, an offence with grave consequences for the condemned. John le Whyte was hanged, one of many petty thieves executed for such offences in the period. While medieval England often made short work of its criminals, frequent capital punishment was no more successful a deterrent in 14th-century London than it is in Texas today. Thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket. In this respect, London in the later Middle Ages has more in common than we might expect with the modern urban milieus of TV series Prime Suspect and The Wire. As often as citizens observed church-mandated fasts and repented their sins, they hired prostitutes, cut purses, bribed wardmoots (small courts), and threw corpses into sewers. Thanks to the patient archival work of urban historians over the past 20 years, medieval London’s criminal underworld has

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GETTY IMAGES

A thief hangs from the gallows. Evidence suggests that brutal punishments did little to deter criminal behaviour in medieval London

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come into increasingly vivid focus, giving us intriguing glimpses of the many lives it shaped and affected. It is important to understand that ‘medieval London’ was three towns, not one. Much of the character of urban life (and thus urban crime) was shaped by the two smaller suburbs lying outside the walled city itself – and largely beyond its jurisdiction. One of the deﬁning elements of urban life in the LondonSouthwark-Westminster triangle was the constant clash of laws, liberties, regulations and petty jurisdictions that could intensify the conﬂicts among a diverse citizenry with competing interests and afﬁliations.

Geography of vice Signiﬁcant, too, is what we might call the urban geography of vice. Consider the Southwark bankside, current home of Shakespeare’s Globe, Southwark Cathedral and the ruins of Winchester Palace, still visible among the touristy bustle of Clink Street. At ﬁrst glance, the location of this former residence of the bishops of Winchester would seem to suggest a degree of episcopal surveillance sufﬁcient to ward off vice. In fact, it was in the bishop’s own liberties that the city’s most popular brothels were located for much of the medieval era. The bishop himself served as their effective landlord (often shutting them down during parliament for appearance’s sake), and it is surely no accident that some of the most frequently identiﬁed patronisers of prostitutes in surviving records of court proceedings turn out to be priests, monks and friars. The church and its moral teachings were hardly a guarantee against venial transgression. 39

Medieval London

“Appearing at the Guildhall, Rykener named any number of men with whom he had performed sex ‘as a woman’” Despite a series of regulations that sought to conﬁne the practice to Southwark and narrow its appeal, prostitution thrived in London too, whether in the ward of Farringdon Without, known as a frequent haunt of ‘common women’, as prostitutes were often called, or in a small neighbourhood nestled between Cheapside and the church of St Pancras, Soper Lane that must have been a notorious district of sexual vice. Evidence for the trade’s ﬂourishing here comes in the suggestive names given to streets and alleys: Gropecunt Lane and Popkirtle Lane, narrow byways cutting north from the St Pancras churchyard and intersecting with Cheapside just across from Mercers’ Hall. An account of another such precinct, uncovered by Ruth Karras in her history of medieval English prostitution, claims knowledge of a “privy place” behind a tavern in Queenhithe ward. It was “a good hiding place for thieves… many evil agreements are 40

made there, and many whores and bawds have there their shelter and leisure to make their false covenants”.

Sex “as a woman” Perhaps the most fascinating document of sexual vice to survive from medieval London is the record from the mayor’s court of the interrogation of John Rykener, a male transvestite prostitute who lived and worked in Oxford and London in the 1380s and 1390s. Appearing in the Guildhall in women’s clothing, Rykener named any number of men – including multiple rectors and chaplains, several Franciscans, a Carmelite and three Oxford scholars – with whom he had performed sex “as a woman”. He also cited several women – wives and nuns alike – with whom he’d copulated “as a man”. Rykener testiﬁed that he had received his training in the “unmentionable act” from a certain Anna, the whore of a servant in the

household of Sir Thomas Blount. This was likely the same Thomas Blount who would take an active role in the Epiphany Rising of 1399 against Henry IV and be executed gruesomely the following year. Londoners of the 14th and 15th centuries had a sophisticated understanding of the vice-ridden city they inhabited, often associating particular districts with certain criminal proclivities. In the satire London Lickpenny, y a Kentish man walks through the neighbourhood of Cornhill, “where there is much stolen gear to be found”. There he spies his “own hood, that I had lost in Westminster among the throng” – though he lacks the funds to purchase his headwear back from the thief openly peddling it on the street. The city’s merchants and craftsmen were additional targets of suspicion, ire and prosecution, particularly when the health and safety of the populace were seen to be threatened by the mercantile cutting of corners. In July 1345, four butchers were forced to forfeit all of their meat, to the value of over nine shillings, for the offence of blocking the street with their wares. The company of Spurriers (or spur-makers) was certainly concerned about the nocturnal BBC History Magazine

AKG-IMAGES

A 15th-century depiction of a brothel. Prostitution was as much a part of London life as the saying of prayers and repenting of sins

behaviour of its own members. At night, the company’s medieval articles contend, “they introduce false iron, and iron that has been cracked” into their product, and they cheat by putting “gilt on false copper”. Wandering about the streets all day “without working at their trade,” such miscreant spurriers begin to smith only once “they have become drunk and frantic”. At the other end of the criminal spectrum from drunkenness and vagrancy were assault and murder, not infrequent occurrences in the city. By one historian’s estimate, in the ﬁrst half of the 14th century as many as two men a month died in drunken brawls in London, with the surviving perpetrators facing certain death on the gallows. Some cases of murder proved particularly notorious. In one horriﬁc incident from near the end of the Middle Ages, found by historian Shannon McSheffrey in a King’s Bench indictment, two silkwomen, Elizabeth

Taillour and Alice Rolff, lay in wait for a woman named Elizabeth Knollys, an apparent rival in the craft. After seizing their victim, Taillour and Rolff drowned Knollys in a tub, burned as much of her body as they could, then threw the rest of the corpse down a latrine. Though the murder apparently occurred on 12 September, the inquest did not take place until early November – suggesting that the charred remains may not have been found in the privy channel for weeks following the crime. Taillour admitted her guilt while Rolff ‘plead[ed] her belly’ (under English common law, pregnant women could sometimes receive a reprieve on a death sentence until they had given birth), claiming a pregnancy that a jury of matrons soon disproved. Both women hanged. With such sordid behaviour a constant threat, how did the London authorities manage to keep a lid on things and guard

against excessive outbreaks of crime and vice? The city’s mechanisms of enforcement were many and varied, enlisting aldermen, constables and other ofﬁcials as well as citizens on volunteer patrol in the night watch.

Habitual drunkards The mayor required the wards to provide regular lists of habitual drunkards, civil offenders and women of ill repute. Meanwhile royal and civic proclamations were shouted by criers at key landmarks, announcing new edicts or strengthened regulations – audible reminders of the Guildhall’s never-ending efforts to maintain civic order. Within the wards themselves, such duties often fell to the beadles. Though originally charged with overseeing the raking and cleaning of streets, during the course of the 14th century London’s beadles assumed primary responsibility for keeping their wards free of ne’er-do-wells, including prostitutes,

THE SCENE OF THE CRIMES From Cripplegate to Cheapside, a map showing some of medieval London’s vice hot spots

MAP ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN SANDERS

K

“Taillour and Rolff drowned their victim in a tub, burned as much of her body as they could, then threw the rest of the corpse down a latrine” 41

Medieval vice

LONDON LOW-LIFES From the woman who pimped her daughter, to the literary giant accused of abduction, four people who had brushes with the law in the 14th century…

The perfidious poulterer William Fot was a poulterer accused of trying to deceive and sicken the citizens of London by passing off 18 “putrid and stinking” pigeons for sale in Fleet Street. Four London cooks were summoned to test the pigeon meat. Upon determination that the pigeons were indeed unﬁt for sale or consumption, Fot was sent to the pillory, the pigeons to be burnt beneath his nose.

“Several mayoral elections were won by force of arms, with murders in the streets going largely unprosecuted” thieves and known highwaymen. The beadles and their men would often accompany the night watchmen on foot patrol after curfew, gathering up violators and tossing them in the Counter, the Tun, or other of the city jails designated for offenders of public order. Yet the Guildhall was hardly a beacon of lawfulness. The ﬁerce rivalry between two lord mayors of London, Nicholas Brembre (see box, right) and John Northampton, during the 1380s marked a period of great urban strife and corruption at the highest levels. Several mayoral elections during these years were won by force of arms, with murders in the streets going largely unprosecuted. Civic regulations and prescribed means of enforcement can give us only a dim understanding of the actual criminal practices they were designed to control. No one understood this gap between prohibition and practice more acutely than John Gower, a friend and literary rival of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived at the Southwark priory of St Mary Overy in the later years of the 14th century. Though Gower rarely mentions London or Southwark in his verse, his poetic corpus is a catalogue of urban vice and crime, and with a distinctive ﬂair for the local. “Just as one sees the neighbours’ wives selling their hens in the 42

market,” he writes in his Mirour de l’Omme, “in the same way the bawd sells and bargains over virgins, and she makes them concubines to wanton lechers”. Bribery, murder, theft, rapine: all come in for scrutiny under the poet’s pen – as does the justness of punishments small and large. “That robbery is worthy of hanging,” Gower dryly observes, “we learn in the Bible.” In a city deﬁned in part by the moral hypocrisies of its lay and ecclesiastical leaders, Gower’s wry imagination delighted in the moral compromises that made medieval London’s criminal underworld a rich stew of violence and vice, oddly tasteful to a poet’s tongue. Bruce Holsinger is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. His debut historical novel, A Burnable Book, which is set in London in 1385, was published by HarperCollins in January DISCOVER MORE BOOKS 왘 London in the Later Middle Ages

by Caroline Barron (OUP, 2005) 왘 Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality in Medieval England by Ruth Karas (OUP, 1998) 왘 Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London by Frank Rexroth (Cambridge, 2007)

The ruthless boss of the city’s victualling guilds, Nicholas Brembre was also mayor of London in 1377 and again from 1383–85. He secured his elections in part through violence and even murder, ordering his thugs to attack the members of a rival faction. A ﬁerce partisan of Richard II, Brembre was beheaded for treason in 1388 at the instigation of the Lords Appellant, a group of nobles who sought to restrain what they saw as the king’s tyrannical rule.

The Dutch bawd Katherine the Dutchwoman was accused of pimping her own daughter – a surprisingly frequent charge in the legal history of London’s prostitutes. Katherine also beat her daughter for refusing to visit and service the man (identiﬁed as a Lombard) in his home. The unnamed daughter eventually had a child by the Italian ‘john’.

The poet who may have been a rapist Geoffrey Chaucer was a poet, customs ofﬁcer, justice of the peace – and perhaps a rapist. In 1380, in the court of Chancery, Chaucer was released from a prior charge of the raptus (abduction and/or rape) of a woman named Cecily Chaumpaign. Though the case was settled out of court for a large payoff of £10, the documents strongly suggest an act of sexual violence subsequently obscured in the written record.

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THE ART ARCHIVE

A group of men hack another to death while others play backgammon, in a medieval illumination. Up to two men a month died in drunken brawls in 14th-century London

The murderous lord mayor

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The decline of religion

THE HISTORY ESSAY

A pilgrim confesses his sins to a priest in 1956. By now, religious belief was on the wane across Europe and the United States

The horrors of the Second World War led many in the west to conclude that God was dead. And, as religious belief declined, millions began to turn to drugs, rock music and the psychiatrist’s couch By Peter Watson

44

BBC History Magazine

AKG-IMAGES

D-DAY FOR GOD?

THE HISTORY ESSAY

TIME LIFE PICTURES-GETTY IMAGES

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ater this year we shall be marking anniversaries of two world wars. Friday 6 June is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and July sees nothing less than the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. Is there anything new to say about these momentous events? Well, yes there is, as I am

going to argue here. One of the more enduring – if indirect – legacies of the two world wars is that they played havoc with our religious beliefs. Because of them, we are at sixes and sevens over whether we believe in God or not, and not only in Britain. A lot of us don’t know whether we believe in anything anymore. Both world wars were followed by a marked acceleration in secularisation, in the west at least. In the 1920s, and again in the late 1940s and the 1950s, not only did fewer people go to church, but their attitudes towards authority, premarital sex, the need for virginity in a wife and the legitimacy of contraception were transformed. It is not hard to see why. The millions who had suffered senseless killing or needless injury – the horror in the trenches, the unfathomable cruelties of the Holocaust, the destructive power of the atomic bomb – were now asking questions of God. Where was he on the western front? How could he have countenanced Auschwitz or Nagasaki? Many reached the same conclusion as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had in the 19th century: God was dead. Soldiers returning from abroad, after years away from home, sharing dangers with comrades their own age, were bound to be more experienced, knowing and permissive than their parents. But there was more to it than that. In the wake of the Second World War, even the churches realised that they were losing ground, and this was because of a quite different but parallel phenomenon – the growth of depth psychology. This happened on both sides of the Atlantic (the Nazis had reluctantly allowed Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, to emigrate from Vienna to London in 1938), but at ﬁrst psychotherapy spread more widely in the United States than in Europe. In America, where the churches were further from Rome and Canterbury, religious leaders conceded more readily that faiths could learn from the new psychology. One of those leaders, Joshua Loth Liebman, may not be remembered today as much as other writers of the time. But his book Peace of Mind, published in 1946, topped The New York Times bestseller list for 58 weeks, a record. It was to prove a watershed. A Boston-based rabbi, Liebman began by drawing attention to the shortcomings of both

religion and psychology. Many religious books, he argued, only made people feel more guilty and sinful while many psychology books made people feel abnormal, as if they were ‘case histories’. His aim, he said, was to explain what modern psychology had discovered about human nature, over and above what religion said. Religion was “prescientiﬁc”, he conceded, formulated before the psychological revolution. For all its achievements, religion had been responsible “for many morbid consciences, inﬁnite confusions and painful distortions in the psychic life of people”. Religion – and not God – was to blame for this, with the likes of Augustine, Calvin and Luther all being obsessed with wickedness. And Liebman argued that the strategy of the church to cope with wickedness had been repression. Western religions had insisted that people can be good only through the repression of sensual impulses. Most importantly, Liebman concluded, that strategy had not worked. Liebman made the important distinction that whereas atonement is the aim of the confessional, psychotherapy does not require someone to feel sorry for their sins as they outgrow them. “The confessional only touches the surface of a man’s life,” he said, while the spiritual advice of the church throws no light on the causes that lead someone to confession in the ﬁrst place. Moreover, priestly strictures about confessants showing more ‘willpower’ were “ineffective counsels”. On the other hand, psychotherapy was, Liebman said, designed to help someone work on his (or her) own problems without “borrowing” the conscience of a priest, and “offers change through self-understanding, not self-condemnation”. And this was the unique way to inner peace. The human self, Liebman insisted, was not a gift from God, as traditionally taught, but an achievement. The religion of the future, he declared, must poach from the psychotherapist’s armoury. He told his readers that henceforth it should not be “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” but “Thou shalt love thyself properly and then thou wilt be able to love thy neighbor”. Liebman set the tone. And his book sold in millions, making him the spearhead of wider developments within the churches.

Joshua Liebman argued that psychotherapy promoted self-understanding, while religion encouraged guilt

BBC History Magazine

45

The decline of religion THE HISTORY ESSAY

“To Timothy Leary, the experiment with the psychedelic mushroom proved that ‘spiritual ecstasy, religious revelation and union with God were now directly accessible’”

A boy receives therapy. Critics have bemoaned the “psychologicalisation” of modern life

46

It is worth pointing out that roughly one in four people born in the west after the Second World War has used illegal drugs – it is not a fringe activity. And it was against this background that, in 1960, Timothy Leary ﬁrst ingested Psilocybe mexicana, the mysterious magical mushroom of Mexico. As a result, Leary, a psychology lecturer at Harvard University, came to the view that these mushrooms – whose active ingredient was from the same family as LSD – could “revolutionise” psychotherapy, bringing with it the “possibility of instantaneous self-insight”.

L

eary decided to put the potential of Psilocybe mexicana to the test at Concord State Prison in New Hampshire – in what was the ﬁrst controlled experiment involving the drug. The changes in the inmates were, he noted, dramatic: “[F]riction and tension were lowered, and there was talk in the sessions about ‘love’ and ‘God’ and ‘sharing’.” In the early 1960s, Leary and his assistants managed, as they put it, to “arrange transcendental experiences” for more than a thousand people. This second set of studies revealed that, “when the setting was supportive but not explicitly spiritual, between 40 and 75 per cent of their subjects nonetheless reported life-changing religious experiences. Yet when the setting emphasised spiritual themes, up to 90 per cent reported having mystical experiences.” These substances were known as ‘entheogens’ – generators of the ‘divine within’. In a third experiment, Leary sought to clarify whether the transcendental component of psychedelic experience really was equal to those visions reported by saints and mystics. He gathered 24 divinity students from a seminary and divided them into ﬁve groups of four. On Good Friday 1962, after a service in the chapel, some students were given psilocybin; others a placebo of nicotinic acid, which should produce only hot and cold ﬂushes. After 30 minutes, the 10 who had ingested the nicotinic acid were sitting facing the altar. The others were “lying on the ﬂoors and pews, wandering round, murmuring prayers as one of them played ‘weird, exciting, chords’ on the church’s pipe organ. Another… clambered across the pews and stood facing the cruciﬁx, transﬁxed, arms outstretched as if trying to identify physically with Christ and his suffering on the cross.” To Leary and his aides, the experiment proved that “spiritual ecstasy, religious revelation and union with God were now directly accessible”. When Time magazine got hold of the story, however, Harvard Divinity School took a very different view: follow-up studies were cancelled, a medical apparatchik from the Food and Drug Administration described the psychological beneﬁts of the study as “pure bunk”, and Leary was ﬁred. But LSD itself didn’t go away. It was now the late sixties, the west was falling in love with rock music, and acts like the Grateful Dead were headlining festivals in which religious epiphanies ﬂourished. At much the same time, in Los Angeles, Paul Rothchild, a record

BBC History Magazine

CORBIS

In 1939, as the Second World War began, pastoral psychology courses in seminaries were rare. But by 1950, thanks to Liebman’s lead, four out of ﬁve theological schools had psychologists on their staff. By the end of the decade, 117 centres for clinical pastoral psychology had been established. At ﬁrst the church showed resistance to, in particular, psychoanalysis. Ministers condemned it as an “unsatisfactory mix of materialism, hedonism, infantilism and eroticism” and, in contrast to the confessional, therapy gave no norms or standards. This intransigence didn’t last, however, because in February 1954 Pope Pius XII gave pastoral psychology a tentative go-ahead. Other churches followed, and so one can say that the mid-1950s really marks the point at which a secular psychological model of ‘fulﬁllment’, ‘wholeness’ and ‘self-realisation’ in this life, began to outweigh a religious concept of ‘salvation’ in an afterlife. And it was this sanctioning of psychology by religious institutions that, as much as anything, encouraged the ‘therapy boom’ that blossomed in the 1960s. Psychotherapy was now proliferating internationally. It epitomised new ways of living and, for many, it replaced religion. As the number of clergy plummeted – so much so that some people were predicting the extinction of the Anglican church within a generation – the ranks of counsellors snowballed. In fact, by the end of the 20th century, the profusion of therapies constituted what the sociologist Frank Furedi identiﬁed as “therapy culture”. But therapy was only one of three developments that, for many people, replaced the role of religion following the Second World War. The other two were drugs and music – in particular, rock and roll. These together comprised what was called the counter-culture.

GETTY

THE HISTORY ESSAY

Revellers at 1969’s Woodstock festival, an “acid-drenched holy quagmire” that was soon being considered in religious terms

BBC History Magazine

47

The decline of religion THE HISTORY ESSAY

“Critics have accused psychotherapists of opportunism, with a host of new ‘illnesses’ being conceived by new professions who ‘invent the needs they claim to satisfy’” into brilliant kaleidoscopic ﬂashes of poetry; the result was strange, mystical, beautiful compositions like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’.” If Dylan’s music was the ﬁrst creative highlight of the new drugsand-rock scene, the other two were the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Woodstock festival itself. Released in June 1967, Sergeant Pepper was soon regarded as “a masterpiece of the psychedelic age”, conﬁrming that the Beatles had “incorporated the sensibility of consciousness-altering substances into every aspect of its creation”. At the Monterey pop festival, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas declared: “Now there was an album that proved to the masses what musicians had believed for years: that music and drugs work wonders together.” Two years later, on 15 August 1969, half a million people gathered in Bethel, New York for “the greatest party of the 20th century”. Woodstock was the ultimate rock festival. “Psychedelic drugs not only turned Woodstock into an acid-drenched holy quagmire but also shaped its soundtrack.” The festival quickly passed into myth. “Before long it was being considered in religious terms – the people

Worshippers in Surrey, 1954. By the 1960s, some people were predicting the extinction of the Anglican church within a generation

48

BBC History Magazine

GETTY IMAGES

producer who had cut his teeth with Crosby, Stills and Nash, was supervising Jim Morrison and the Doors in one of the ﬁrst – perhaps the very ﬁrst – albums to be produced on LSD. Rothchild himself thought that the session that day was “one of the most important moments in recorded rock and roll”. Rothchild was no stranger to drugs. He had smoked marijuana since he was 17 but when acid began to “trickle in”, he says it had a signiﬁcant impact on music. For him it occurred one night in 1967 when he visited the Woodstock home of Albert Grossman, the manager of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and Peter, Paul and Mary. Dylan was staying there, after a tour of New England colleges. “We opened the refrigerator to ﬁnd sugar cubes with little gold dots on them, wrapped in aluminum foil.” They took the acid and from that moment, Rothchild remembers, Dylan’s music changed. “From simple but powerful songs of social observation and protest and moral conscience to those elusive compositions of no single message or ultimate meaning… The experience of drugs seemed to splinter Dylan’s mind

THE HISTORY ESSAY

ALAMY

“The God of the Torah never appears to humans directly, so what are we to make of claims by people on drugs that they have had direct encounters with God or seen angels face to face?” were seekers, the rock stars their prophets and drugs pretty much their staff of life,” as a reporter wrote in Life. The 1970s would become the golden age of marijuana, cannabis being for many a more benign substance than LSD but still with great spiritual, therapeutic (and, let’s not forget, commercial) potential. Leary urged people to start their own religions based on the “sacramental” use of marijuana and psychedelics. There is no denying the almost universal appeal of therapy, drugs and rock and roll to the immediate postwar generations. But there is also no denying that they have been widely criticised. Therapy has been denounced because, as Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent has said, psychotherapists have proved opportunist, with a host of new ‘illnesses’ being conceived by new professions who “invent the needs they claim to satisfy”. Furedi disliked this expanding “psychologicalisation” or “pathologicalisation” of life, arguing there was now a “promiscuity” of therapeutic diagnoses: redundancy counselling, counselling for people who are “exercise addicts” or “sex addicts”, counselling for people who are recently divorced, who have just given birth, for women who are depressed by having to do housework. He also decried the fact that children as young as four have become “legitimate targets for therapeutic intervention”. Furedi’s argument was that many experiences hitherto regarded as normal everyday life have been redeﬁned as injurious to people’s emotions and that from birth to bereavement, “people’s experience is interpreted through the medium of the therapeutic ethos”. Among all this, he noted, there had been a subordination of religion to therapy. He referred to George Carey, archbishop of Canterbury (1991–2002), who remarked that “Christ the Saviour” was becoming “Christ the counsellor”. This, Furedi thought, was the fundamental problem: therapeutic culture exaggerates the vulnerability of people. It conceives the self “in distinctly fragile and feeble form and insists that the management of life requires the continuous intervention of therapeutic expertise”. In the long run, therapy has, in effect, replaced sin with pathology. Drugs have been criticised because ﬁgures such as Timothy Leary and novelist Aldous Huxley all write of the insight acquired through the psychedelic experience as a direct apprehension of some deep truth. But ‘psychedelic spirituality’ hardly ﬁts with the theological view that God is unknowable, cannot be perceived or even sensed. The God of the Torah never appears to humans directly, so what are we to make of claims by people on drugs that they have had direct encounters with God or seen angels face to face? No omniscient being can be summoned by worldly means against his or her will. LSD is nowhere near as popular today as it was in the sixties and seventies. Instead, in the last years of the 20th century, people started turning to Prozac, empathogens (which promote empathy with others), and MDMA (Ecstasy), which has evocatively been described as “penicillin for the soul”, creating not so much a sense of ‘oneness’ with God, as a sense of connection with nature and with other

The Beatles’ 1967 album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was hailed “a masterpiece of the psychedelic age”

people, even complete strangers. People ﬂocked to mass ‘raves’, fuelled by MDMA, to experience what has been hailed as “equal parts therapy, mass catharsis and tribal bonding”. Perhaps the changing fashions in the use of drugs, each with differing properties, has also played havoc with our beliefs. A survey in 2008 reported that, in Britain, 58 per cent of people believed in aliens and ghosts, whereas only 54 per cent believed in God. But ‘tribal bonding’ is an apt phrase because, underneath the mish-mash of current beliefs, there is a great irony. Anthropologists now tell us that the very earliest form of religion – in Siberia, way back in the age of hunter-gatherers – was shamanism. Here, the holy ﬁgures, or shamans, used to exercise their power by visiting ‘other realms’ – to communicate with the ancestors, the leaders of the animals, the gods themselves. Such realms were accessible only with the aid of, you guessed it, hallucinogens. The more we advance, it seems, the more we travel back to where it all began. Peter Watson is a historian and writer who specialises in the history of ideas. Among his previous books are The German Geniuss (Simon & Schuster, 2011) and The Great Divide (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012) DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 The Age of Nothing: How We Have Sought to Live Since

the Death of God by Peter Watson (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, February 2014)

Next month’s essay: Richard J Evans considers counterfactual history

BBC History Magazine

49

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Rescuing relics US soldiers remove a statue of the Virgin and Child from a freight train of stolen art, August 1945. Nazi ofﬁcials brought scores of artefacts to Germany during the Second World War

TOPFOTO/REX FEATURES

The real monuments men Matt Damon plays US museum curator James Rorimer in the upcoming ﬁlm The Monuments Men

As Matt Damon n and George Clooney play officers charged with saving Allied o historic artefacts in the Second orld War, Nigel Pollard Wo explores the challenges faced by the eir real-life counterparts 51

Monuments men

52

“Allied troops used the Naples National Museum as a store for flammable medical supplies” ﬁgures from US museums, all on active duty – including art conservation specialist George L Stout and Metropolitan Museum of Art curator James Rorimer – the organisation didn’t prove particularly effective initially. This was perhaps understandable, given the pressures of war and the lack of inﬂuence and resources afforded to monuments ofﬁcers. However, by July 1943, the nucleus of an Anglo-American monuments protection organisation had already started to form.

Art attack An early example of the kind of challenge that these ﬂedgling ‘monuments men’ would face came in the Allied bombardment of the Italian town of Pompeii in August and September 1943. Declassiﬁed wartime intelligence reports on the raids make it clear that the target had been the road and rail system around Pompei, rather than the modern town or the nearby remains of the Roman settlement of Pompeii. However, the bombing was hardly precise by modern

standards and much of the ordnance hit the modern town, wounding and killing civilians and destroying buildings. More than 160 bombs hit ancient Pompeii, meanwhile, causing substantial damage. Contemporary records kept by the site’s technical staff document 91 separate instances of damage, while documents drawn up after the war single out as particularly signiﬁcant the destruction of the on-site museum – the Antiquarium – along with part of its collections. They also detail damage to homes including the House of Epidius Rufus, which took a direct hit to the atrium that demolished its contents and facade, and the second-century BC residence known as the House of the Faun, described in a 1944 issue of the archaeological journal Antiquity as “the most unfortunate single loss” at Pompeii. Although it is possible that liaison between monuments ofﬁcers and Allied air forces would have prevented some of the damage done to Pompeii, the urgency of the situation meant that some damage was probably inevitable. Mid-September had been a critical time for the survival of the Salerno beachhead: a German counter-attack had almost overrun the shallow Allied foothold on the coast of mainland Italy and defeat would have been a disaster. Such was the urgency of the situation that a desperate all-out air effort was launched to stop the transportation system carrying more German troops and their supplies to the beachhead. The inherent inaccuracy of aerial BBC History Magazine

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n 10 March 1945, as Allied armies advanced into Germany, a middleaged British major was struggling to supervise the transportation of treasures and relics from the Christus-König (or Christ the King) church in Kleve. Situated in the north-west of the country, the district – perhaps best known in Britain as Cleves, the home of Henry VIII’s fourth wife – had been hit hard by the war. Some 90 per cent of its buildings had been damaged by bombing, including the church, and even now the city lay within range of artillery ﬁre as ﬁghting raged on nearby. The major was Ronald Balfour, a historian and fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. With the situation at the church now critical, Balfour had spent several days collecting items from the church for safekeeping. Using nothing but a handcart, the artefacts – including fragments of 16th-century painted altarpieces – were then taken to the district’s railway station in order to be temporarily evacuated by train. As he and his German civilian helpers approached the station, however, a shell burst nearby. Balfour was killed, hit in the spine by shrapnel. It may seem unlikely to ﬁnd an academic on the front line, but Balfour was also one of the ‘monuments men’, an ofﬁcer of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) Section. The organisation had initially been set up in 1943 to deal with the situation in the Italian colonial territory of Cyrenaica in Libya. Occupied in 1941 by forces of the British empire, the territory was recaptured by Italian and German troops before returning to British control in 1942. The Italians claimed that the remains of the great ancient cities of the region – Leptis Magna, Sabratha and Cyrene – had been vandalised by occupying Allied troops, and published a propaganda leaﬂet featuring largely falsiﬁed or misleading photographs of the damage. In response, the British appointed Sir Leonard Woolley, the renowned excavator of Ur in Iraq, to investigate the claims and take measures to prevent future damage. Among the British personnel in reoccupied Cyrenaica were two Royal Artillery ofﬁcers with prewar archaeological experience, who took responsibility for protecting the antiquities in the region: Lieutenant-Colonel Mortimer Wheeler, already known in archaeological circles for his pioneering excavations of Iron Age and Roman sites in Britain, and Major John Ward-Perkins, who had worked with Wheeler before the war. The work of these ofﬁcers formed the template, and laid the foundation, for the MFAA’s early years. Despite including leading

Heritage at risk Allied troops outside the Greek temples in Paestum in Italy, September 1943. Damage to ancient sites was in many cases caused by Allied forces

CORBIS/GETTY

Stolen treasures James Rorimer (second from left) oversees the recovery of looted art from Neuschwanstein Castle in south-west Bavaria, 1945

bombardment, and the strategy of total war, was to remain a challenge throughout the conﬂict: historic buildings and their precious contents were wrecked by Allied bombing in Italy, France, Germany and the Low Countries. Indeed, bombers caused an estimated 95 per cent of all of the damage that the Allies inﬂicted on monuments. After the bombing of Pompeii, the war moved on. Allied forces broke out of the Salerno beachhead and, just two weeks later, on 1 October 1943, entered Naples. The assigned monuments ofﬁcer, the American Major Paul Gardner, was sidetracked to other duties and didn’t reach the city for another 18 days. It was to prove a costly delay. The University of Naples library was burned by retreating German forces. Meanwhile Allied troops ransacked the university’s scientiﬁc collections and occupied the National Museum, with its famous collections from Pompeii, as a store for ﬂammable medical supplies. The historic Royal Palace of Naples was taken over as a club for the Navy, Army and Air Forces Institutes (NAAFI) and necessary repairs to bomb damage only served to adversely affect more of the original fabric of the building. Even when Gardner did arrive, his limited authority, lack of resources and the distractions of other duties meant that there was little that he could do to protect cultural property. The situation in Naples was eventually brought under control, with an inquiry being BBC History i Magazine

held into the organisation’s failures. This led to signiﬁcant restructuring throughout the spring of 1944, with monuments ofﬁcers subsequently attached more closely to army headquarters and advance units. The US monuments ofﬁcer Lieutenant Perry Cott, for example, entered Rome and began work protecting historic sites and assessing damage on the very day on which the city was liberated: 5 June 1944. The improvements also extended to the way in which vital information was made available. Printed handbooks listing monuments by region were produced and distributed widely among army headquarters,

Underground art Raphael’s 1516 painting Madonna of Divine Love (above) and three panels from the early 15th-century Ghent Altarpiece (left) by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. Both works were found by ofﬁcials in May 1945 among a huge repository of art looted by the Nazis and stored in a salt mine in Austria

53

Monuments men

Hitler’s secret archive As the Allies began to drive the German armies from the occupied territories of western Europe, the ‘monuments men’ increasingly turned their attention to tracking down works of art that had been looted from countries across Europe and taken to the Reich. Some of these were incredibly well hidden, including the Ghent Altarpiece or Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a fabulously vivid piece of early 15th-century painting executed on 12 wooden panels by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, and the Madonna of Bruges, a marble Madonna and Child made by Michelangelo that German forces looted from the Church of Our Lady in the Belgian city. Both works were discovered by Allied troops in a great German repository of stolen art in a salt mine at Altaussee in Austria. This repository was established as a place for the collection and storage of artworks for a museum planned for nearby Linz, 54

Monuments men George Clooney as MFAA ofﬁcer George L Stout. The ﬁlm follows a unit of seven US curators and art historians

“Allied troops discovered a great repository of stolen art in a salt mine at Altaussee in Austria” Hitler’s home town. As the Reich collapsed, however, more and more works of art found their way there, including treasures from the National Archaeological Museum and the Capodimonte Gallery in Naples. Among them were famous Roman bronze statues excavated at Herculaneum, Raphael’s 1516 Madonna of Divine Love and Titian’s painting of Danaë with Eros, completed in 1546. In April 1945, August Eigruber, the region’s Nazi party leader, began preparing bombs to demolish the repository. Just a month later, on 8 May 1945, US 3rd Army troops liberated Altaussee. Its attached monuments ofﬁcer, US army captain Robert K Posey – an architect in civilian life – and his assistant, wealthy philanthropist Private First Class Lincoln E Kirstein, rushed some 200 miles through surrendering German troops to investigate. When they got there, they discovered that the repository had been saved from destruction. Locals – probably the mine director and his foreman – had undertaken a dangerous and elaborate plan to remove Eigruber’s bombs and to seal the mine for safety through the controlled demolition of key tunnels. As a result, although Posey and Kirstein found the entrances obstructed, the art remained

safe inside. The mine’s contents – including 6,577 paintings – were carefully extracted and prepared for subsequent repatriation. When the war in Europe ended, many of the monuments ofﬁcers returned to their peacetime occupations. Before they did so, however, they produced a series of detailed reports on their experiences, preserving invaluable knowledge about the protection of cultural property in wartime. Sadly this wealth of experience was soon forgotten. The UK, for instance – largely due to historical accident and lack of parliamentary time – remains one of the few major powers not to have ratiﬁed the 1954 Hague Convention requiring the protection of cultural property in wartime. With the release of The Monuments Men, we have a unique opportunity to relearn the lessons of its real-life counterparts. Nigel Pollard is associate professor of ancient history at Swansea University and a board member of the UK National Committee of the Blue Shield, which advocates the protection of cultural sites in conﬂict zones. For more details, see ancbs.org DISCOVER MORE FILM

왘 The Monuments Men will be shown in UK cinemas in February: monumentsmenmovie.com BOOKS 왘 The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes,

Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M Edsel (Arrow, 2014) 왘 The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H Nicholas, (Vintage, 1995) BBC History Magazine

REX/ALAMY

sometimes down to battalion level, while liaison with the air forces was also improved. Guidelines were set out on how to guard museums and historic buildings from looters, as well as the best ways of protecting them from damage by occupying troops. Even future US president Dwight Eisenhower, then supreme commander in the Mediterranean theatre, weighed in on 29 December 1943 with a general order in which he described Italy as “a country rich in monuments”, noting the Allies were “bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows” and emphasising that it was a responsibility of Allied commanders to consider the advice of monuments ofﬁcers when planning and conducting operations. This led MFAA members to have an increasing degree of power, from directly advising army leaders and safeguarding monuments in occupied areas to supervising ‘ﬁrst-aid’ restoration of damaged structures – and even, as Balfour’s death shows, working in the front line. Although the MFAA grew in personnel and inﬂuence, it never numbered more than a few dozen specialised ofﬁcers spread throughout Europe. The British contingent tended to consist of men already serving in the armed forces – and, therefore, both accustomed to military organisation and discipline, and capable of commanding respect – but who were typically too old to lead in the ﬁeld. Among them was Major PK Baillie Reynolds, who had established a reputation as both a classical archaeologist and an inspector of ancient monuments in Britain. His colleagues included John Ward-Perkins who would go on to direct the British School at Rome and whose wartime exploits were mentioned in despatches.

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Royal murder scandal

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The killing of Queen Victoria’s personal chef in 1865 caused a furore in the first modern, national media and changed forever the British image of Germany, says James Hawes

56

armed not only with the ironclad conviction of their social superiority, but also with cavalry sabres. And on the night of 4 August they were angry young men. The Borussia’s great rival was the liberal, middle-class Bonn student society Franconia, who wanted a united Germany, run from Frankfurt by a British-style parliament. A few days before, on 29 July, it had turned an anodyne celebration in memory of Ernst Moritz Arndt, author of the unofﬁcial anthem of German Unity, What is the German’s Fatherland?, into a loud and public demonstration in favour of that liberal Greater Germany that would spell the end of Royal Prussia.

A mysterious well The club managed seriously to annoy their aristocratic rivals, for on 5 August the Borussia posted a letter to the press in Cologne, distancing themselves from the liberal, and socially inferior, students who had felt “obliged to celebrate Arndt with the volk” (liberal nationalists thought the volk a deep, if mysterious, well of German spirituality; to the Borussian, the volk BBC History Magazine

AKG IMAGES

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n the Old Graveyard at Bonn stands a long-obscure tomb. It bears a strange, haunting design: the scales of justice, not righteously level but weighed down and crossed with a curving sabre. In a curious spin on the Bible, the inscription reads: “Lord forgive him, for he knew not what he did.” It is the grave of Daniel Ott, who is now forgotten. Yet in August to September 1865, his fate so obsessed the world’s ﬁrst modern, national media – the newly cheap, mass-read and entirely free British press – that his name made The New York Times and even the infant journals of distant Australasia. The tale of his death can cast new light on a deﬁning tragedy of modern history: the Anglo-German antagonism of the later 19th century. At or about 1am on the night of 4 August 1865, the young bloods of Bonn’s most exclusive student society, the Corps Borussia, downed their last drinks, left their ﬂag-and-sword bedecked fraternity house, and sallied forth into the darkness. Many of these students were also one-year volunteers in the Bonn Royal Hussars,

dered cook, ul queen

ALAMY/ILLUSTRATION: BENJAMIN CARR

that never was simply meant the great unwashed). Since the letter was postmarked 5 August, it seems reasonable to assume that the Borussians agreed it on the evening of 4 August, and that when they left their frat-house that night, be-spurred and toasted-up, these young bloods were in the mood to rub the certainty of exactly who ran the Prussian Rhineland into the nose of anyone who crossed their path. Unfortunately for him, that man was Daniel Ott. Ott was 38 years of age, chef-de-cuisine or Küchenmeister to a German prince who had just offered him an even greater post – the sort of job that would make you for life. The happy cook gave a dinner to his friends by way of celebration but as they made their way home they had the misfortune to meet the Prussian toffs. The Standard gave the most detailed account of what happened: “A one-year volunteer and two students belonging to the Borussen Club left their tavern near the railway at 1am and had already entered the town by the little gate when they heard loud voices in the Hofgarten. ‘Stop!’ said the volunteer, ‘there’s a row to be got up’… The two repeatedly stepped in the way of the persons coming in, notwithstanding that the latter said to them – ‘if you want to quarrel go to healthy people. We are invalids.’ For the party consisted, besides the cook Ott, who was unsteady on his legs, of a second man, having a broken arm but just healed, and a third, who had recently been laid up with a fractured leg. “The volunteer, named Count Eulenburg, several times got in front of the cook to bar his progress; the BBC History Magazine

cook as often begged the assailants to go home quietly and leave them in peace, till, ﬁnally losing patience, he said, ‘What do you damned boys really want?’” No one on Earth could call a young Prussian aristocrat and a member of the Bonn Royal Hussars, a “damned boy” and expect to get away with it… “He immediately received a blow upon the head, sat down upon the ground, and remained sitting while the others tussled. One of the cook’s friends got hold of the sabre and hid it under his coat; it was given up the next morning. “One of Ott’s friends was badly beaten, and, as the whole party of the Borussen came rushing out of the tavern to the spot, they would do tedl d d d y ve een

“Poor Daniel Ott Ott’s fate f t so obsessed the British press that his name made The New York Times and even the infant journals of distant Australasia” 57

Royal murder scandal

“It was impossible ossible for Bis Bismarck to deliver up to civilian justice the nephew of his most important ally. Yet he couldn’t ignore British opinion” still worse treated if a certain Herr von Witzleben had not recognised the groom of the chambers of Prince Alfred in one of Ott’s party who just came up. He called out, ‘Why, these are Prince Alfred’s people!’ whereupon the whole band of some 20 Borussen took to their heels, and poor Ott was carried home, where he died a few days afterwards in most dreadful anguish.” One can imagine the consternation of young von Witzleben. Their victim was a senior household servant of a young fellow-aristocrat who had, earlier that very year, been personally received by King William into Prussia’s highest rank of chivalry, the Order of the Black Eagle. This is possibly because his royal mother had recently shown herself to be a friend to Prussia even at the risk of unpopularity among her own people. The British people, that is. For Prince Alfred was, of course, the second son of Queen Victoria, and Her Majesty would now be seeking a new personal chef. The queen, who had newly arrived at Coburg to unveil yet another statue to the memory of her beloved Albert and to introduce to his future subjects her second son – who was to be formally accepted as heir apparent to the throne of Saxe-Coburg – was informed of the event. She immediately made her feelings known in a letter sent from the Liberal statesman Lord Granville to Lord Napier, the British ambassador, and presented to the Prussian minister-president: Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen.

“My previous telegram of this day contains information which has caused the greatest concern to the queen. Her Majesty had temporarily engaged as a servant a poor German for whose violent death Her Majesty now grieves. Her Majesty feels conﬁdent that a searching enquiry will be made by the Prussian government with the circumstances of this sad event so much to be deplored, and that everything will be done which is required of justice and of the law.” On 19 August, The Times gave British readers the ﬁrst report of the event, expressing in different words the same hope as Her Majesty. That, however, was simply not going to happen, for reasons that take us to the very engine-room of German history. Bismarck was at this very moment hatching one of the most extraordinary and far-reaching plots in the story of modern Europe. The arch-conservative planned to make Germany safe for Prussia by outﬂanking liberalism on the radical side. He would adopt, and actually deliver, the great liberal causes of the European Revolution of 1848: national unity, universal suffrage, free trade and a navy. To read the annals of the Prussian Crown Council in the summer of 1865 is to get an unforgettable feeling of the steam-hammers of history at work. Bismarck spoke of deliberately seeking war with Austria, of outmaneuvering the liberals by enfranchising the loyal ‘Residuum’ (the lower orders – or what Karl Marx would have called the ‘Lumpenproleteriat’).

Epochal meetings Bismarck was playing for high stakes. Both the king and the crown prince were openly nervous, and only rock-solid backing from his two most powerful colleagues let Bismarck get his way in these epochal meetings: war minster Roon and interior minister Eulenburg. The latter was Bismarck’s most important ally at this time, the man to whom he wrote more letters

In Context: Prussia in 1865

The Prussian army grew rapidly under Bismarck

Thanks to Britain, in 1815, Prussia – one of the strongest states in the German Confederation, (an association of states in central Europe) – was given

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large parts of the Rhineland to create a bulwark against France. No one had yet considered that wars of the future might be won by industrial production – right up to 1914, the military planners of all lands simply counted each other’s divisions. Yet, handing over Germany’s most advanced industrial region to her most militaristic monarchy was to have far-reaching consequences. By the summer of 1865, the

tension between the largely Catholic, commercial Rhineland and the royal Prussian government was immense, with a struggle between liberal MPs and the Royal Prussian regime led by Bismarck. Would Prussia lead the way to a Britishstyle parliamentary democracy in a United Germany (as Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, had hoped and planned)? Or would it remain a royalist, reactionary power dedicated to the

preservation of rule by King William of Prussia and his Junker elite? For years, Bismarck had been collecting taxes on behalf of King William and expanding the Prussian army, despite the refusal of his parliament to ratify his budgets. Things now seem to have reached a head, and British commentators in the summer of 1865 thought Germany looked to be on the verge of civil war or revolution.

BBC History Magazine

AKG IMAGES/ BENJAMIN CARR

Royalist reactionaries were heading for a showdown with liberal parliamentarians

BENJAMIN CARR

than to anyone else in July and August 1865. He was also the uncle of the man who had just killed Ott. It was politically impossible for Bismarck to deliver up to civilian justice a young military Prussian Junker and the nephew of his most important ally. Yet he could not ignore the desperate need to keep British and French opinion neutral in the war that he planned against Austria. (A war that, when it was fought in 1866, left Bismarck’s Prussia the dominant force in German political affairs, free of Austrian interference). Bismarck corresponded urgently about the murder. Assurances of justice were publicly made in the ofﬁcial press. Letters to The Times tried to explain to Britons how a Prussian ofﬁcer was duty-bound to defend his honour. The Prussian ambassador in London personally sent Bismarck cuttings from the British press. When an alternative witness was conveniently found to dispute the original account of the brawl, this was deemed important enough for Prussia’s leader himself to be sent the material, which would counter, its sender said, “the rash and hateful attacks in the English press against Prussia and its legal system which have been occasioned by the event”. But it was to no avail. And to understand why, we have to return to 1864, when Prussia – aided by Austria – had seized the Danish-ruled duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in the so-called Prusso-Danish War. What so confused Britons at the time was that the Germans who invaded Denmark were not Prussian militarists at all, but liberal nationalists, who thoroughly hated, and were hated by, Bismarck. They were modernisers and radicals who wanted to do away with feudal relics like Bismarck’s Prussia, and to make the political borders of Germany accord with the supposedly natural laws of culture and language. Britain was, of course, the great home of liberal universalism, and this had fatally hampered the British response. Victoria herself, who clove to Albert’s vision of a liberal, united Germany, was vociferously against intervention. Britain had come close to intervening on the side of the Danes. But, in the end, the only help it gave to Denmark (despite solemn treaty obligations) was hot air – Disraeli scornfully called it “menaces never accomplished and promises never fulﬁlled”. In Germany, 1864 became a keystone in the German nationalist myth of a Britain at once unnaturally hostile to Germany, yet rendered powerless by decadence. That myth would culminate in the miscalculations of German diplomacy and naval policy after 1896. Most Britons were vaguely certain that they should have done more to help Denmark in 1864. The murder of Ott in 1865 provided the catalyst, the personal tale, the angle that the media always needs to focus a story. Throughout late summer, there appeared dozens of articles, like this from The Penny Illustrated Paper of 9 September: “Prussia is likely to become the bête noir of Europe, and that, singularly enough, not only in consequence of her faithless and unjustiﬁable conduct with regard to the duchies, but through a private case of assault, which BBC History Magazine

“The foreign secretary secretary, Jo John Russell, warned that Victoria ‘proposes clearly an intervention by force against Prussian designs’” in this country would probably have resulted in a charge of murder.” The dual blow of seeing a small German state – Schleswig – assimilated by Prussia and losing her cook to a Prussian sabre seems to have permanently changed Victoria’s mind about Prussia. In 1864, Prime Minister Palmerston had been ready for war but had been blocked by Victoria herself. Now, on 13 September 1865, he wrote to the foreign secretary, John Russell, with undisguised gloating: “The fact is, as far as the queen is concerned, that so long as the injustice committed appeared calculated to beneﬁt Germany and the Germans, it was all right and proper: but now that an example is about to be set of extinguishing petty states like Coburg, her sense of right and wrong has become wonderfully keen.”

British confusion By the spring of 1866, Russell was warning that Victoria “proposes clearly an intervention by force against Prussian designs”. Now it was the ministers restraining Her Majesty, not the other way around. The confusing fact that it was the all-German liberals who had originally invaded Schleswig-Holstein was now conveniently forgotten by all, replaced by that far simpler and more media-friendly image of all that was culturally foreign to Britons: ‘Prussian Militarism!’ The long trail of misunderstanding which led to Britain lining up against Germany in 1914 had started. As for young Eulenburg, he was quietly sentenced by military tribunal to several months’ fortress arrest, a peculiar form of honourable imprisonment reserved for gentlemen-ofﬁcers deemed somehow above the normal law. Quietly released after three months, his standing within his own caste had suffered so little that he later became engaged to no less than the daughter of Bismarck himself, and only failed to become the great man’s son-in-law by dying suddenly, of typhus, in October 1875. James Hawes is the author of Englanders and Huns (Simon & Schuster, 2014). He is co-curating an exhibition on the murder of Daniel Ott at Bonn City Museum, scheduled for August 2015. His twitter feed is @jameshawes2 DISCOVER MORE BOOK 왘 Englanders and Huns by James Hawes

(Simon & Schuster, 2014)

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BBC History Magazine’s

Vikings Day Saturday 15 March 2014, 10am–5.30pm M Shed, Bristol With Judith Jesch, Ryan Lavelle, Philip Parker, Janina Ramirez and Gareth Williams Listen to lectures from ﬁve speakers and enjoy a buffet lunch at the venue, plus morning and afternoon teas and coffees Janina Ramirez teaches the

Dr Ryan Lavelle is senior

history of art at the University of Oxford and has presented several BBC series, including Viking Art and Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons on BBC Four. Talk Are ‘They’ In Fact ‘Us’? Janina will consider what we know about the Vikings from Anglo-Saxon sources, settlement theories and DNA analysis.

lecturer in medieval history at the University of Winchester, and an expert in Anglo-Saxon history. He is author of Alfred’s Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age (Boydell, 2010). Talk Fighting the Vikings: War and Peace in Viking-Age Britain Looking at the experience of war and peace in England and other parts of Britain in the Viking Age, Ryan will address the defensive responses to Viking attacks. He will also consider the ways in which the English conducted warfare aggressively against their neighbours, displaying, in many ways, ‘Viking’ behaviour of their own.

Judith Jesch is professor of Viking studies at the University of Nottingham. She is author of Viking Poetry of Love and War (British Museum Press, 2013) Talk Treasures of the Sword-Trees: Viking Poets and Poetry The Vikings were accomplished poets as well as raiders, traders and settlers. Judith’s talk will explore what Viking poetry tells us about their attitudes to sailing, war, treasure – and love.

Gareth Williams is the curator of the forthcoming British Museum exhibition Vikings: Life and Legend, and author of The Viking Ship (British Museum Press, 2014). Talk Ships and Society in the Viking Age The many achievements of the Vikings were only possible because of their skill as shipbuilders and seamen. Gareth will explore the development of the Viking ship, and its role within Viking society. Look out for Gareth’s feature on Viking ships in our March issue. > Visit historyextra.com/events for full details STEVE SAYERS

Philip Parker is a writer and historian specialising in late antiquity and early medieval Europe. He is the author of The Northmen’s Fury: A History of the Viking World (Jonathan Cape, 2014). Talk Ruling without Kings: State and Society in Viking Iceland The Viking discovery and settlement of Iceland around AD 874 led to the creation of a unique society, the Icelandic Commonwealth, which was free for almost four centuries of the rule of kings. Philip will examine how that society evolved and ﬁnally collapsed, leading to the imposition of royal rule by the kings of Norway. Look out for Philip’s feature on Viking Iceland in our March issue

Book tickets online at historyextra.com/events 60

BBC History Magazine

EVENTS BBC History Magazine’s

First World War Day Sunday 16 March 2014, 10am–5.30pm M Shed, Bristol With Mark Bostridge, Nick Lloyd, Margaret MacMillan and David Reynolds Listen to lectures from four eminent speakers, join in an afternoon debate where the historians will take questions from the ﬂoor and enjoy a buffet lunch at the venue, plus morning and afternoon teas and coffees Mark Bostridge is a consultant on the forthcoming feature ﬁlm of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth. His latest book, The Fateful Year, about England in 1914, will be published by Viking in January 2014. Talk 1914: England’s Fateful Year War with Germany, so often imagined and predicted, ﬁnally broke out when people in Britain least expected it. Mark’s talk will examine the events that shaped the nation in 1914: from striking schoolchildren, warring suffragettes, and the love affair between the prime minister and a woman young enough to be his daughter, to a country transformed by war.

Margaret MacMillan is the warden of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Her latest book is The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War (Proﬁle, 2013). Talk Accidental or Inevitable? The Outbreak of the First World War There is still no consensus on the causes of the war and perhaps never will be. Margaret will look at the world of 1914 and ask why it was that the key decisionmakers had come to think that war was a reasonable and even a desirable option.

Nick Lloyd is senior lecturer at King’s College London. His latest book is Hundred Days (Viking, 2013), which is about the last 100 days of the First World War. Talk Hundred Days: The End of the Great War The story of the last four months of the Great War, and the events that led up to the Armistice on 11 November, remain little-known. Nick’s talk will examine the last days of the war and ask, how did it end?

Venue: M Shed Princes Wharf Wapping Road Bristol BS1 4RN mshed.org

David Reynolds is professor of

£60 Subscribers to BBC History Magazine

international history and a fellow of Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. His latest book is The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century (Simon and Schuster, 2013). Talk The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century David will argue that British views of the First World War have become stuck in the trenches and trapped in Poets’ Corner. He believes we need to raise our sights and look beyond the events of 1914–18, however dramatic, to the larger consequences of the conﬂict. Our attitudes to democracy and nationalism, empire and capitalism, art and literature, war and peace were all reshaped by the conﬂict, which cast a long shadow over the century that followed. > Visit historyextra.com/events for full details

or call 0844 871 8819+ BBC History Magazine

Tickets (per day):

£70 non-subscribers How to book: Call 0844 871 8819 or visit historyextra.com/ events TERMS AND CONDITIONS We reserve the right to replace the speakers with alternatives of equal stature in the unlikely event that any of them are unable to attend. Please let us know when booking of any special access requirements. BBC History Magazine subscribers should have their subscriber number to hand when booking. Tickets are non-refundable and places are limited.

+ Calls to this number from a BT landline will cost no more than 5p per minute. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Lines are open 8am-8pm weekdays & 9am-1pm Saturday.

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See His Majesty Recite Excerpts

www.rhymesofhistory.com Eric Hobsbawm Postgraduate Scholarships Birkbeck, University of London has launched a new postgraduate Scholarship fund in memory of the College’s former President and one of the greatest historians of the last century: Professor Eric Hobsbawm. The Scholarships will cover the fees and/or research costs of Master’s students in Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology and will help to address the inequality which is currently a feature of postgraduate study in the UK, about which Hobsbawm felt strongly. Harold is played by Mark Noble (of TV’s The Borgias)

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The Eric Hobsbawm Scholarship Fund will provide two full fee-waiver scholarships for Master’s study as well as providing ﬁnancial assistance for research expenses for new and existing doctoral students. The deadline for applications is 28 February 2014.

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New history titles, reviewed by experts in their field

BOOKS

Larry Siedentop in Keble College, University of Oxford. “In contrast to much popular usage of the term, ‘liberalism’ isn’t just a free-for-all: it isn’t just a matter of not believing in anything,” he argues

Photograph by Geraint Lewis

GERAINT LEWIS

INTERVIEW / LARRY SIEDENTOP

“What is distinctive about the west is that the organising social role is no longer the patriarchal family and instead the individual” In a wide-ranging interview, Larry Siedentop talks to Matt Elton about his new study of the ‘individual’ through history and what can be done about the west’s current “crisis of conﬁdence” BBC History Magazine

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Books

What prompted you to write this book? west that is progressive and has many sources: economic decline in comparison to other parts of the world, as well as, arguably, reduced political power and inﬂuence. It seems to me that the idea that is central and distinctive in western history – that of liberalism – has had some bad innings of late. In Europe, it has become dismissed as market economics and in the US as extremism. Liberalism’s reall central value and goal is encapsulated in the phrase ‘equal liberty’, which implies that there is a sphere in which individuals should be encouraged, and relied upon, to govern themselves. In contrast to much popular usage of the term, ‘liberalism’ isn’t just a free-for-all: it isn’t just a matter of not believing in anything. What do we know about individual freedom in ancient Greece and Rome? To be ‘free’ in those societies was to enjoy superior social status as a citizen, rather than something applied to everyone equally. If you look around the world, most societies had been organised around the family, more or less extended, as the crucial social institution. What is distinctive about the west as we know it is that the organising social unit has ceased to be the family and become the individual. Hence our emphasis on ‘rights’. By contrast, the ancient family was marked by radical inequality. It was governed by the pater familias, who was not just the magistrate or civic head of the family, but also its high priest. In the book, I explore the practice of newlywed women being carried over the threshold of their husband’s house, which has its origins in a totally different mental framework. The preliminaries of a daughter’s marriage in Greece and Rome involved her family, which was also her cult, gathering with its high priest and dissolving the bond it had with her. The daughter’s identity was entirely tied up with her family, so severing this bond was necessary for her joining the cult of her husband’s family. But in between she lacked all identity, so had to be carried into the husband’s house to be initiated. What led to these traditions changing? It’s very striking that the growth of the Roman empire in the last centuries BC involved a decline of the independence of city states. Whereas people had looked to

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their local citizen class as leaders, it became clear that power was moving to Rome. Roman citizenship, gradually extended to many throughout the whole empire, in turn changed people’s understandings of themselves. Religious beliefs also began to change: Judaism introduced a kind of monotheism with a central, all-powerful deity. For people living in a world in which there were certain parallels between Rome’s centralised power and Jewish beliefs, this created curiosity, opening the way to the spread of those beliefs. You ask, rhetorically, if St Paul was the greatest revolutionary in human history. What led you to suggest this? I think that, if any one person was responsible for changing the traditional arrangement in which the basic social unit was the patriarchal family rather than the individual ‘soul’, it was St Paul. I ﬁnd him fascinating because, while his background was primarily Jewish, he grew up in a part of the Mediterranean that had been very much Hellenised. So Paul’s thought represents an extraordinary merger of Judaism and Greek philosophy. The discussion about citizenship that was taking place in city states had already started to distance citizens from family structures, but Christianity pushed it further and made it more comprehensive because Paul claimed that his message was universal. Jumping ahead a few centuries, how does feudalism fit into this story? After the collapse of the ninth-century Carolingian empire, the church’s higher clergy became terriﬁed of property and power being dispersed – and perhaps even the church itself being brought into what was becoming the feudal system, with local landowners ruling their inhabitants. The fear was that the church would lose its universal identity and its claim upon souls, which led the clergy to ﬁght hard for some continuing central organisation. This turned

“We have to help people to understand and have confi n dence in their own culture”

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out to be the papacy, which became the fulcrum on which a new legal system was gradually created from the 11th century. This system, in due course, was to create the notion of fundamental individual rights. What do you think are the causes of the west’s crisis of confidence? The result of the Reformation and the religious wars that followed was, in a way, the birth of secularism. You could say that liberal secularism was not the legitimate child of Christianity but its natural one – in a way, its unintended consequence. It turned, however, into a code chieﬂy designed to limit the claims of the churches, and so became closely associated with anti-clericalism. Although the virulent anti-clericalism of the 18th century disappeared as churches were obliged to accept the framework of liberal secularism, some of it still survives. This division also emerges when religious leaders call for an alliance of religions to ﬁght against secularism. I think that’s rather worrying because, if we see liberal secularism as an offshoot of Christianity, it’s better, on the whole, not to go around killing your child! The philosophical tradition of utilitarianism, meanwhile, has suggested that the state should be neutral between religious beliefs. I don’t think neutrality is a notion associated with classical liberalism at all: it is a set of values meant to protect a maximum area of authority for individuals. Leading the west to see itself in terms of indifference, or of non-belief in any set of values, means that our ideas no longer always correspond to our intuitions – which I think is dangerous. How can we improve the west’s confidence on the international stage? We have to help people to understand – and to have conﬁdence in – their own tradition, and of the varieties of human culture. You could say that we rushed into the invasion of Iraq, for instance, without any understanding of the cultures that we were dealing with. I think that having a clear sense of one’s culture can actually make it easier to understand the differences between cultures. Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop (Allen Lane, 434 pages, £20)

BBC History Magazine

GERAINT LEWIS

LARRY SIEDENTOP Born in Chicago, Siedentop was, for three decades, faculty lecturer in political thought at the University of Oxford and is an emeritus fellow of Keble College. His books include Tocqueville (1994) and Democracy in Europe (2000). In 2004 he was awarded a CBE for services to political thought and higher education

Arthur Wellesley, future 1st Duke of Wellington, as depicted in an 1804 portrait. Rory Muir’s account is “biography on an impressive scale”

WANT MORE ? For reviews of hundreds of recent history books, go to our online archive historyextra.com/books

“We have lacked a modern biography of Wellington. That gap has now been filled”

A politician and a general GARY SHEFFIELD praises the ﬁrst volume of a masterful and

detailed exploration of one of the “big beasts” of British history Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769–1814 by Rory Muir

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Yale University Press, 672 pages, £30

Arthur, the 1st Duke of Wellington, is one of the big beasts of British history. Not only was he the most successful general of the early 19th century, when his victories propelled Britain to unscaled l dh heights i h of international prestige and power, but he also proceeded to dominate the British Army for

BBC History Magazine

decades. Of course, he was also an important player on the political scene, which included spells as prime minister. Wellington has had many biographers and been the object of numerous focused studies. Some of the latter are excellent. Huw Davies’s Wellington’s Wars: The Making of a Military Geniuss (Yale, 2012), which I reviewed in a previous issue of this magazine, is a case in point: we are living in a golden age of scholarship on Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. I also retain an affection for Elizabeth Longford’s twovolume account, published more than 40 years ago. Richard Holmes’ Wellington: The Iron Dukee (Harper Collins,

2002), which mixes readability with some acute insights, is the best (relatively) short modern biography of Wellington. However, until now we have lacked a modern, meaty biography of Wellington ‘in the round’. Judging by the recently published ﬁrst volume of Rory Muir’s scholarly but very readable biography, that gap has now been ﬁlled. This is biography on an impressive scale. This ﬁrst volume covers the life of Arthur Wellesley (he was Wellington from 1809), from his birth in Dublin to the end of the Peninsular War in 1814. There is a substantial supporting online resource (lifeofwellington.co.uk) of extra material that, one assumes, ended on the publisher’s equivalent of the cuttingroom ﬂoor. It seems slightly odd ending the book before Waterloo, unless there is going to be disproportionate coverage of the 1815 campaign in the second volume. Was the decision not to include Wellington’s entire active military career in the ﬁrst book a commercial one, inspired by the fear that Wellington the politician would attract fewer readers than Wellington the general? The picture of Wellington that MAGAZINE CHOICE emerges from the book is positive, as both a personality and a general. Muir is generous about Huw Davies’s work, notwithstanding their very different interpretations of some of the evidence. Muir is also very good on Wellington’s skills as a politician, a role that he ﬁlled as much as that of the soldier. There is a detailed discussion of the Convention of Cintra in 1808, for instance. There, having won the victory of Vimeiro, Wellesley was promptly superseded, signing an agreement that allowed the French army to escape under shameful circumstances. However, Muir doesn’t really get to the bottom of why Wellesley signed the convention “without demur”. Perhaps he simply did not realise the storm that it would create

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Books COM MING SOON… “Nex xt issue, our experts will be delving into books on Europe since e the Second World War, Greek gods and the Britain of 1914. I’ll allso be talking to Michael Broers about Napoleon: Soldier of De estiny, the first part of his new biography drawing upon contemporary correspondence.” Matt Elton, books editor

“A formidable achievement, this first volume is already the Wellington biography for our time” commander in the context of his army and its operations is entirely legitimate – and given Muir’s skill as a historian of the battleﬁeld, it is very welcome. But in places the book veers perilously close to morphing into a history of Wellington’s army. It is also highly detailed. To take one example, we are told that Wellesley’s administrative tasks as governor of the newly captured town of Seringapatam in 1799 involved writing to the authorities to ask for a chaplain to be appointed and to compliment a surgeon. Depending on one’s viewpoint, this level of detail is either overwhelming or one of the book’s strengths. Without doubt, however, this ﬁrst volume is a formidable achievement, already the Wellington biography for our time. Perhaps when the second volume appears, Muir will produce a slimline abridgement. It would be a great pity if its sheer bulk reduced its potential readership. Gary Shefﬁeld d is professor of war studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He is currently writing a concise biography of Wellington for the History Press

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Revolt and ruin EVAN MAWDSLEY commends a powerful account exploring

the causes and tragic consequences of the Warsaw Uprising The last insurgents, driven into the city’s sewers, surrendered in early October. The destruction of the ruined city then began. Alexandra Richie has produced a William Collins, 752 pages, £25 detailed, if harrowing, narrative history of The Warsaw Uprising the rising. She has mastered an immense of 1944 was surely range of material in both German and one of the most tragic Polish, starting with the library of her events of the Second father-in-law, the Polish politician and World War. With the journalist Władysław Bartoszewski. Soviet army seemingly There are powerful ﬁrst-person accounts about to capture the from the Polish side and effective pen prewar Polish capital portraits of monsters such as SS members – and the Nazis Dirlewanger, Zelewski and Kaminski. seemingly on the point of total defeat – The account of the uprising itself only the underground Home Army (‘Armia begins 200 pages in, before which Richie Krajowa’, or AK) rose in revolt. effectively places the events into their The local AK leadership, opposed to military and political context. Her both the Germans and the Soviets, had analogy with the sacking of Carthage is made a terrible miscalculation. The interesting, but not sufﬁciently so to German army under Field Marshal justify a separate epigraph from Appian’s Model was able to hold the eastern Roman Historyy at the start of each chapter: approaches to Warsaw, while the revolt Hitler and Himmler did not need a within the city was crushed with utmost precedent from antiquity to implement barbarity by the Nazis and their large destruction of the population and city. rabble of non-German auxiliaries. The Richie’s treatment of Soviet conduct killing of 40,000 Polish civilians in the before and during the rising is balanced, Wola district in the ﬁrst days of the although based on English and Polish rising – described here as the largest sources. She argues that the military single “battleﬁeld massacre” of civilians situation would not, in any event, have in the entire war – was followed by street allowed the Red Army to enter Warsaw battles and bombardments in which – or even its eastern suburbs – until the hundreds of thousands of Polish second half of August, but that in the civilians died. Allied tension increased weeks that followed, the Soviets could with the accusation that Stalin was have reduced the population’s suffering. leaving the AK and Warsaw to their fate. Criticism can be levelled at the lack of help given to readers: a ‘who’s who’ of participants would have been beneﬁcial, as would a clearer listing of the organisation of the various detachments of the AK and the German punitive units. The book The Polish Home is, however, impressively accomplished in Army in Warsaw, terms of research and narrative. Readers 1944. Richie’s who can make their way through the is a “detailed, story, and stomach accounts of appalling if harrowing” account, says atrocities, will gain an understanding of Evan Mawdsley an extraordinary event. Warsaw 1944: The Fateful Uprising by Alexandra Richie

Evan Mawdsleyy is professor of international history at the University of Glasgow

BBC History Magazine

AKG-IMAGES

at home, nor the threat that it would pose to his later career. Muir’s careful attention to the British and European political context leads to a much more nuanced view of Wellington than was the case with some older books. Indeed, he goes beyond the boundaries of a purely biographical approach: his discussion of the battle of Talavera, which was fought between 27 and 28 July 1809, covers some 10 pages; Wellington himself, meanwhile, is absent from entire paragraphs. Instead we get descriptions of the ﬁghting, quotes from other ofﬁcers, and an erudite commentary on the battle as a whole. This attempt to place the

WANT MORE ? For reviews of hundreds of recent history books, go to our online archive historyextra.com/books

A detail from The Last Judgment, Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel. Martin Gayford’s book is an “authoritative portrait that mixes history, art and biography”

Portrait of a master JOAD RAYMOND on an engaging account of the life and work

of an artist often seen as the archetypal ‘Renaissance man’ Michelangelo: His Epic Life by Martin Gayford

ALAMY

Fig Tree, 688 pages, £30

Michelangelo Buonarroti is, in some ways, a mystery. We know nothing of his sex life, despite the rainforests torn up in speculation. He habitually destroyed his drawings, with only about 500 remaining. So many (presumably) beautiful things are lost, among them the cartoons for The Battle of Cascina and two lunettes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the latter destroyed to make way for The Last Judgment. And yet we also know an extraordinary amount about his long life: the environments in

BBC History Magazine

which he lived, his collaborations, his ﬁnances, his daily existence. A list of clothes made by his father even survives. Martin Gayford’s biography is a bold effort to put this, along with continents of art criticism, into a single volume. It does so, for the most part, with a terriﬁc lightness of touch. On previous form, Gayford is more at home with modern art than the Renaissance, but he is an excellent storyteller: his narrative moves conﬁdently between paying close attention to Michelangelo’s art, actions and materials, and embarking upon digressions on stone-mining in Italy and

“Gayford’s Michelangelo is competitive and irascible. He doesn’t smile too much”

wet nursing, among other subjects. So what is distinctive about this account when compared to existing biographies? Gayford’s Michelangelo is ﬁrst and foremost a sculptor rather than a painter. However, because of his commitment to artisanal skill, he is also emphasised as an accomplished architect, poet and military engineer. He is the antiLeonardo, making poetry (as opposed to science) out of the body: indeed, this antithesis recurs throughout the book. As for ‘sodomy’ – as contemporaries and much modern criticism persists in referring to homosexual acts – there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that he was attracted to beautiful young men and had sex with them. Or we may be misreading the evidence, misled by the prudish language of the time and the way in which non-sexual affection was frequently clothed in the same language as amorousness. Thankfully, this account largely avoids pointless speculation. Gayford’s Michelangelo is competitive, as the artistic culture of Renaissance Florence and Rome encouraged; he is also ill-tempered, antisocial, occasionally high-handed, acquisitive of money, yet frugal in spending on himself, irascible in an understated way, republican, proudly Florentine, and theologically dissident. He resents the hand that feeds him, whether Medici, papal, or both. He feels enslaved to his patrons and, because of this – as well as turbulent Italian politics – commissions for tombs for the Medicis and Pope Julius II torment him for years. He doesn’t like to smile too much. Gayford admits that his subject was dislikable. But can one really dislike a man so Eeyorish that, when completing the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he remarked: “Other things have not turned out for me as I’d hoped. For this I blame the times, which are very unfavourable to our art.” While there may be nothing essentially distinctive about Gayford’s Michelangelo, this is an engaging, authoritative portrait that mixes history, art and biography with deft storytelling. Joad Raymond d is professor of Renaissance studies and co-director of the Centre for Early Modern Mapping, News and Networks at Queen Mary University of London

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Books Josephine as depicted in an 1808 oil painting by François Pascal Simon Gérard. Kate Williams’s book, says Alan Forrest, contends that “she has too often been written off as a woman of little intellect”

The first empress ALAN FORREST considers a vibrant biography that adds

new depth to the character of Napoleon’s ﬁrst wife, Josephine

Hutchinson, 368 pages, £20

Kate Williams is a gifted biographer who specialises in the history of famous and powerful women, most recent among them Emma Hamilton and the young Queen Victoria. Here she follows the career of Napoleon’s ﬁrst empress, Josephine, from the moment that she left her plantation home on Martinique to accompany her husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, to Paris and the world of revolutionary politics. It is a vivid, turbulent story. Alexandre was arrested for alleged royalism and guillotined during the Terror, while Josephine, too, found herself imprisoned on political charges and threatened with

a death sentence. Alone in Paris with her two children, she then made her way in life as a courtesan and society belle, mixing with the powerful in both politics and the army. Under the ‘Directory’ era of the French Revolution in the 1790s, she was the mistress of both its main executive leader, Paul Barras, and Revolutionary army general Lazare Hoche, and captured the headlines of the Paris papers as one of the most glamorous of the chic aristocratic ‘Merveilleuses’ set. It was in this ﬂamboyant, often amoral milieu that she met the young Napoleon Bonaparte, then a revolutionary general. She went on to become his mistress, then his wife, monopolising his affections for much of the rest of his life, standing by him – or appearing to – as he fulﬁlled his military and political ambitions. But what sort of person was Josephine? She has too often been written off, Williams suggests, as ostentatious and shallow, a woman of little intellect with few interests beyond ﬁne clothes and

A propaganda war? PETER JONES on a study of the Persian Wars that considers

the political motives that shaped their subsequent retelling After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars by Paul Cartledge Oxford University Press, 216 pages, £16.99

The Persian Wars of 490 to 479 BC were ﬁnally won not by Greece (because there was no such entity at the time) nor by the Greeks (because more of them fought on the Persian than on the Greek side). It was, instead, won by an alliance of Greek

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city-states headed by Sparta and Athens. But the ancient Greeks were a highly competitive lot and, having won the war, the two main participants now battled it out to claim the credit for the victories at Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. The focus of this new assessment by Paul Cartledge is the ‘Oath of Plataea’, sworn – so the Athenians claimed – just before the climactic battle of Plataea in 479 BC. In fact, Cartledge believes it to have been an invention, all part of the later propaganda war. No Greek argued about Athens’ role in winning the 490 BC land battle at Marathon, from which the Spartans

self-gratiﬁcation. She certainly did spend inordinately and built up colossal debts which she persuaded others to honour. And it is difﬁcult to deny that she was driven by greed and a desire to accumulate everything from exotic plants and animals to robes and shoes. But there was more to her than that. She was a considerable – if scarcely scrupulous – entrepreneur, earning large sums from military contracts while her husband was away in Italy and Egypt.

were absent for religious reasons, nor the naval battle at Salamis in 480 BC. Similarly, the Spartan role in the (ultimately failed) defence of the narrow pass at Thermopylae, a month before Salamis, remained unchallenged. But Salamis did not end the war. True, the Persian king Xerxes returned home, but he left his general Mardonius in the ﬁeld with a still-formidable army to ﬁnish the job. The job was, instead, to ﬁnish him. According to Herodotus, the virtually contemporary source for the wars, Plataea (479 BC) was “the most splendid victory we know about”. In his judgment, it was the Spartans that won it – and it was to be a crucial victory, clinching Persia’s ﬁnal defeat. The oath of Plataea is a long inscription, cut at some point between 350 and 325 BC. In it, the Athenians swear to behave heroically at Plataea, and to invite

BBC History Magazine

BRIDGEMAN

Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon by Kate Williams

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She was an art collector who built up a creditable collection of paintings at Malmaison. She played power games with steely determination, safe in the knowledge that Napoleon was infatuated with her and would give in to her pleading. Indeed, she fully understood her political value to her husband and was prepared to proﬁt from it. For if Napoleon’s popularity dipped as France became weary of war, Josephine’s did not. The public remained fascinated by her glamour and celebrity, and she played on her femininity to ensure that she remained a major player in the political world of the day. Of course, her inability to provide a son and heir proved Josephine’s undoing and in the end Napoleon would look elsewhere: to the Austrian princess Marie-Louise for status, to the Polish countess Maria Walewska for affection. Both would provide the sons he craved, yet, as this study ably demonstrates, he could never completely rid himself of Josephine. Even on his deathbed on Saint-Helena, his thoughts continued to revert to his ‘petite créole’. Alan Forrestt is emeritus professor of modern history at the University of York

EBURY PRESS

various sorts of disaster on themselves if they do not. Cartledge skilfully reveals its historical anomalies and suggests that its purpose was to swell Athenian breasts with pride at past glories and to help them to get over their recent disastrous defeat by Philip of Macedon in 338 BC. This seems highly plausible, although I am less sure on the issue of whether it was also part of a propaganda war: after all, the inscription in no way denigrates Sparta’s or anyone else’s contribution. But that does not detract from what is a superb general account of the Persian wars and their aftermath, easily the best that I have yet encountered in so small a volume. Peter Jones is the author of Veni, Vidi, Vici: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Romans but Were Afraid to Ask (Atlantic, 2013)

BBC History Magazine

Frontline reporting NIGEL JONES is enthralled by a book that features the ﬁrst-

hand experiences of a British soldier in the First World War Harry’s War: The Great War Diary of Harry Drinkwater Edited by Jon Cooksey and David Grifﬁths Ebury Press, 416 pages, £20

Amid the array of books marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, this is a real ﬁnd: a full-length, contemporaneous diary kept by a soldier who served throughout the entire conﬂict, initially joining up in 1914 as a volunteer private and later commissioned as an ofﬁcer. Harry Drinkwater, a cobbler’s son from Stratford-upon-Avon, joined a Birmingham ‘Pals’ battalion after being rejected by the regular army for being too short. Shipped to the western front after training in November 1915, he was immediately plunged into the realities of war. As he wrote: “Heard a fearful crash and found the next dugout to ours blown to blazes and Sergeant Horton with it. He had been our physical drill instructor since the beginning. He was a fellow I liked. As soon as I heard the crash I made my way out, and, with the help of Sergeant Wassell dug him out; he was very near a ‘gonner’. Wassell and I carried him to the rear. Before we could get him anywhere near a dressing station he had departed this life. He was our ﬁrst casualty, and our ﬁrst experience of death.” Drinkwater was to have plenty more experience during the next three blooddrenched years. Shells dropped all around him, decimating groups he had just left; bullets whistled past his ears; mines erupted in ﬂames beneath his feet. Poison gas wafted on the breeze, his

friends dropping one by one. But from the Somme and Passchendaele to the Italian front and the German offensives of spring 1918, Drinkwater remained miraculously unscathed. And, through it all, he recorded his war in a series of notebooks hidden in his tunic pocket. Keeping such journals was strictly forbidden, which makes this diary, published here for the ﬁrst time, a very rare and invaluable picture of one man’s war. ‘Drinks,’ as he was known, comes across as an attractive everyman: horriﬁed by the suffering around him, but determined despite everything to do his duty for his comrades and his country. The end of Drinkwater’s war came in June 1918, when he was chosen to lead an apparently suicidal trench raid to take an enemy prisoner. He successfully fulﬁlled his mission but was wounded, the injury bad enough to take him home to recover. To his dismay, he was again passed ﬁt for active service. Stoically standing on the cliffs of Dover waiting to return to France, he saw the port below erupt in joy at the Armistice. Drinkwater is honest enough to tell us that he felt only relief. An unvarnished, unﬂinching account of this most terrible of struggles, Harry’s Warr joins the ranks of the many literary classics produced by the conﬂict: we are unlikely to see its like, or that of its heroic author, who died in 1978, again. Nigel Jones is author of Peace and War: Britain in 1914 (Head of Zeus, 2014) Harry Drinkwater, c1920. His diary, says Nigel Jones, “joins the ranks of the many literary classics produced by the conﬂict”

“Drinkwater comes across as an attractive everyman, horrified by the suffering around him”

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Books / Paperbacks

PAPERBACKS 1913: The World Before the Great War by Charles Emmerson

GETTY

Vintage, 544 pages, £9.99

In 1913, the Evening Standardd asked its readers: “What will be the standing of the British empire in AD 2013?” Within a year, the stable, conﬁdent lives of those newspaper readers would be turned upside down. In 1913: The World Before the Great War, Charles Emmerson paints a vivid picture of a world that was destroyed. The result is a mesmerising tour through the great cities of the world. Emmerson starts by immersing us in daily life in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vienna and St Petersburg. We then board a boat to the New World, followed by a visit to the global cities of Winnipeg, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Algiers, Bombay, Durban, Tehran and Jerusalem. Our tour ends in the great cities of the non-European empires (Constantinople, Peking, Shanghai, and Tokyo) before

returning to London and the hopes and dreams of Evening Standardd readers. This is global history at its best. Emmerson is a master of ‘show and tell’, building up a rich image of life in 1913 through each city’s cuisine, music, art, fashion, gardens, architecture, cars and planes, suicides, drugs, pornography, politics and economies. Londoners are shown to be true Europeans and the empire is an ingrained habit of mind. People cross borders without showing passports. Kaiser Wilhelm II, known as the Emperor of Peace, presides over a country that’s only beginning to show hints of militarism. The discontents of the empire, and the tensions of the Zionist project, are already causing mayhem. It is difﬁcult to do full justice here to the complexity of Emmerson’s story, and to the vibrancy of his portraits of these cities. His book brings the fantasies, anxieties and passions of city-dwellers immediately prior to the First World War eloquently to life. Joanna Bourke is professor of history at Birkbeck and the author of What It Means to Be Human (Virago, 2011)

Tsar Nicholas II (left) and George V in Berlin, 1913. Charles Emmerson “paints a vivid picture of a world that was destroyed”

BBC BB B C H isto to orry y Ma Ma Mag ag aga ga ziine ne

America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford Penguin, 704 pages, £14.99

Jackie Kennedy was, Sarah Bradford suggests, “born with a sense of theatre” in arriving six weeks after her due date. This, combined with Jackie’s early awareness of the sexual politics in her troubled family dynamics, were the chief formative inﬂuences on her life. These ﬁnely tuned instincts carried her through young womanhood, tempestuous marriages with Jack Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis, and a measure of independence in later years. As an “American geisha” (as Bradford repeatedly calls her), Jackie skilfully cultivated an elaborate image that served her personal life even as this image gained intense worldwide interest. Bradford’s preoccupation is how this image could trap Jackie even when still deployed to great effect for her own needs. At times, the book staggers under the weight of detail about aristocratic networks, rich families, in-ﬁghting between siblings and bed-hopping between friends. Quotations occasionally pack Bradford’s paragraphs with little direction or context (the book’s acknowledgements contain a three-page list of interviewees). At other times, Bradford uncovers how Jackie worked to get her way, simultaneously bullying and charming people as First Lady, and that portrayal of Jackie in action is rather more interesting. Similarly, her role in recasting her slain

husband’s administration into a mythic Camelot is well covered here. Bradford captures Jackie’s contradictions well, even if the answer to why she was so intensely iconic for so many people remains elusive. Benjamin Houston n is a lecturer at Newcastle University

The Anne Boleyn Papers by Elizabeth Norton Amberley, 384 pages, £12.99

Anne Boleyn is one of the most controversial, and writtenabout, ﬁgures in history. The notorious second wife of Henry VIII, H VIII she h divided contemporary commentators just as much as she does modern historians. From the adulatory account of the queen by George Wyatt, grandson of one of her suitors, to the hostile dispatches about “the concubine” by the ambassador Eustace Chapuys, there is a bewildering array of different opinions and sources. Norton’s attempt to draw them all together results in a valuable resource for historians and general readers alike. She provides an introduction, as well as short explanatory notes, for each account, but it is the words of the contemporaries – including Anne herself – that largely dominate the anthology. And rightly so: if Norton had been tempted to layer her own opinions over the myriad views that appear in the book, it would have lessened the value of this enlightening collection. Tracy Borman is the author of Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction (Jonathan Cape, 2013)

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Books / Fiction THREE MORE FIRST WORLD WAR THRILLERS Dead Man’s Land Robert Ryan (2013)

A statue of Sherlock Holmes on London’s Marylebone Road. Robert Ryan’s novel includes an “old and ailing” version of the master detective

FICTION His last bow?

A Very Long Engagement Sébastien Japrisot (1993)

Dr John Watson and his famous friend Sherlock Holmes

Simon & Schuster, 480 pages, £18.99

Reimagining Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in new stories has become increasingly popular in recent years. The BBC’s Sherlockk is the most obvious example of the trend, but modern crime novelists have also chosen to use the Baker Street buddies as characters in their books. One of the most skilful and ingenious is Robert Ryan, who has embarked on a series of novels that feature an elderly John Watson striving to do his patriotic duty in the First World War. The Dead Can Waitt is the second in the series and it’s a highly enjoyable, page-turning read. The year is 1916 and, in the depths of the Suffolk countryside, trials are taking place of a secret weapon that may change the course of the war. Lumbering metal monsters, soon to be known as ‘tanks’, are being built and the hope is that they will end the stalemate on the western front. However, during one of the tests on the prototype tank,

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something goes terribly wrong. Seven men die and an eighth is rendered entirely mute. The authorities need a man to investigate the tragedy who has medical training, experience of detective work and security clearance. What better candidate for the role could there be than Watson? To ensure the detective’s co-operation, maverick politician Winston Churchill has arranged for his old – and now ailing – friend Sherlock Holmes to be interned on an island off the Essex coast. Only when the doctor has solved the mystery will Holmes be free to return to his retirement amid the Sussex Downs. Meanwhile, an almost improbably ruthless and murderous German secret agent wants to know what is going on and she will stop at nothing to ﬁnd out. After many twists and turns of plot, Holmes and Watson are reunited before being thrust into a desperate race against time to prevent the sabotage of the ﬁrst tank attack in history. The Dead Can Waitt is a richly textured novel that works well both as a historical thriller and as a new adventure for old, and much-loved, ﬁctional characters. Nick Rennison is the author of Carver’s Questt (Corvus, 2013)

M Mathilde’s ﬁancé, Manech, is one of M a group of soldiers fforced into certain death in no man’s d land after they are accused of cowardice a in the face of the enemy. But were they e really guilty? When the war is over, Mathilde sets out to unearth the truth about what exactly happened on the battleﬁeld. French crime novelist Sébastien Japrisot mixes a thriller-like plot with a moving exploration of what bereavement means to those left behind.

The Somme Stations Andrew Martin (2011) Railway policeman Jim Stringer, the everyman hero of Andrew Martin’s characterful and likeable series of crime novels, enlists in the army and travels to the western front via a training camp on the Yorkshire coast. Amid the slaughter of the trenches, a death in the camp – which may or may not have been an accident – returns to haunt him. Stringer must struggle to learn the truth and clear himself of the charge of murder.

BBC History Magazine

ISRIYA PALREEPAIRIT

NICK RENNISON is captivated by a historical thriller featuring

The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan

In the ﬁrst of Ryan’s n novels featuring Watson, the doctor W offers his medical o sskills to the war effort, but ﬁnds himself b involved in a murder mystery when dead m men start turning up m who seem to be the victims of a serial killer rather than the enemy. Crime story and Holmesian pastiche combine with a vivid evocation of the horrors of the trenches in a clever and compelling narrative.

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Is Stonehenge 5000 years older than we believe? POST GLACIAL FLOODING not only affected all parts of Britain but also the world. This can clearly be seen in greater Asia Minor with both the Caspian and ůĂĐŬ ^ĞĂƐ ĚŽƵďůŝŶŐ ƚŚĞŝƌ ƐŝǌĞ ĂŌĞƌ ƚŚĞ ‘Great Melt’. ,ŽǁĞǀĞƌ ƌŝƟƐŚ ƐĐŝĞŶƟƐƚƐ ŚĂǀĞ ďĞĞŶ very slow to accept that if the rivers that ĨĞĞĚ ƚŚĞƐĞ ŐƌĞĂƚ ƐŝĂŶ ƐĞĂƐ ǁĞƌĞ ŇŽŽĚĞĚ with this newly formed ice water; the same process must have had the equivaůĞŶƚ ĞīĞĐƚ ŽŶ ŽƵƌ ƌŝǀĞƌ ƐǇƐƚĞŵ Recent research on the river Thames ƐŚŽǁƐ ŝƚ ǁĂƐ ŽǀĞƌ ƚĞŶ ƟŵĞƐ ůĂƌŐĞƌ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ past. So large, in fact, it cut a new path ƚŽ ƚŚĞ EŽƌƚŚ ^ĞĂ ǁĞ ƐƟůů ƵƐĞ ƚŽĚĂǇ EĞǀĞƌƚŚĞůĞƐƐ ƚŚĞ ƋƵĞƐƟŽŶ ƐĐŝĞŶƟƐƚƐ ŶĞǀĞƌ ĂƐŬ ŝƐ ΖŝĨ ƚŚĞ dŚĂŵĞƐ ǁĂƐ ƚĞŶ ƟŵĞƐ ůĂƌŐĞƌ in the past, were the rivers that feed this ĨƌĞƐŚǁĂƚĞƌ ƌŝǀĞƌ ĂůƐŽ ƚĞŶ ƟŵĞƐ ďŝŐŐĞƌ!Ζ WĂƌƟĐƵůĂƌůǇ ǁŚĞŶ ǇŽƵ ƌĞĂůŝƐĞ ƚŚĂƚ Ăƚ ƚŚĞ ƐĂŵĞ ƟŵĞ ƐĞĂ ůĞǀĞůƐ ǁĞƌĞ ϲϬŵ ůŽǁĞƌ ^Ž ǁŚĂƚ ƌĞĂůůǇ ŚĂƉƉĞŶĞĚ ŝŶ ƌŝƚĂŝŶ ĂŌĞƌ the great melt? Robert John Langdon has developed a ŚǇƉŽƚŚĞƐŝƐ ŽǀĞƌ ƚŚĞ ůĂƐƚ ϯϬ ǇĞĂƌƐ ƚŚĂƚ ǁŝůů prove once and for all, that the landscape ŽĨ ƌŝƚĂŝŶ ǁĂƐ ŇŽŽĚĞĚ ŶŽƚ ĨŽƌ Ă ƐŚŽƌƚ period, but for over thousands of years.

In his book ‘The Stonehenge Enigma’, Langdon re-examines ƚŚĞ ĐƵƌƌĞŶƚ ƐĐŝĞŶƟĮĐ ĞǀŝĚĞŶĐĞ found in a small area that covers Old Sarum, Stonehenge, Durrington Walls (Woodhenge) ĂŶĚ ǀĞďƵƌǇ ĂŶĚ ĮŶĚƐ ƚŚĞƌĞ are over forty ‘proofs’ of his hypothesis. Consequently, the book proves that our ancestors built their ancient monuments on the shorelines of these swollen rivers. 'dŚĞ ƵůƟŵĂƚĞ ƉƌŽŽĨ ŽĨ ƚŚŝƐ WŽƐƚ 'ůĂĐŝĂů Flooding is found in the maps of the ƌŝƟƐŚ 'ĞŽůŽŐŝĐĂů ^ŽĐŝĞƚǇ+ ƐĂǇƐ >ĂŶŐĚŽŶ 'ŵĂƉƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ƐƵƉĞƌĮĐŝĂů ƐŽŝůƐ ƐŚŽǁ ƚŚĂƚ the rivers were much wider and that newly formed rivers created from the rising of groundwater caused by the ice ŵĞůƟŶŐ ĨĞĞĚ ƚŚĞƐĞ ƌŝǀĞƌƐ ǁŝƚŚ ĨƌĞƐŚ ǁĂƚĞƌ ĂůůŽǁŝŶŐ ƚŚĞŵ ƚŽ ƐǁĞůů ĂŶĚ ŽǀĞƌŇŽǁ+ This can be seen most clearly at Stonehenge where below the surface surrounding the site on three sides including the visitor's car park there is evidence of sand, silt and pebbles. Langdon believes these are the remains of a post glacial tributary of the river Avon. 'YƵŝƚĞ ƌĞŵĂƌŬĂďůǇ+ ĐŽŶƟŶƵĞƐ >ĂŶŐĚŽŶ “on the exact same prehistoric shoreline ůĂǇ ƉŽƐƚ ŚŽůĞƐ ĨŽƵŶĚ ŝŶ ϭဓϲϲ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞƐĞ I believe, are the remains of mooring posts, which are dated to ဒϱϬϬ This is when the Bluestones were brought from Preseli in Wales."

A new set of detailed maps have now been produced to illustrate and support this ‘Post Glacial Theory’. This prehistoric ŵĂƉ ƐĞƌŝĞƐ ĐŽǀĞƌƐ Ă ƐĞĐƟŽŶ ŽĨ ŽǀĞƌ ဒϬϬ ƐƋ Ŭŵ ;ϱϬϬ ƐƋ ŵŝůĞƐ7 ĨƌŽŵ ǀĞďƵƌǇ ĚŽǁŶ ƚŽ ^ĂůŝƐďƵƌǇ ĂŶĚ ŝŶĐůƵĚĞƐ ;ĨŽƌ ƚŚĞ ĮƌƐƚ ƟŵĞ7 ĞǆŝƐƟŶŐ ƐĐŚĞĚƵůĞĚ ĂŶĚ ĚĞƐƚƌŽǇĞĚ monuments based on the old OS map ƐĞƌŝĞƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ϭဒϬϬ9Ɛ ǁŚŝĐŚ ĂůƐŽ ƐŚŽǁ standing and sarsen stone deposits. 'dŚĞ ŵĂƉ ĐŽůůĞĐƟŽŶ ŚĂƐ ƚĂŬĞŶ ƵƐ ĨƌŽŵ studying just four sites that were in the book to over a thousand sites. All but twelve of these monuments were built on the dry shorelines of these ancient ƌŝǀĞƌ ƐǇƐƚĞŵƐ ǁŚŝĐŚ ŝƐ Ă ŵĂƚŚĞŵĂƟĐĂů impossibility, as the water covered over a ƚŚŝƌĚ ŽĨ ƚŚŝƐ ůĂŶĚƐĐĂƉĞ+ 'ŶĚ ĮŶĂůůǇ ĂƐ ĨŽƌ ƚŚĞ ƚǁĞůǀĞ ƚŚĂƚ ǁĞƌĞ within these waterways, we have subsequently found that they were of modern ŶŐůŽ:^ĂǆŽŶ Žƌ DĞĚŝĞǀĂů ŽƌŝŐŝŶ+ ^ƉĞĐŝĂů ĚŝƟŽŶ ŽĨ ƚŚŝƐ ďŽŽŬ ŚĂƐ ũƵƐƚ ďĞĞŶ ůĂƵŶĐŚĞĚ ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞ ŝŶĐůƵƐŝŽŶƐ ŽĨ Ăůů ƚŚƌĞĞ ϭϱϬ ϬϬϬ ŵĂƉƐ ĐŽǀĞƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ ဒϬϬ ƐƋ Ŭŵ ĂƌĞĂ ĂŶĚ ŝƐ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ Ăƚ ĂŶ ĞǆĐĞƉƟŽŶĂů ϯϬй ĚŝƐĐŽƵŶƚ ƌĂƚĞ ŽĨ άϭဓ%ဓဓ ;ZZW άϮဓ%ဓဓ( ĨƌŽŵ >ĂŶŐĚŽŶ)Ɛ ďůŽŐ ƐŝƚĞ www.the-stonehenge-enigma.info Where the ‘prehistoric Map Series’ can also be purchased at ĚŝƐĐŽƵŶƚ ƌĂƚĞƐ% The Stonehenge Enigma is part of a trilogy called ‘Prehistoric Britain’ see the website for details: www.prehistoric-britain.co.uk

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Jonathan Wright previews the pick of upcoming programmes

TV&RADIO Victoria, far from being close, often wanted to outshine each other. In particular, the rivalry between Edward VII and Wilhelm II both reﬂected and exacerbated the rivalry between their nations. The second documentary considers how Europe’s royal elites not only failed to prevent conﬂict, but played a central role in the outbreak of hostilities. Playing into current debates on how we should see the First World War, two historians offer very different perspectives in programmes being transmitted in early March. In The Necessary War (Tuesday 4 March, BBC Two), Sir Max Hastings argues Britain was right to enter the conﬂict. The Germans, he contends, could have prevented Nicholas Farrell (left) war from breaking out, but were too intent plays civil servant Sir Eyre on primacy to do so. Despite the huge cost, Crowe and Ian McDiarmid war was “neither avoidable nor futile”. is foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey in the The Pity of War (Thursday 6 March, drama 37 Days BBC Two) ﬁnds Harvard historian Professor Niall Ferguson arguing that it was a tragic mistake for Britain to enter the conﬂict. More than this, British involvement ultimately unleashed an era of totalitarian tyranny and genocide. Whichever view is correct, the price paid by ordinary troops can hardly be overstated. In Teenage Tommies (Tuesday 11 March, BBC Two), Fergal Keane tells the stories of Britain’s boy soldiers. As MAGAZINE CHOICE many as 250,000 lads under the age of 18 served in the British Army during the First World War, and 10 per cent of volunteers lied about their ages. As the BBC’s epic First World War season commences, Other shows that looked likely to transmit here’s a round-up of programmes to look out for in February/March as we went to press include drama The Ark (BBC One), which World War One Centenary season largely in the corridors of power in London focuses on battleﬁeld medics; and Tommy TV/RADIO, Across networks, and Berlin. The title is a reference to the and Jerry’s Camera (BBC Four), scheduled for February and March number of days between the assassination a documentary on the frontline images of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, on captured by British and German troops. ith shows across TV and radio until 28 June 1914, and Britain declaring war on Radio highlights include The Great War the 11th hour of the 11th day of the Germany, on 4 August 1914. of Words (Radio 4, Tuesday 4 February), in 11th month in 2018, and quite possibly At the centre of the ﬁrst episode lies the which Michael Portillo considers different beyond that date too, the sheer scale of the urbane ﬁgure of the British foreign secretary, interpretations of the conﬂict as a way to BBC’s World War One Centenary season is Sir Edward Grey (Ian McDiarmid), and his ask: “Whose version of the war are we really evidence of its ambition. If that sounds attempts to preserve the peace. These commemorating?” Historians discuss whether Britain was daunting, it’s perhaps reassuring that the attempts were ultimately doomed, yet the right to fight in 1914 from page 22 opening tranche of programmes deals partly series serves as a reminder that war was not with how and why the conﬂict broke out, inevitable, and that bad luck and bad timing offering context for what lies ahead. played a part in the outbreak of hostilities. “Bad luck and bad timIn the case of 37 Days (BBC Two, Tuesday As did tension between European royals. 25 February), this means a drama over three The two-part Royal Cousins at War ing played a part in the successive nights that deals with the political (BBC Two, Friday 7 February) tells how the outbreak of hostilities” background to the war, a story played out children and grandchildren of Queen

The seeds of conflict

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TV & Radio DON N’T MISS Discovering Film (Monday 17 February, Sky Arts 2) It’s Academy A Awards season, an excuse to get nosta algic with this series profiling the likes of Lauren Ba acall (left), Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart.

historyextra.com /tv-radio

A homegrown revolution James Fox tells us about his new series exploring how Britain laid the foundations to become “a cultural superpower” A Very British Renaissance TV BBC Two, scheduled for February or March

n the popular imagination, the Renaissance is associated with the continent and especially Italy. Don’t be so sure, suggests Cambridge art historian James Fox, whose new series on Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries eschews familiar tales of royalty in favour of artists, scientists, architects and writers. “This series is driven by a simple goal and that is to prove that actually there was a Renaissance in Britain,” Fox says, “and that it was a fantastic cultural movement that was different to what happened on the continent in many ways – but equally exciting.” Each of Fox’s three documentaries covers 50 years, with the ﬁrst focusing on the half-century from 1500. “England had come out of a long period of civil war,” says Fox. “A new aristocratic and royal society emerged that was looking for a new start.” This elite looked to the continent for new ideas, and ﬁgures such as the artist Holbein and the scholar Erasmus came to London because newly wealthy England was “the best place to do work”. Many of the ﬁgures that Fox proﬁles

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Armed to the teeth: Hamas ﬁghters pictured with their weapons in 2012

Living in fear Terror Through Time

as he tells this story are familiar. Yet in many respects his case rests on those we’ve largely forgotten. That means men such as astronomer Thomas Harriot. “He made the very ﬁrst maps of the moon through a telescope,” says Fox. “He beat Galileo to it by a few months.” Or colonist John White (c1540–c93), who “painted the most incredible pictures of Algonquin Indians while he was [in America], little watercolours that are 500 years old but remain in the British Museum in perfect condition”. The series ends with “the rise of puritanical thought and the Puritans” in the Civil War era, when the prevailing ideology was arguably at odds with the expansiveness of classical architecture and the baroque associated with the ruling elite. A “temporary obliteration of the Renaissance spirit” ensued, later to be rekindled during the Restoration.

Radio Radio 4, scheduled for Monday 3 February

Fergal Keane’s hugely impressive history of terrorism returns with another 10 weekday episodes. This time, the focus is on 9/11, and the attacks’ consequences on counter-terrorism operations. First though, the journalist offers a proﬁle of Mossad, Israel’s feared national intelligence agency. There are also programmes on the mujahideen who fought on the Bosnian side in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s; the development of suicide bombing; and the hotly debated question of whether or not to talk to terrorists.

Ideas lost to time The Re-inventors TV Yesterday, scheduled for Monday 3 February

Thomas Harriot “made the very first maps of the moon through a telescope. He beat Galileo”

A North American man and woman eat from a basket in a John White illustration from 1585

Inventor/carpenter Matt Hunter and special effects expert Jeremy MacPherson turn the spotlight on history’s lost inventions. Which might have been practical and which were nothing more than crackpot ideas? The duo ﬁnd out by referring to original blueprints and documentation, and then building such items as the Davis Life Pod, essentially a metal raft-cum-big tin can, which was designed to save unfortunates forced to abandon ship, and the bulletproof suit worn by Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.

Matt Hunter and Jeremy MacPherson on the trail of history’s lost inventions

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Troubled waters Missing Histories: China and Japan RADIO BBC World Service, scheduled for Saturday 15 February

he relationship between China and Japan has long been troubled. Even today there’s tension. China’s leaders accuse the Japanese of failing to atone for aggression and war crimes in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan’s nationalist prime minister, Shinzo Abe, wants to redraft his country’s paciﬁst constitution. It all makes for a gloomy picture, yet there are grounds for optimism too, including stronger cultural links between the region’s two leading economies. As part of the World Service’s Freedom2014 season, Japanese journalist Mariko Oi and Chinese journalist Haining Liu explore issues that arise from the past. In Japan, for example, the two women visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. It’s a site many associate with historical

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The ever-popular midwives are back on BBC One

It may not quite accurately represent the life of retail entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge, but Mr Selfridge was one of ITV’s drama hits last year. Accordingly, it’s returning for a second season (from January). Also back is Call the Midwife (BBC One, from January). On Yesterday, series two of Raiders of the Lost Past (Friday 7 February) concludes with more breathless tales of hunts for treasure and sacred artefacts. Expect shows on the lost jewels of Helen of Troy, a Dead Sea scroll made of copper, and a shogun’s lost treasure. The channel also has welcome reruns for Andrew Marr’s History of the World (Tuesday 4 February), which covers 70,000 years of major events in impressively widescreen style; and How to Go to War (Wednesday 19 February), military historian Saul David’s three-part series about the tricky business of ensuring an army is fed, sheltered and supplied – necessary prerequisites to ﬁghting. For those who have satellite, Buried Secrets of Buddha (National Geographic, Tuesday 25 February) follows an archaeological dig at Lumbini in Nepal, one of Buddhism’s most holy sites. Time Scanners (National Geographic, Tuesday 25 February) sees Dallas Campbell joining a team of historians using laser scanners to reveal the architectural secrets of historic sites, including St Paul’s, Machu Picchu and the Colosseum. Fleming (Sky Atlantic, February) is a four-part drama that focuses on the early life of 007’s creator, author Ian Fleming (played by Dominic Cooper).

BBC History Magazine

revisionism because those enshrined at the monument include war criminals. In China, Mariko and Haining travel to Nanjing, site of mass rapes and killings by Japanese forces during the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). Both women have tough questions for each other. Do Japanese nationalists play down the crimes of the past? For its part, has China really faced up to the crimes of the Mao regime and the brutal suppression of protestors at Tiananmen Square in 1989?

Men beat drums at Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine

In offering an ofﬁcial record of the expedition, Captain John Noel’s ﬁlm has long played a part in this mythology, yet the ﬁlm perhaps The Epic of Everest deserves to be seen on its own A ﬁlm by Captain John Noel terms. Not only did Noel capture the (£19.99, dual-format edition, BFI) grandeur of Everest in the days before mountaineers started complaining In June 1924, George Mallory and about the litter left by tourists, but his Sandy Irvine began the ﬁnal stage of documentary is one of the earliest their attempt to conquer Everest. The ﬁlmed records of life in Tibet. climbers were last seen around 250 Restored by the BFI National metres from the summit, but never Archive in a print that reintroduces returned. Ever since, speculation has the original coloured tints and swirled around over whether tones, The Epic of Everest the men made it to the top features a new score by of the world before they Simon Fisher Turner were lost. (Mojo magazine’s It’s a story that has soundtrack of the given the second year). The re-release British attempt to includes a booklet of conquer Everest a essays, documentary resonance that’s featurettes and an lasted down the alternative soundtrack, decades – something the original 1924 score that was reinforced by as recreated by ﬁlm Noel’s ﬁlm captures the the rediscovery of music specialist grandeur of Everest Mallory’s body in 1999. Julie Brown.

DVD REVIEW

New heights

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HISTORY ON FILM

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Children play near an area containing unexploded bombs. The Pathé ﬁlm juxtaposes innocent children and tiny grave sites

The “pretty toys” that turned beaches into death-traps JOANNA BOURKE examines footage from 1945 highlighting

how unexploded bombs were killing children across the UK he river Almond runs through the small village of Almondbank, in Perthshire. On 9 November 1945, two six-year-old girls – Jean Coutts and Helen Bard – were happily playing “housies” with some “pretty toys” in their backyard. Suddenly, Jean’s elder sister heard a “terriﬁc bang” followed by screams. A terriﬁed, bloodstained Jean ran past her; Helen was lying on the ground. Both of their clothes were torn to shreds, their eyes were “bunged up with earth; their faces a mass of cuts”. They were admitted to the Perth Royal Inﬁrmary with serious injuries. The “pretty toys” were grenades that had (most probably) been washed up by the river. This was not an isolated incident. As can be seen in a 1945 Pathé ﬁlm, made by the Ministry of Information, the war had left many unexploded grenades, shells and mortar bombs scattered across Britain. Around 100 children had already been killed or wounded by them. The ﬁlm dramatically illustrates the dangers, claiming that the

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war has “started a new craze, with children playing with things that soldiers use – often very dangerous ones”. The ﬁlm juxtaposes innocent children and tiny grave sites, with an arsenal of bombs and a military expert intoning: “The weapons of war are not toys.” It was a problem faced all over the country, but especially on beaches and in former military training ﬁelds. Between Ware (Hertfordshire) and Chichester (West Sussex) alone, around 100,000 mines were reported to have been removed in the 18 months before May 1945. Sixty soldiers had been killed attempting to deactivate them. Of course, there were some false scares. In Plymouth, a hand grenade found by some children (and placed in a bucket of

“When Alfie threw a block of concrete at their new ‘toy’, the explosion killed him”

To explore British Pathé’s archive of over 90,000 films from the 1890s to the 1970s go to britishpathe.com

water) turned out to be nothing more than a ﬁr cone and, a few days later, a canister of mustard gas unearthed by some workmen was judged by the gas inspection ofﬁcer to contain fertiliser. But Britons were anxious. Although the Pathé ﬁlm highlighted the danger to children, adults were also at risk. In Wareham (Dorset), three women who had trespassed onto what used to be the Studland battle range to collect some sweet plums, were prosecuted for theft as a “warning to the public”. The commandant of the range lamented the fact that locals “acted very strangely indeed about the range now hostilities were supposed to have ceased and thought they could go just where they liked”. Battle ranges were not places for “a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk” or courting couples. The commandant assured the people of Wareham that everything possible was being done to make the area safe, but not everyone agreed. The military found themselves on the defensive. They broadcast the message that they would “not ease up on their task of making the beaches safe, and they will not hand them back to the public as death-traps”. They forcefully disputed the accusations that they lacked a “sense of urgency” in mine clearance and were acting on “favoritism” in prioritising areas. In 1946, tensions were especially acute in the East Riding of Yorkshire when 10-yearold Alfred (‘Alﬁe’) Hutesop of Withernsea and his friend David Selby West found an unexploded mine on their local beach. The beach was supposed to have been cleared of mines twice. However, when Alﬁe threw a large block of concrete at their new “toy”, the explosion immediately killed him. In the coroner’s court, his playmate was asked what he thought would happen if the mine exploded. He replied that he “thought just muck would go in the air”. Instead, well after peace had been declared, the war continued to maim and kill children. Joanna Bourke is professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and author of What it Means to Be Human (Virago, 2011) Watch the British Pathé film Hands Off – Bombs at: britishpathe.com/video/ hands-off-bombs/query/ unexploded+bombs+children

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Professor Alexander Broadie on the balcony of Glasgow’s Hunterian Museum. Broadie held the same university position as Scotland’s “giant of moral philosophy”, Adam Smith

OUT&ABOUT

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HISTORY EXPLORER

The Scottish Enlightenment

Listen to Alexander Broadie ON THE PODCAST

G

lasgow University’s main building, a magniﬁcent neo-Gothic ediﬁce on top of a hill overlooking the city, dates from the middle of the 19th century. But parts of the building – in particular sections of its ﬁne gateway, now known as Pearce Lodge, and the Lion and Unicorn stairway, next to the Memorial Chapel – can be traced back to the 17th century; the statues of the lion and unicorn (shown on page 82) that ﬂank the stairway were created in 1690. Both the stairway and the lodge form a visual link with the university’s glorious past. During the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, Glasgow’s was, in the fullest sense, an Enlightenment university, as indeed it still is. The Enlightenment movement championed reason over tradition and was characterised by great scientiﬁc and intellectual achievements. It was a truly international phenomenon, yet shone nowhere more brightly than in Scotland, and in Scotland nowhere more brightly than in Glasgow University. For a country to have an Enlightenment, two elements must be in place. The ﬁrst is a large number of creative people who think for themselves instead of merely assenting to authority. The second is a level of toleration that permits such people to express themselves without risk of retribution. On these two counts, by the standards of the day, Scotland was one of the most enlightened countries in 18th-century

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Europe. In many places, but especially in the cities of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and particularly in their universities, there were creative thinkers, some of them geniuses, informing or even transforming the various academic disciplines. In Aberdeen in the early days of the Enlightenment were men such as Colin Maclaurin, a brilliant mathematician who won warm praise from Sir Isaac Newton, and the liberal educational theorist George Turnbull. One of Turnbull’s students at the city’s Marischal College was Thomas Reid, who would later replace Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow. He was the most important ﬁgure in the Scottish school of common sense philosophy, which was dominant in North America and France during the following century. Meantime, at Edinburgh University we ﬁnd the philosopher Dugald Stewart, the sociologist Adam Ferguson and the historian William Robertson. And living in the capital city, but not having university posts, were David Hume, one of the greatest philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, and James Hutton, whose Theory of the Earth has earned him the title ‘founder of modern geology’. At Glasgow University, along with Smith and Reid, was the philosopher Francis Hutcheson, the physician William Cullen, the chemist Joseph Black and the engineer James Watt. These formidable thinkers took advantage of the Scottish religious and political authorities’ relatively relaxed attitude to new and challenging ideas to set the agenda

JEREMY SUTTON-HIBBERT

As part of our series in which experts nominate British locations to illustrate historical topics, Alexander Broadie explains how Glasgow University inspired some of the 18th century’s most brilliant thinkers

BBC History Magazine

“The Enlightenment shone nowhere more brightly than at Glasgow University” PROFESSOR ALEXANDER BROADIE

BBC History Magazine

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Out & about / History Explorer

for cutting-edge research across Europe. Things were very different in France, whose many enlightened ﬁgures had to contend with an absolutist monarchy and church and a powerful system of state censorship. One lumière was Denis Diderot, a writer hostile to Christianity, whose book Letter on the Blindd landed him in prison in the fortress of Vincennes for three months. By contrast, though David Hume was widely (if wrongly) believed to be an atheist, he was never threatened with imprisonment. In fact, he was the life and soul of the societies to which he belonged, whose membership included ministers, judges, professors, aristocrats and artists, such as the painters Allan Ramsay and Henry Raeburn, and architects William Adam and his sons John and Robert. No one illustrates the role of Glasgow in Scotland’s Enlightenment better than that giant of moral philosophy, Adam Smith – a c1867 statue of whom stands near Bute Hall in the university’s main building. Smith had a long relationship with Glasgow University: as an undergraduate, then a professor – ﬁrst of logic and rhetoric and later of moral philosophy – and, for two years at the end of his life, as lord rector. Smith is now widely hailed as the ‘father of economics’, and it was while lecturing at Glasgow University that he formulated the theories that would lead to his writing The Wealth of Nations (1776), a work

long recognised as one of the greatest contributions to economic theory ever. Smith famously argued the case for free trade, contending that trade barriers do not beneﬁt the country that imposes them; on the contrary, he showed that protectionism causes a rise in prices and a lowering of employment prospects. He also argued that schooling should be made universally available and paid for by the government, even sketching out the syllabus that the schools should follow. The natural sciences are no less a feature of the Scottish Enlightenment than are philosophy and political economy. During a period of 10 years at Glasgow, one of its professors (and a former student of Glasgow), the aforementioned Joseph Black conducted research into heat. In the course of this research, he probed the science behind two major natural phenomena, which he termed latent heat and speciﬁc heat. This work makes him one of the founders of the science of thermodynamics. Among Black’s closest collaborators was James Watt, scientiﬁc instrument-maker to Glasgow University. Watt produced a brilliant solution to the problem of how to construct an efﬁcient steam engine – and, in doing so, helped transform the productivity of Britain’s manufacturing industries. Some of the scientiﬁc instruments used by men such as James Watt, Joseph Lister and Lord Kelvin are held at the university’s

“IT WAS WHILE LECTURING AT GLASGOW THAT ADAM SMITH FORMULATED THE THEORIES THAT WOULD LEAD TO THE WEALTH OF NATIONS” 82

Adam Smith, ‘the father of economics’

Specimens from the Enlightenment period are on display at the university’s magniﬁcent Hunterian Museum

magniﬁcent Hunterian Museum, founded by Dr William Hunter (1718–83), a groundbreaking obstetrician and teacher. The museum, showcasing Hunter’s remarkable collections of specimens, manuscripts and other Enlightenment material, opened to the public in 1807 and is hailed as one of the ﬁnest university collections in the world. Alexander Broadie is an honorary professorial research fellow at Glasgow University. His books include The Scottish Enlightenmentt (Birlinn, 2007) DISCOVER MORE LISTEN ONLINE 왘 For more on the

Enlightenment listen to In Our Time. Time bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548ln ON THE PODCAST

Alexander Broadie talks the Enlightenment 왘 historyextra.com/podcasts

BBC History Magazine

JEREMY SUTTON-HIBBERT

Alexander Broadie pictured on Glasgow University’s famous Lion and Unicorn staircase

THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: FIVE MORE PLACES TO EXPLORE VISIT

Glasgow University

2 Siccar Point, near Cockburnspath 쎲 scottishgeology.com

Siccar Point, on the North Sea coast, 40 miles east of Edinburgh, is famous for displaying vertical strata of rock jutting up through horizontal strata of less resistant rock. The rocks’ remarkable formation helped James Hutton, a genius of the Scottish Enlightenment, formulate the idea of ‘deep time’ – the concept that the Earth is far, far older than the few thousand years suggested by creationists.

The University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ 쎲 gla.ac.uk

In 1726 Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston, commissioned the Enlightenment architect William Adam to build a new country house on the site of the existing tower house. Completed by William’s son John, this truly magniﬁcent Palladian building, incorporating two rooms of the original tower house and with amazing baroque plaster-work by Joseph Enzer in the hall, remains largely unchanged. There have been Dundases at Arniston since 1571.

쎲 edinburgh.org

Edinburgh New Town was begun in 1767 to a design by James Craig on land north of Edinburgh’s densely populated Old Town. A classic gridiron plan, it consists of three principal east-west streets joining St Andrew’s Square in the east and Robert Adams’s Charlotte Square to the west. It was later expanded to the east and the north, forming a magniﬁcent area of continuous Georgian layout and architecture. The nomenclature of the streets is Hanoverian and unionist, a reminder that an early design for Edinburgh New Town was in the form of the Union Jack. The Old and New Towns are now ofﬁcially a World Heritage Site.

5 New Lanark, South Lanarkshire 쎲 newlanark.org

1 Arniston House, Gorebridge, Midlothian 쎲 arniston-house.co.uk

4 Edinburgh New Town

3

2 4 1 5

Now a World Heritage Site, this purposebuilt mill village was founded by businessman and merchant David Dale in 1785. The welfare and education of the workers, many of them children, was important to Dale. After 1799, his son-inlaw Robert Owen introduced better safety rules, a contributory fund for medical care, and an astonishingly enlightened system of education for all. This was a realisation of Adam Smith’s doctrine that economic activity should be within a moral framework.

Glasgow University

ALAMY/THE ARNISTON ESTATE

3 Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway, Ayr 쎲 burnsmuseum.org.uk

Arniston House is a Palladian gem that has barely changed for 250 years

BBC History Magazine

The cottage in which poet Robert Burns (1759–96) was born was built in the 1730s; the south end, consisting of a living room and byre (cowshed), was built by his father, William, in 1757. It is now a ﬁne museum. Nearby are the ruins of the Auld Kirk of Alloway, the scene of the demon revelry in Burns’s 1790 poem Tam o’ Shanter.

New Lanark offered mill workers a very different way of life to their 19th-century counterparts

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Out & about

TEN THINGS TO DO IN FEBRUARY Explore your family history EVENT Who Do You Think You Are? Live Olympia, London 20–22 February 콯 0844 873 7330 (booking line) 쎲 whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com

MAGAZINE

CHOICE

he world’s biggest family history show returns for its eighth year, offering visitors a wide range of genealogy specialists under one roof. This year’s event – managed by Immediate Media, which also publishes BBC History Magazinee – will have a special focus on the First World War, and

T

“More than 120 family history exhibitors from across the UK will be on hand to answer your questions” will be featuring the Imperial War Museum’s (IWM) Lives of the First World War project. This aims to create a permanent digital record of some 8 million men and women who fought on the front line or served on the home front during the conﬂict, bringing

together records from museums, libraries, archives and family collections across the world. IWM will be asking visitors to contribute to the project. Workshops on an array of other topics will also be taking place across the three-day event – ranging from tracing your Jewish ancestors and researching the British India Army, to using company and business records and creating your own family history reference library. Meanwhile, more than 120 family history exhibitors from across the UK will be on hand to answer your questions on how to get the most out of your family history research. If all that investigation tires you out, head to the WDYTYA? Celebrity Theatre to hear well-known ﬁgures from the Who Do You Think You Are? BBC television series talk about their experiences of ﬁlming the show, and what they found out about their ancestors. Newsreader and TV personality Natasha Kaplinsky, actor Larry Lamb and former hurdler Colin Jackson (pictured right) will all be making appearances.

READER OFFER: BUY TWO TICKETS FOR JUST £26* Simply quote HISTORY2426 when booking on whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com or when phoning 0844 873 7330. *£2.25 transaction fee per order applies. Offer ends 14 February 2014. Usual on-door price is £22 each. More information can be found at whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com

ABOVE: Former hurdler Colin Jackson will be offering insights into his genealogical research at WDYTYA? Live RIGHT: The wedding of Colin’s parents, Ossie and Angela

EXHIBITION

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

LECTURE

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

War Artists at Sea

Edward Lear in Greece

Churchill’s First War

The Queen’s House, Greenwich 15 February 2014–February 2015 콯 020 8858 4422 쎲 rmg.co.uk

Scottish National Gallery, y, Edinburgh 15 February–7 June e 콯 0131 624 6200 쎲 nationalgalleries.orrg

Churchill War Rooms, London 25 Februa ary 콯 020 793 30 6961 쎲 iwm.org g.uk

Sheffield and the First World War

A display of portraits, battle scenes and depictions of everyday life during the First and Second World Wars, taken from the Royal Museums Greenwich’s collections.

Some 32 watercolo ours of mainland Greece, Crete C and the Ionian islan nds, painted by writer and artist Edward Lear, will go on show this month.

Author a and foreign corresponden nt Con Coughlin tells the story of Churchill’s nce ﬁghting in experien Afghaniistan in the 1890s.

Weston Park, Shefﬁeld 19 February 2014– 1 March 2015 콯 0114 278 2600 쎲 museums-shefﬁeld.org.uk

This exhibition tells the stories of Shefﬁeld’s people from 1914–18 through objects and documents from the city’s collections.

Edward Lear will be a star attraction in Edinburgh

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BBC History Magazine

C Charlotte Hodgman prreviews some of the latest events and exhibitions EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY WALL TO WALL/FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE/ W © ©NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES −JOHN HAMMOND/BRIDGEMAN

From Root to Tip: Botanical Art in Brritain ain Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 28 January–11 May 콯 01223 332900 쎲 ﬁtzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

This exhibition brings together a selection of watercolours from the Fitzwilliam’s collection of botanical art to trace a histo orry ONLINE SLIDESHOW of ﬂower drawing in Britain. It showcases historyextra.com over 300 years of work by both profes/root sional and amateur artists. Among the works on show are pieces by 18th-century botanist Georg Dionysius Ehret and 19th-century English watercolour Georg Dionysius Ehret’s 1740 study of a Common painter William Henry Hunt. Unicorn Flower

EXHIBITION

By George! Handel’s Music for Royal Occasions The Foundling Museum, London 7 February–18 May 콯 020 7841 3600 쎲 foundlingmuseum.org.uk

German-born George Frideric Handel was a composer closely associated with the royal family, enjoying the patronage of three British monarchs during his lifetime: Queen Anne, George I and George II. To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Hanoverian dynasty, this exhibition will be exploring the composer and his music for royal occasions, such as Music for the Royal Fireworkss and Zadok the Priest, which has been performed at every coronation since that of George II in 1727. EXHIBITION

Stanley Spencerr: Heaven in a Hell of War Pallant House Gallerry, Chichester 15 February–15 June e 콯 01243 774557 쎲 pa allant.org.uk

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY

PERFORMANCE

Brutal Exposure: The Congo

Oh! What a Lovely War

International Slavery Museum, Liverpool 24 January–7 September *Parental guidance is advised* 콯 0151 478 4499 쎲 liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism

A display of photographs documenting the violence suffered by the Congolese in the 1900s, during the rule of Leopold II of Belgium.

BBC History Magazine

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London 1 February–15 March 콯 020 8534 0310 쎲 stratfordeast.com/oh-what-alovely-war

A new production of Oh! What Lovely Warr a musical entertainment built upon songs sung by British soldiers during the First World War.

A collection of large--scale canvas panels by First World War artist a Sir Stanley Spencer will go on diisplay at Pallant House Gallery this month, m marking the centenary of the conﬂict. The works, considereed by many to be Spencer’s greateest achievement, reprresent the artist’s wartime experiences ONLINE as a hospital ord derly in SLIDESHOW historyextra.com Bristol and as a soldier /spencer on the Salonikaa front. A detail from Stanley Spencer’s c1932 c work Map-Reading

85 85

Out & about

YE OLDE TRAVEL GUIDE

Reykjavik 1828 In the latest instalment of our historical holidays series, s in which experts imagine they’re writing a travel guide g in the past, Hannah Kent invites visitors to sample the t raw beauty of Iceland’s largest settlement ILLUSTRATION BY JONTY CLARK

Y

WHEN TO GO Iceland’s mountains are still covered with snow and the passes of its thoroughfares impassable until the end of May. Go in the middle of June, when the seas are less treacherous, and when any horses you might need for travel are no longer halfstarved from the winter’s scarcity of food and will be able to bear your weight. WHAT TO TAKE WITH YOU Icelanders are necessarily compelled to depend on foreign countries for a considerable part of their supplies, so ensure you have everything you need before departing. Plenty of warm woollen clothing is advisable, as are sturdy leather boots – unless you wish to wear the ﬂimsy Icelandic slippers of ﬁsh or seal skin – and a private supply of writing materials, candles and food won’t go amiss. Remember, also, to bring gifts for those who

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may accommodate or guide you. Books – rare and therefore treasured in this country – are a good idea. COSTS AND MONEY Bring a money pouch well stocked with Danish rigsdalerr to buy anything from the merchants in Reykjavik: all are Danish (the country is currently under Danish rule) and notorious swindlers of Icelanders, who suffer under their monopoly on trading. Should you wish to purchase items from the native countrymen, liquor, tobacco, grain and coffee can be swiftly and quietly traded for accommodation, information and food. Don’t be surprised, however, if Icelanders willingly give you

f free – they are a such things for hospitable an nd gentle people and curious abou ut travellers, who are uncommon. You may receive similar courttesy and generosity from the morre prosperous Danes who govern Iceland, but be aware thatt the cultural and political divide de between the two countries is signiﬁcant. Icelandic nationalist sentiment is slowly gaining inﬂuence. SIGHTS AND ACTIVITIES Towards the end of June, Icelanders from all over the country travel on horseback to Reykjavik with goods to trade. The town comes alive as Danish merchants establish trading stations, district authorities examine weights in shops – ﬁning those with defective measures – and Icelanders pour in from the outer reaches of the country with ﬁsh, salted mutton, tallow, wool, skins, feathers and sulphur to trade for hooks and line, cotton and indigo. Should you wish to escape the mercantile atmosphere

“PARTS OF ICELAND ARE HOME TO LIVE VOLCANOES, AND EARTHQUAKES ARE FREQUENT”

of Reykjavik, head to the south-west’s hot springs, geysers and waterfalls. DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES Nature rules in Iceland, and bad weather can scupper even the best-laid plans. As well as the perishing cold, the wind can blow so violently as to make travel near impossible. Many parts of Iceland are home to live volcanoes, and earthquakes are frequent. The eruption known as Skaftáreldar occurred only 45 years ago, poisoning water and animals, and wiping out a quarter of the population. Should you see smoke on the horizon, prepare for a swift departure. Other annoyances include the absence of doctors, an almost total lack of fresh fruit, damp lodgings and unavoidable bed bugs. Smallpox, leprosy and tuberculosis are also rife.

BBC History Magazine

WWW.JONTYCLARK.COM

OU CAN EXPECT a warm welcome from Icelanders – you’ll need it if you are to conquer the country’s famously harsh climate, not to mention its cramped accommodation and putreﬁed shark ﬂesh

REYKJAVIK TODAY

ALAMY

The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is just a few miles out of Reykjavik

SLEEPING AND ACCOMMODATION There are no formal inns in Reykjavik, so expect to rely on the hospitality of local authorities, clergymen of a high standing, or better-off Danish families if you wish to sleep in relative comfort – or at least in a wooden house. A letter of introduction prior to arrival should sufﬁce. Icelanders live in cramped crofts constructed of turf. While you can drop in and expect a warm welcome at these farmhouses, you will be required to sleep in the same communal bedroom as the family, and possibly share a bed. If all else fails, you can always pitch a tent outside or ﬁnd an empty church to shiver in.

no restaurants or food markets. Depending on the social station of your hosts, you might ﬁnd yourself served a feast of boiled mutton and coffee, or dried ﬁsh with whey to drink. Don’t be put off if the butter is rancid, the shark ﬂesh putreﬁed, or your meat smoky – all are methods of preservation in Iceland. Make sure you try the skyr, an Icelandic fresh cheese with the consistency of yoghurt, and expect to eat a lot of cod and haddock – Reykjavik lies close to ﬁshing stations.

EATING AND DRINKING Icelanders are generous to strangers, and will go to great lengths to feed you – as there are

GETTING AROUND Horses are necessary should you wish to venture out of town, as are the services of a guide. Not

BBC History Magazine

“ANNOYANCES FOR TRAVELLERS INCLUDE DAMP LODGINGS AND UNAVOIDABLE BED BUGS” only are there no roads, the weather can change in an instant, and the skeletons of many have been found days after they disappeared in a sudden fog or snowstorm. Remember to provide yourself with enough horses, and tie the forelegs of your beasts together at night to prevent them from wandering. If horse riding doesn’t appeal, engage a willing oarsman to take you across the bays around Reykjavik in a boat. Hannah Kent is author of Burial Rites (Picador, 2013), a historical novel set in 19th-century Iceland Look out for a feature on Vikings in ninth-century Iceland in our March issue

There are, no doubt, still lonesome ﬁshermen to be found navigating Icelandic waters, and that’s not all of Hannah Kent’s vision of 19th-century Iceland that can still be found. Inclement weather, an overly exuberant natural environment and, if only for tourists’ delectation, putreﬁed shark meatt will all still strike visitors head-on. In other ways, though, Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, has grown up. The compact city is both a weekend destination and an attractive gateway to the still-wild hinterland. Many stay a few days in the capital and jaunt out to the Blue Lagoon, the world’s only must-see hot mud bath fed by a geothermal power station. While Iceland remains wild – volcanoes, geysers and raging rivers abound – it is far more accessible, and B&Bs, boutique hotels and fashionable farm stays all abound. Iceland is a country with its own national culture, driven by folklore traditions, a closeness to the land and sea and a distinctiveness that is shaping its identity.

IF YOU LIKE THIS… For another unusual Atlantic destination, head for the Faroe Islands. Meanwhile, an entirely different Atlantic island with a maritime history is Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Tom Hall, travel editor, lonelyplanet. com. You can read more of his articles at the website

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Arthur Bryant Coins is a London-based coin dealing company and member of the British Numismatic Trade Association that specialises in buying and selling British coins and medals from the Anglo-Saxons to the present monarch. The company’s diverse stock has something for everyone, whether you are looking for a one-off purchase or you are a seasoned collector, and has items that cater for all budgets.

Yours to own – a genuine piece of British naval history. This exclusive ‘Trafalgar’ HMS Victory Paper Knife comprises a solid brass knife with a handle handcrafted from genuine HMS Victory Oak and stylishly inlaid with HMS Victory Copper, removed during her restoration. With only 150 made, this limited edition paper knife is priced at £105, and comes in a presentation box with a Deed of Authenticity.

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ReTouch Lighting is an antique lighting specialist company. They also have many years’ experience in the design and manufacture of bespoke luxury lighting for hotels, yachts, private clubs and restaurants. In their showroom there is a great range of crystal chandeliers, art deco and traditional style light ﬁttings from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century. The company also offers a lighting restoration service for old light ﬁttings.

UK Architectural Heritage specialises in quality architectural antiques, namely distinctive doors and ﬁre surrounds. It has one of the largest stocks of quality architectural antiques in the country. As well as stocking hundreds of ﬁre surrounds and doors, UK Heritage has a great selection of reclaimed gates, bathroom ﬁttings and other decorative antiques. UK Architectural Heritage offers nationwide and international delivery. All of its current stock is catalogued on its website.

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MISCELLANY

Q&A

Q What was the Bath School Massacre? A The worst mass murder in an American school took place in the 1920s: the perpetrator was a member of the school board. On 18 May 1927, 55-year-old Andrew Kehoe murdered his wife and blew up the farm he owned near the small town of Bath, Michigan (pictured below). Almost simultaneously, a timer detonated hundreds of pounds of dynamite he had hidden under the town’s school of which he was treasurer. Thirty-six children and two teachers were killed. During the rescue work, Kehoe drove up in a truck, detonated more explosives and killed himself, the school superintendent and several bystanders. His motives have never been fully explained. Nick Rennison

Q What are the origins of the tooth fairy?

the world was the Latvian-American Annie Kopchovsky (pictured below) who received ﬁnancial sponsorship from the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company in return for hanging an advertising placard on her bike and agreeing to change her name to Annie Londonderry. At the end of June 1894, Annie, who had never ridden a bicycle until a few days earlier, set off from Boston on a journey that was to see her criss-cross the Midwest before returning to the east coast and sailing for Europe Europe. She went on to visit Egypt, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Vietnam, China, Russia and Japan on a circuit of the world w that eventually broug g her back ght to San Francisco. o Her travels ended in Chicag g on go 12 September 1895. Nick Rennison

BBC History Magazine e

Seb Falk, Cambridge

In the medieval period, when people believed witches could put a curse on someone using their discarded teeth, dental disposal was a serious business. Children’s milk teeth were swallowed, buried, burned or left for rodents to gobble up. Meanwhile, adult Vikings paid kids for lost teeth, which they wore on necklaces to bring them good luck in battle. Presumably the idea of swapping a tooth for coins spread with the well-travelled Vikings and the two traditions began to fuse. Another superstition relating to lost teeth can be found in the medieval period when children were told to burn their baby teeth. Those who didn’t would be destined to hunt for their lost teeth for all eternity. The fairy didn’t get involved until later. In 18th-century France, the idea of

A

ILLUSTRATION BY GLEN MCBE ET TH

CORBIS/ANNIELONDONDERRY.COM

Q Who was Annie Londonderry? A The ﬁrst woman to cycle around

a ‘tooth mouse’ came from the popular fairy tale La Bonne Petite Souris, in which a mouse transforms into a fairy and rescues a captive queen in part by pushing the evil king from a tree so that four of his teeth were broken. It could be that the story calciﬁed an association between a benevolent tooth mouse and a fairy. Still, how that idea took root in England and elsewhere is not clear. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that we began to see the tooth fairy we know today – a dedicated professional who ﬂutters in as children sleep to swap a lost tooth for money. In the United States, Esther Watkins Arnold’s 1927 play The Tooth Fairyy and Lee Rogow’s 1949 book of the same name helped to establish the tooth fairy in childhood lore. Dan Cossins, freelance journalist

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Miscellany STRANGE BUT TRUE…

In medieval England it was customary for wedding cake to be thrown at the bride as a symbol of fertility Furthermore, as well as being showered with cake, baked goods – such as biscuits and buns – were piled high and the couple would att attempt t to o kiss over the mound o of sweet treats. If th If hey managed to o do so, they would supposedly be blessed with life-long happiness and prosperity. a

On the night of 20 October 1816, a travelling menagerie was camping near Salisbury when the lioness escaped from its cage. Not long afterwards, the ‘Quicksilver’ ONLINE mail coach, carrying post from QUIZ EVERY Exeter to the capital, pulled up FRIDAY historyextra.com in the courtyard of a coaching /quiz inn called the Winterslow Hut. The lioness leaped out of the shadows and onto the back of the coach’s lead horse. Driven off by a mail guard armed with a blunderbuss, the lioness was recaptured. The coach was delayed for only 45 minutes before a new horse was found and the coach set off again. Nick Rennison The mail coach is greeted by an unlikely welcoming party

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Q Why is military equipment given by the Allies to the Soviets during the Second World War so rarely documented? Was it only used for training purposes? Dean McCleland, South Africa

The Allies did indeed send signiﬁcant amounts of aid to the Soviet Union during the war: Soviet losses were so heavy that the small quantities of aircraft and tanks supplied by the Allies ﬁlled vital gaps. Although the Soviets later criticised the quality of this material and felt, rightly, that they had been given items that were not wanted elsewhere, at the time simply having anything to put into the line was important. The Soviet authorities often chose to ignore Allied contributions in propaganda to their own people, but at other times found it useful to emphasise this assistance, so as to make their people feel that they were not ﬁghting alone. There is footage, and some photographs, of Sherman tanks in action with the Red Army (3rd Guards Tank Corps used them in Operation Bagration in 1944, for instance), but generally western tanks were not rated highly by Soviet tankmen. The British Matilda and Valentine tanks were used in 1941–42 – and were

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better than some of the Soviet tanks of the time – but still did not perform very well. When it came to aircraft, the Soviets felt they had not been given state-of-theart planes, but leftovers that, in the words of one Soviet general, would otherwise have been dumped in the sea. The main Allied items that can be seen in archive footage are trucks and jeeps, although the Soviets sometimes removed the identiﬁcation plates that showed their place of manufacture. In short, Allied materiel was used and did make it to the front line, but the USSR did not go out of its way to get it on camera. On the other hand, given the ratio of so-called ‘Lend-Lease’ to Soviet production – about seven per cent – it is perhaps not surprising that, trucks aside, most of what we see in the footage now used in documentaries shows Sovietmade tanks and planes. Dr Martin Folly, senior lecturer in politics and history, Brunel University

BBC History Magazine

AKG-IMAGES/ALAMY/BRIDGEMAN

The mail coach between Exeter and London was once attacked by a lioness

Soviet air force ofﬁcers stand before a US-supplied Bell P-39 Airacobra ﬁghter plane

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Q How would ordinary Elizabethans have found out about performances of works by playwrights such as Shakespeare?

Quiz Yo ou u’ve read about the murder of Queen Victoria’’s chef on page 56. Now test your knowledge e on otther assassinations

Bill Cannon, Cleveland, Ohio

One of the most common medieval devices to advertise a play was to have actors in costume or, more usually, drummers and trumpeters, going around yelling out the news (often in verse) of the forthcoming attraction. Travelling players were still doing this around Britain well into the 19th century. In London (and other cities), however, the authorities disliked disturbances of this kind – as they could easily lead to rowdiness and disorder – and banned them. By the late 16th century, performances in London were being advertised by play-bills (the forerunners of the modern theatre programme it gramme, it’ss claimed). claimed) These were simple hand-written or

painted adverts posted at prominent points around town. While most people could not read, a fair few people could, so were able to tell others what it said. Plays were usually performed in inn yards, which also often displayed ﬂags to signify that a performance was being held that day. When London got its earliest purpose-built theatres, such as the Red Lion, the Theatre and, of course, the Globe, they continued the practice. The Globe displayed a ﬂag as a performance was due to start and continued to ﬂy it throughout. Sometimes the ﬂag would be painted to show a scene from the drama, but more usually it was a simple coloured banner – a white ﬂag for a comedy, a black one for a tragedy, and a red one for a history play. Eugene Byrne, author and journalist

7. In May 1812, Spencer Perceval became the only British prime minister to have been assassinated. Where was he killed?

2. Which is the odd man out and why? a. James Hadfield b. Edward Oxford c. John Francis d. Roderick McLean

8. Who were famously assassinated by a member of Mlada Bosna?

3. Whose assassination was advocated in the 17th-century pamphlet ‘Killing no murder’?

9. Who were the intended victims of the Rye House Plot of 1683? 10. Who was mortally wounded by assassins while riding in this car?

4. “You sockdologizing old man-trap.” Whose assassination followed these words?

10

5. Who were assassinated by the following: a. Jaques Clement b. Francois Ravaillac c. Charlotte Corday? 6. Why did Udham Singh assassinate former lieutenant governor of the Punjab Michael O’Dwyer in Caxton Hall in central London in March 1940?

Answers below Compiled by Julian Humphrys

SOLUTIONS SOLUTION TO OUR CHRISTMAS CROSSWORD Across: 8 MacArthur 10 Decathlon 11 Inﬂuenza 12 Crossword 14/15 Westminster Abbey 17 Grand Tour 20 Alliance 23 Reichstag 25 Gray 26 Beerbohm 28 Mary Beard 29 Brand 30 Joe DiMaggio 33 Iron Cross 35 INF Treaty 37 Mein Kampf 38 Moorehead Down: 1 Hahn 3 Curzon 4 Terror 5 Marshall 6 Shaw 7 Rob Roy 9 Thermidor 13 Star Chamber 14 W G Grace 16 Bhangra 18 Assyria 19/22 Opium Wars 20 Astor 21 Claudio 24 Gibraltar 27 Omdurman 29/2 Barnes Wallis 30 Joseph 31 Ian Gow 32 Goethe 34 Nina 36 Tsar

A ﬂag ﬂies at the Glob be, indicating a performance is just abou ut to begin

BBC History Magazine

FIRST PRIZE Michael Grifﬁths, Tonbridge RUNNERS UP V Benjamin, Eastbourne; Linda Randall, Buckinghamshire; Sheila Fielder, Boston; John Bosnell, Cheltenham; J Scully, St Albans QUIZ ANSWERS 1. Edward I 2. a. James Hadﬁeld who tried to assassinate King George III. The others tried to assassinate Queen Victoria 3. Oliver Cromwell 4. That of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of Our American Cousinn at Ford’s Theatre, Washington 5. a. Henry III of France. b. Henry IV of France. c. Jean-Paul Marat 6. To avenge the Amritsar massacre committed in April 1919 7. In the lobby of the House of Commons 8. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie (by Mlada Bosna or ‘Young Bosnia’ member Gavrilo Princip) in Sarajevo, June 1914 9. Charles II and his brother, James, Duke of York 10. SS General Reinhard Heydrich, in Prague in May 1942

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A

11. Whi Which h future f t English E monarch survived an assassination attempt while crusading in the Holy Land?

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Miscellany

PRIZE CROSSWORD

The remains of Charlemagne are interred in which German city? (see 23 across)

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Watching War Films With My Dad by Al Murray In this, his new book, comedian Al Murray hilariously recalls watching war ﬁlms as a child – only for, at the most dramatic scene, his dad to point out that the plane on screen hadn’t been invented yet, or that the ﬁlm is using the wrong tank. Part obsession, part memoir, it is Al’s ode to his love of history and a generation whose childhood was all about Airﬁx, Action Man and Where Eagles Dare. Published in hardback by Century, £16.99. Available to buy from all good bookstores and online

in AD 69 by Vespasian (but later rebuilt with his help) during ﬁghting with his rival, Vitellius (7)

Down 2 Pre-Roman Italian civilisation, from about 800 to 300 BC (8) 3 William III’s forces defeated those of the exiled James II at the battle here in 1690 (5) 4 Julius and Ethel, US civilians executed in 1953 for passing atomic secrets to the USSR (9) 6 Celebrated 16th-century privateer who was once mayor of Plymouth (5) 7 Greek philosopher: his ‘syllogistic’ was regarded as the sum of formal logic for over 2,000 years (9) 8 Ancient stone burial chamber (6) 9 Its members were granted the beneﬁt of exemption from lay court jurisdiction, as a result of Thomas Becket’s assassination (6) 15 Julius Caesar’s last wife (9) 16 This early 19th-century battle was a historic victory for Britain against the combined French and Spanish forces under Admiral Pierre Villeneuve (9) 17 A battle here in the Crimea in

1854 broke the will of the Russians to engage the allies in the ﬁeld (8) 19 Herbert, who produced the ‘___ Seven’, the ﬁrst British car for the popular market (6) 20 Eisenhower’s secretary of state in the 1950s, who played a major role in US Cold War policies (6) 22 Word used by the ancient Europeans for the most northerly land known to them, possibly Norway today (5) 24 English philanthropist Thomas, a driving force in the creation of London’s Foundling Hospital in the mid-18th century (5) Compiled by Eddie James

HOW TO ENTER Open to residents of the UK, (inc. Channel Islands). Post entries to BBC History Magazine, February 2014 Crossword, PO Box 501, Leicester LE94 0AA A or email them to [email protected] by 5pm on 27 February 2014. Entrants must supply name, address and phone number. The winners will be the ﬁrst correct entries drawn at random after the closing time. Winners’ names will appear in the April 2014 issue. By entering, participants agree to be bound by the terms and conditions shown in full in the box below. Immediate Media Company Limited, publishers of BBC History Magazine, would love to keep you informed by post or telephone of special offers and promotions from the Immediate Media Company Group. Please write ‘Do Not Contact Magazines’ or ‘Do Not Contact IMC’ if you prefer not to receive such information by post, email or phone. Write ‘No Email BBCW’ if you do not wish to receive similar offers via email from BBC Worldwide. Please write your email address and mobile phone number on your entry so that BBC History Magazinee can keep you informed of newsletters, special offers and promotions via email or free text messages. You may unsubscribe from receiving these messages at any time. For more about the BBC Privacy Policy see the box below.

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ALAMY

1 North African, pre-Arab people whose name is said to derive from the Roman term for barbarian (7) 5 Plantagenet king, nicknamed ‘Longshanks’, famed for his legal reforms (6,1) 10 British PM in whose tenure the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ were disenfranchised (4) 11 Current name of the nuclear site in northern England, scene of a ﬁre in October 1957 leading to a widespread radiation leak (10) 12 Battle of 1809, a defeat for Napoleon (his ﬁrst major one) by the Austrians (6) 13 19th/20th-century German physicist, celebrated for his discovery of X-rays (8) 14 The main goals of this ancient art were the transmutation of base metals to gold or silver and the ‘elixir of life’ (7) 16 The president who founded a European communist state, independent of the USSR, after the Second World War (4) 18 Old Glory is a nickname for that of the United States (4) 19 Name taken by General Montgomery (as 1st Viscount) from a north African battle location (7) 21 Roman emperor whose reign of over 40 years, was an era of peace, prosperity and cultural achievement (8) 23 German spa town which contains Charlemagne’s tomb, and where it is thought he was born (6) 25 British mathematician and computer pioneer, though best known for his work at Bletchley Park in the Second World War (4,6) 26 City that, according to legend, was founded by brothers abandoned in infancy (4) 27 Spanish prime minister who was a key ﬁgure in the country’s transition to democracy after Franco’s reign (6) 28 Town of northern Italy destroyed

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Vol 15 No 2 – February 2014 BBC History Magazinee is published by Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited under licence from BBC Worldwide who help fund new BBC programmes. BBC History Magazine was established to publish authoritative history, written by leading experts, in an accessible and attractive format. We seek to maintain the high journalistic standards traditionally associated with the BBC. ADVERTISING & MARKETING Advertising directorr Caroline Herbert Senior advertising manager Laura Gibbs Advertising manager Hayley Smith 0117 314 8369 Senior account manager Sam Jones 0117 314 8847 Group direct marketing manager Laurence Robertson 00353 5787 57444 Subscriptions director Jacky Perales-Morris Marketing executive Gemma Burns US representative Kate Buckley [email protected] PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Press ofﬁcer Carolyn Wray 0117 314 8812 [email protected] SYNDICATION Head of licensing & syndication Joanna Marshall Magazine syndication executive Simon Goodman PRODUCTION Production director Sarah Powell Production co-ordinatorr Emily Mounter Ad co-ordinatorr James Croft Ad designerr Rachel Shircore Reprographics Tony Hunt and Chris Sutch IMMEDIATE MEDIA COMPANY Publisher David Musgrove Publishing director Andy Healy Managing directorr Andy Marshall CEO Tom Bureau Deputy chairman Peter Phippen Chairman Stephen Alexander

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The Vikings: supreme seafarers Gareth Williams reveals the secrets behind the Norsemen’s maritime successes The legend of the Long March Edward Stourton explains how Mao Zedong exploited a foundation myth of China’s communists

A witness to the six wives Lauren Mackay describes the insights provided by an observer of Henry VIII’s court

Living through the Blitz Ju uliet Gardiner on the le engths to which people in n Britain went to survive G erman bombs during th he Second World War

April 2012 – March 2013

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My history hero “Ruth could have had an easy life as an academic but she followed her conscience and, in doing so, lost her life. That’s what makes her a hero in my eyes”

Ed Miliband chooses

Ruth First 1925–82

R

uth First was a South African anti-apartheid activist and academic. Born in Johannesburg, she met Nelson Mandela as a student, joined the African National Congress (ANC) and (along with Mandela) was among the defendants at the ‘Treason Trial’ of 1956. In 1963, she was jailed following a further government crackdown and held in isolation for over 100 days. The following year she went into exile, working as an academic ﬁrst in Britain and then in Mozambique, where in 1982 she was killed by a letter bomb. She was married to the anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo and had three children.

Ruth First pictured in 1956. “What happened to her showed me that politics can be a matter of life and death,” says Ed Miliband

When did you ﬁrst hear about Ruth First?

What kind of person was she?

Ruth was a very charismatic person but also determined and brave. She had to be to survive in solitary conﬁnement in a South African prison. But despite all the things that were thrown at her, she carried on ﬁghting for what she believed in, right to the end. What made her a hero?

Above all, her courage and commitment to a just cause. People sometimes ask me what it’s like to have brickbats thrown at me as leader of the opposition – and I think of her. What happens to people in politics here is as nothing compared to what she went through. As my father once said to me, Ruth could have had an easy life as an academic but she followed her conscience and, in doing so, lost her life. That’s what makes her a hero in my eyes. What was Ruth First’s ﬁnest hour?

In a way it came after she died: namely, the liberation of South Africa. She played an important part in making that happen.

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My father wrote her obituary and I’ll always remember one passage in which he said: “When South Africa has had its revolution, hers will be one of the names on the roll call of martyrs which new generations will honour…” The idea that she would become an inspiration would have probably sent her into ﬁts of embarrassed laughter, but as my dad went on to observe: “Her life and her death have made her so.” Is there anything you don’t particularly admire about her?

Not really. That said, her long struggle against apartheid put a huge strain on her home life. And some might argue – wrongly, in my view – that her commitment to regime change at times resulted in her putting her family second. Can you see any parallels between her life and your own?

Only in the sense that we were both in politics, and I share her commitment to tackling injustice in my own time, in my own way. But the scale of the challenges she faced, put mine in perspective. If you could meet Ruth First, what would you ask her?

I’d ask Ruth how she kept going in the face of such adversity, despite the personal risks involved and the price she paid in terms of family life. Ed Miliband was talking to York Membery Ed Miliband was elected a Labour MP in 2005 and served in the cabinet from 2007 10. In 2010 he was elected leader of the Labour party. To hear Ed Miliband choose his Desert Island Discs, go to bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03j8srb

BBC History Magazine

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I met her when I was 12 years old and she came to dinner at my parents’ house with her husband, Joe Slovo, who I think was the chief of staff of the armed wing of the ANC, and a long-standing friend of my father, Ralph. Ruth was a renowned anti-apartheid ANC activist in her own right, and I remember her being a larger than life, animated, vivacious person. Then, shortly afterwards, I recall my mum in tears as she told me that Ruth had been killed by a letter bomb sent by the South African secret police. It was a formative experience for me because it showed me how politics can be a matter of life and death.

STEP INTO YOUR PAST

Broadgate Centre, City of London, 2011

Looking over the roofs of parked cars across Liverpool Street towards Sun Street passage and Broad Street Station. Broadgate Centre was completed in 2009 and is located on the original site of Broad Street Station, which closed in 1986.

Broad Street Station, City of London, 1960-72

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Main image: © English Heritage (aa062586) Small image: © English Heritage (DP130928)

TOP 10 We bring you the pick of the world’s heritage destinations, from the amazing rock churches of Ethiopia to the grandeur of St Petersburg’s Hermitage

PLUS Eight heritage experiences in the UK P Explore a Yorkshire coal mine and Devon’s shipwreck coast E

Framed by its isolation, St Helena weaves an extraordinary tapestry of breath-taking natural beauty with over 500 years of history and culture. One of the last truly undiscovered destinations.

St Helena Island

images: www.marclavaud.com

“the most extraordinary place on earth” Tel: + 290 22158 | www.sthelenatourism.com | e-mail: [email protected]

TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

WELCOME

MAGAZINE Visit America’s Civil War sights, p16

It’s the time of year when many people like to plan their holidays and so we thought we’d lend a hand with our pick of history travel experiences from around the world. We’ve asked our regular expert, Tom Hall of Lonely Planet, to help us with this guide and I hope you’ll agree that he’s put together a stimulating range of destinations. It has certainly provided me with a welcome diversion from the grey skies surrounding our office today! Of course, Britain has plenty of historical delights of its own and, to reflect that, we’ve also commissioned Julian Humphrys to offer his selections of heritage experiences closer to home. So, whether it is Stirlingshire or Sri Lanka, I’m sure you’ll find something to interest you in the pages that follow.

Explore the battlefields of Normandy, p19

Discover Ethiopia’s ‘eighth wonder of the world’, p22

Rob Attar Editor

CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES/AKG IMAGES

Savour the sights and sounds of a Sri Lankan festival, p15

Top 10 Travel Experiences is a free supplement presented within the February 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine which is published by Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited under licence from BBC Worldwide. To contact us phone 0117 314 7377, email [email protected] or write to BBC History Magazine, Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol BS1 3BN

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

Go on one of the great historical pilgrimages, p20

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TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Wander the quiet streets of Brazil’s unique colonial cities razil’s time in the spotlight is fast approaching. With a football World Cup and Olympic Games coming in quick succession to South America’s largest country, there’s little chance of avoiding the sun, sand and samba clichés that sum up for many the appeal of Brazil. Delve a little deeper and the country’s rich history offers an alternative focus – and one that will leave the crowds behind. However you approach your visit to Brazil you’ll end up passing through Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo. These giants of the south-east can be seen to make up two points of a triangle with Belo Horizonte, the inland capital of the state of Minas Gerais. This city forms a gateway to exploring the state, which is the second most populous in the country and was once highly prized by colonial Portugal for its mineral wealth. Its riches have left behind a ﬁne legacy in the shape of the cidades historiIF YOU LIKE THIS... cas (historic cities). 쎲 Portuguese Throughout the region you’ll colonial history can ﬁnd well-preserved examples also be found on the of towns with atmospheric Ilha de Moçamcobbled streets, Baroque bique, an island off churches and low-rise colonial northern Mozambuildings. The town of Ouro bique. It is a UNESCO-rated Preto, perhaps the best destination with known, was the scene for the beautiful beaches start of Brazil’s gold rush in and historic the 18th century and was also architecture. the birthplace of early 쎲 Argentina’s lively Brazilian independence capital of Buenos demands. Other ﬁne stops in Aires is another Minas Gerais include Lavras superb place to Novas, Mariana and, should explore the history of South America. you want to see a mix of From there, modern and colonial inﬂuUruguay’s city of ences, São João del Rei. Colonia de SacraAdding to the lost-world mento, which has a atmosphere is the damp, cool fascinating historic climate that pervades Minas quarter, is a short Gerais, and the famed ferry ride away. hospitality of local people who seem to appreciate anyone BEST TIME TO GO Avoid the big tearing themselves away from events, but otherthe coast to explore their part wise Brazil is of the world. Belo Horizonte brilliant at any time. itself is hosting football matches in both the World TOUR OPERATORS Cup and Olympics, including Journey Latin one World Cup group match America offer a involving England, so there’s variety of tailormade trips and the chance of spotting organised tours. participants passing through. journeylatin Either way, a few days america.co.uk exploring are richly rewarded.

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REX FEATURES

B

The colonial city of Ouro Preto, now a World Heritage site, was the birthplace of Brazil’s 18th-century gold rush

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

1 The people of Minas Gerais are famed for their hospitality, appreciating anyone who tears themselves away from the coast to explore their part of the world

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

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TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Discover the recently renovated Hermitage in St Petersburg The Hermitage embodies a lost era of Russian opulence expressed in endless vast corridors, fine rooms and sweeping staircases

6

Visitors to the Hermitage can gorge themselves on permanent displays of world-famous artists including Monet, Matisse and da Vinci REX FEATURES

urely no one goes to St Petersburg without visiting the State Hermitage. Why would you? The buildings containing its thousands of wonderful works of art are reason enough to go, embodying a lost era of Russian opulence expressed in endless vast corridors, ﬁne rooms and sweeping staircases. The galleries have superb permanent displays of Monet, Matisse, da Vinci and other world-class artists, as well as objects and treasures from across Europe, Asia and beyond. Many art buffs gorge themselves in here for days on end, and anyone keen on seeing even a fraction of the treats on offer should make a full day of it – and bring sustenance to keep them going. The 250th anniversary of the museum is in 2014 and a ﬂurry of IF YOU LIKE THIS... renovation and 쎲 Another museum refurbishment has complex that may taken place over the take a week to past few years to explore can be ensure the Hermitage found in Washington DC at the Smithsonis better than ever. ian, a complex of The museums are 19 separate popular and crowds museums. can be large, but in 쎲 St Petersburg’s the ﬁve vast interconRussian Museum necting buildings that is another treasure make up the Hermittrove of Russian age it is more than art if you’ve got possible to escape the stamina for more culture. the throng, especially if you aim for the BEST TIME TO GO harder-to-access May to September section on the ﬁrst sees the city at its ﬂoor. Tickets can be best, but either end booked in advance, of this time commeaning you can skip bines a chance of the queue and arrive good weather with smaller crowds. any time. You may also want to try to TOUR OPERATORS make the most of the Regent Holidays are ﬁrst and last hours of a long-time expert opening each day in holidays to Russia when you’ll ﬁnd it and surrounding easier to get countries. a quiet view of regent-holidays. better-known works. co.uk

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BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

life & death in

Pompeii & Herculaneum The whole story of the ancient sites devastated by the cataclysmic eruption of Vesuvius. From slaves to Caesars; brothels to bathhouses: a haunting picture of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary disaster. Pompeii - no other site can compare in revealing the scale and proportions of a Roman town - vivid, immediate and haunting. The smaller town of Herculaneum, even better preserved where carbonised furniture & food survived. The Greek temples of Magna Graecia at Paestum. The treasures of Naples Museum - from poignant everyday utensils to superbly crafted mosaics.

andante travels: expert-led journeys Andante Travels has been a leading provider of cultural travel for 29 years. Our tours are planned and led by historians, archaeologists, writers and broadcasters. They include an expert guide, special access, handpicked hotels & tour manager: truly civilised journeys into history...

5, 7 & 8 Days | Tours throughout the year | From £1150

Explore the best of the ancient (and not so ancient) world. From Classical Civilisation to the Normandy Landings we offer more archaeological and historical tours than any other UK tour operator. A selection from our 2014 programme is below:

The Archaeology of D-Day Follow in the footsteps of the allied forces, 70 years after the Normandy landings.

Ancient Sicily Temples, villas, mosaics and Cathedrals: cultural melting pot of the ancient Mediterranean.

Historic Istanbul Palaces, mosques & minarets an insider’s guide to the hidden byways of Old Constantinople.

Peru & Bolivia A trip of a lifetime: Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, the Nazca Lines and much more.

145 expert-led tours - prices from as little as £495 Call us for fully priced 2014 brochure call +44 (0)1722 713800 | [email protected] | www.andantetravels.co.uk

K I R K E R C U LT U R A L TO U RS f o r

d i s c e r n i n g

t r a v e l l e r s

Our programme of Cultural Tours has been created to provide discerning travellers with a range of carefully crafted escorted holidays. Key subjects covered include Art, History, Architecture, Archaeology, Gardens & Music and groups typically consist of between 12 and 22 like-minded travellers. A selection of tours are highlighted below - for full details, ask for a copy of our Cultural Tours & Music Holidays brochure.

FLORENCE - CRADLE OF THE RENAISSANCE A FIVE NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAY | 17 NOVEMBER 2014

Our new tour with the art historian Charlie Hall has been designed to introduce some of the lesserknown treasures of Florence alongside the city’s great collections and galleries. We shall follow the development of the Renaissance which began when immensely rich and powerful families used their position to endorse their standing in society.The legacy of this artistic patronage is still to be found everywhere. Staying at the 4* Santa Maria Novella in the heart of Florence, we will explore the city’s many renaissance churches and chapels including the exquisite Ruccellai Chapel and the church of San Lorenzo designed by Brunelleschi.We will also visit the Bargello, Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio with its collection of works by Ghirlandaio, Donatello & Michelangelo.There will be some free time at the end of each day to enjoy exploring this fascinating city independently. Price from £1,325 for five nights including flights, accommodation with breakfast, three dinners and the services of the Kirker Tour Lecturer.

Piazzo Santa Maria Novella

1914-2014 | THE WW1 CENTENARY We are marking this signifi i cant anniversary with two new escorted holidays, as well as a study weekend in Oxford - ask for details.

ISTANBUL & GALLIPOLI

THE WESTERN FRONT

From Homer’s Troy to Rupert Brooke’s Gallipoli, the military history and legacy of the Trojans, Greeks, Byzantines and the Ottomans will be explored on this holiday to one of the world’s great melting pots. After four nights in Istanbul during which we visit Haghia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, the Archaeological Museum, the Naval Museum and the Florence Nightingale Museum the tour will move to Çanakkale. Visits will be made to the site of the ancient city of Troy and to the Gallipoli battlefield Charles Dixon,The landing at Anzac, 1915 sites at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove. Price £1,990 per person including flights, six dinners, four lunches and the services of our Tour Lecturer Dr Neil Faulkner.

Our six night tours to the Western Front will include stays in Ypres, Arras and Amiens. Visits include the Flanders Fields Museum, Messines Ridge, Paschendael, the French cemetery at Notre Dame de Lorrette, the German Cemetery at Neuville, theVimy Tunnels,Tilloy and The Menin Gate where we will witness The Last Post ceremony, which takes place each evening.We also spend time at the battlefields of Bullecourt, Cambrai and the Somme. The tour will travel by Paul Nash,The Menin Road 1919 Eurostar between London St.Pancras and Lille. Price £1,489 per person including six dinners, standard class Eurostar and the services of the Kirker tour lecturer, Hugh MacDonald-Buchanan.

SIX NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAYS 29 SEPTEMBER & 15 OCTOBER 2014

AN EIGHT NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAY | 3 JUNE 2014

Ask for a copy of our 2014 Cultural Tours & Music Holidays brochure Holidays include: Albania, Greece & Macedonia Sicily - An Enigmatic Island A Journey Through Romania The Palaces & Galleries of St Petersburg Umbria - The Essence of Italy

Speak to an expert:

020 7593 2284

quote GMH

www.kirkerholidays.com

TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Take one of the last remaining Royal Mail Ships to remote Saint Helena aint Helena wasn’t always remote. It was once a key stopover for ships travelling down the west coast of Africa from Europe, and as such saw thousands of ships arrive every year. Sea trafﬁc to the island declined, with ships reliant on trade winds, and today scheduled arrivals are limited to the RMS St Helena, one of the last Royal Mail Ships in service, doggedly plying a route from Ascension Island to St Helena and Cape Town. This lifeline also brings visitors keen to experience a few days on the island and explore its colourful history. Saint Helena was, most famously, the place of exile for Napoleon I after his defeat at Waterloo, and for many people, visiting the grave of this semilegendary ﬁgure is the main reason for coming. But of equal interest are the island’s 18th-century buildings, its village-like capital, Jamestown, and, perhaps most surprisingly, a giant tortoise named Jonathan, IF YOU LIKE THIS... believed to be the 쎲 Another Atlantic world’s oldest animal island outpost that must be reached by at 180 years old. sea is Tristan da The island lacks an Cunha, one of airstrip, reinforcing the world’s the remoteness of remotest places. the place and its 쎲 Napoleon reliance on the Royal enthusiasts should Mail Ship to bring head to the National anything that cannot Museum of be produced on it. the Bonaparte Residence in The uniqueness of Ajaccio, Corsica. this service means getting there, often BEST TIME TO GO combined with an While roughly colder RAF ﬂight from Brize in our summer, and Norton to the warmer during the marvellously named European winter, Wideawake airﬁeld St Helena can be on Ascension Island, visited at any time of year. is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

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ROBERT HARDING PICTURE LIBRARY

Many people come here to see the island’s 18th-century buildings, village-like capital, and a 180-year-old tortoise named Jonathan

Tourists walk down a ﬂight of steps called Jacob’s Ladder, towards the harbour at Jamestown, Saint Helena

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

TOUR OPERATORS Voyages Jules Verne (vjv.com) offer 20 or 24-night trips to St Helena via Cape Town. Or you can book direct with RMS St Helena (rms-st-helena.com).

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DISCOVER MALTA’S RICH BRITISH HISTORY Ever since the British assisted Malta to expel the French in 1799, strong ties have existed between the two – and British legacy lives on in many aspects of Maltese daily life...

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uring Roman times Malta was called ‘Melita’, because of the ﬁne-quality honey it produced. This island of delights certainly lives up to this name. But its rocky coastline, azure sea, and welcoming hospitality hide a rich history, where British legacy survives to this day. After assisting the Maltese to expel the French in 1799, the British found themselves sovereign of the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino. At ﬁrst,

‘Through cycles of war and peace, Malta’s fortunes were inextricably linked to those of Britain, and during WWI the islands played a pivotal role in the Mediterranean’

they were uncertain as to whether they should retain the territory. The Treaty of Amiens in 1802 determined that Malta would be passed back to the Order of St. John, but some of the locals were not keen to return to their former rulers and asked to remain under British protection. But the Peace of Amiens was short lived – the Napoleonic wars resumed with ferocity. So the British were drawn in to defend Malta, and in the process ended up gaining full sovereignty of the Maltese islands by the provisions of the Treaty of Paris in 1814. The British soldier Sir Thomas Maitland had just been appointed Governor of Malta, eventually becoming known by the Maltese as ‘King Tom’. From then on, Malta became an important part of the British Empire, a strategic stronghold in the region, and a stepping-stone for Britain’s expansion to the East,

Aerial view of Birgu (Vittoriosa) in Grand Harbour with Fort St Angelo at the tip of the peninsula opposite Valletta

TIMELINE: 1799-1800:

1814:

1921:

1942:

Arrival of the British

Malta becomes a British colony, under governor Sir Thomas Maitland, aka ‘King Tom’

First selfgovernment

Award of the George Cross

21 September 1964: Independence

2005:

1 May 2004 :

31 March 1979:

13 December 1974:

Malta hosts Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (due to host CHOGM again in 2015)

Malta joins European Union

Closure of British Military Base

Malta becomes a Republic, under ﬁrst president Sir Anthony Mamo

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Saluting Battery at Upper Barracca Gardens, Valletta

especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. In the late 19th century, a fortiﬁed wall was built, known as the Victoria Lines. Stretching 12 kilometres from Madliena in the east, through Mosta and Bingemma on the west coast, the wall protected the heavily populated south of the island from invading forces landing in the north. NURSE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN Through cycles of war and peace, Malta’s fortunes were inextricably linked to those of Britain. This was evident during World War I when the islands played a pivotal role in the Mediterranean, acting as a supply station and base for recovering the injured, and earning them the title, ‘Nurse of the Mediterranean’. After the war, the movement for self-determination grew stronger. There had been riots in 1919, and the ﬁrst self-government created in 1921.

WORLD WAR II In World War II, Malta played a very important active role. It was bombarded the day Italy entered the War in June 1940 and for nearly three years endured daily bombardments. King George VI was so impressed by the bravery of the Maltese that he awarded the whole population the George Cross for valour. Malta achieved Independence on 21st September 1964 (50 years ago), becoming a Republic on 13th December 1974 (40 years ago), with Sir Anthony Mamo as the ﬁrst President. British forces retained a presence in Malta but, on 31st March 1979 (35 years ago), their military bases on the island were closed. After Independence Malta became part of the British Commonwealth. On 1st May 2004 (10 years ago), Malta became a member of the European Union. These four historic landmarks in Malta’s contemporary history will be marked in a ﬁtting way during the course of 2014.

THOROUGHLY BRITISH It is hardly surprising that business, laws and education have some British overtones, considering Malta has been part of the British Empire for over 160 years. Before the arrival of the British, the official language since 1530 was Italian, used by the educated elite. Gradually English took over, until in 1934, English and Maltese were declared the sole official languages. Today, Malta still exudes a very British air. Traditional red-painted, letter and phone boxes exist around the islands, cars drive on the left, and beer is sold in pints rather than litres.

PLACES WORTH VISITING CONNECTED TO THE BRITISH PRESENCE IN MALTA War Museum – Fort St Elmo, Valletta Maritime Museum – Birgu (Vitoriosa) Heritage Malta – www.heritagemalta.org Saluting Battery – Upper Barracca Gardens, Valletta (Noon Day Gun) Lascaris War Rooms – Valletta Malta at War Museum – Birgu (Vittoriosa) The Armstrong 100 Ton Gun, Fort Rinella - Kalkara Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna – www.wirtartna.org

CONTACT DETAILS WEBSITE www.visitmalta.com EMAIL [email protected] TELEPHONE 020 8877 6990

EXPLORE BRITAIN’S HERITAGE GEMS From a world-famous Roman frontier in Northumberland to a “magnificent” royal bathing machine on the Isle of Wight, Julian Humphrys introduces eight must-visit destinations in the UK

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Walk the wall

Hadrian’s Wall Follow in the footsteps of our Roman ancestors on the Hadrian’s Wall Path, an 84-mile (135km) coast to coast National Trail, from Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway on the west coast. The route follows the line of Hadrian’s Wall, a World Heritage Site, and passes

through some of the most beautiful and rugged parts of England. There are plenty of shorter circular routes for those who may ﬁnd 84 miles a bit daunting, and a wide variety of Roman sites to visit on the way. Don’t miss the regular excavations at Vindolanda and the amazing views (and impressive latrines) at Housesteads. Find out more at hadrianswallheritage.co.uk

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Lock up the Tower

Central London Every evening at precisely seven minutes to ten the Tower of London is formally locked up in a ceremony that has taken place in some form or other every night without fail for at least 700 years. The Ceremony of the Keys, as it’s known, involves Yeoman Warders and members of the Tower of London Guard – and a limited number of members of the public are permitted to attend this ancient ceremony. Tickets are free but because of the popularity of the ceremony you need to apply in writing for them well in advance. For details on how to do this visit hrp.org.uk/Tower OfLondon/WhatsOn/ theceremonyofthekeys

Take a masterclass in medieval military architecture

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A World Heritage Site, Hadrian’s Wall winds its way through some of England’s most beautiful countryside

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Built for Edward I by Master James of St George, Conwy Castle is one of the ﬁnest surviving medieval fortiﬁcations in Britain. Its impressive defences include two barbicans and eight towers. The views from the battlements are breathtaking, though you’ll need a good head for heights. But that’s not all, for the town of Conwy still retains its own circuit of medieval walls, over three-quarters of a mile long with 21 towers. You can walk round much of this; while doing so you’ll see how each tower is open-backed and originally had a removable wooden bridge so it could be isolated if captured by an attacker. For further information visit cadw.wales.gov.uk/daysout/ conwycastle

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

ALAMY/HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES

Conwy (Clwyd)

EIGHT HERITAGE EXPERIENCES IN THE UK

A choir has sung daily services at King’s College Chapel since the 15th century

Join choral evensong in King’s College Chapel

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Cambridge

Go underground at the National Coal Mining Museum for England

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NATIONAL COAL MINING MUSEUM/KING’S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE/ALAMY/ENGLISH HERITAGE

Wakefield (West Yorkshire) Based at the site of Caphouse Colliery in Overton near Wakeﬁeld, the National Coal Mining Museum for England takes an in-depth look at an industry that, at its height, was the biggest in the UK. In the 1920s it employed nearly 1.25 million people. Interactive galleries show how miners lived, worked and relaxed, from the Victorian age through to modern times, and you can learn about the role played by pit ponies in coal mining. However the highlight of any visit has to be the opportunity to don a hard-hat and lamp and descend 140 metres on an underground tour led by a former miner. Visit ncm.org. uk for further information

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Stay in a pineapple

The Pineapple (Stirlingshire) We have John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore to thank for one of Britain’s most eccentric buildings. In 1776 on his return to Scotland after a spell as governor of Virginia he ﬁnished off his walled garden with an extraordinary summer house in the shape of a 11-metre-high stone pineapple (pictured below)! What makes this prickly pavilion additionally special is the fact that you can actually stay in it. That’s because it’s one of about 200 unusual historic buildings carefully restored and sympathetically furnished by the Landmark Trust for surprisingly affordable self-catering accommodation. For details on how to book, visit landmarktrust.org.uk

Conwy is one of the ﬁnest surviving medieval castles in Britain

Take to the waters where Queen Victoria once swam

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Osborne House (Isle of Wight) Queen Victoria ﬁrst bathed in the sea at Osborne in 1847 and the private beach where she did so is now open to house visitors. A 20-minute stroll or brief minibus ride from the house, the beach is overlooked by the magniﬁcent wheeled bathing machine used to preserve

Founded by Henry VI, ﬁnished by Henry VII and furnished by Henry VIII, King’s College Chapel in Cambridge boasts the largest fan vault in the world, splendid late medieval stained glass, extravagant displays of Tudor heraldry, and an imposing rood screen bearing the initials of Henry VIII and the doomed Anne Boleyn. Henry VI established a choir to sing daily services here and, except for a few gaps during the Reformation and Commonwealth, it has been doing this for 500 years. The public are welcome to attend choral evensong – a superb opportunity to hear this great choir in a wonderful setting. Visit kings.cam.ac.uk/events/ chapel-services for times of services

Enjoy a pint on Devon’s shipwreck coast

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Hartland Quay (Devon)

Victoria’s modesty. You can sit in the tiled alcove (pictured above) where Victoria herself often sat reading or admiring the views across the Solent. If you feel like braving the water, feel free! There are changing rooms in the charming beach cafe, which English Heritage have converted from a pavilion built for convalescing ofﬁcers in the 1940s. For further information visit english-heritage.org.uk

Perched above a wild sea at the foot of spectacular coastal cliffs, the Hartland Quay Hotel is one of England’s more isolated watering holes. It forms part of a little street that is all that remains of what was once a bustling port. This was also one of Britain’s most dangerous stretches of coastline and countless ships came to grief on its unforgiving rocks. The aptly named Wreckers’ Retreat Bar and a small museum opposite house mementoes of many of these shipwrecks, while the anchor of the SS Hoche, wrecked in 1882, is still on Blegberry Beach, a little to the north. For further information visit hartlandquayhotel.co.uk

A view of Hartland Quay, home of one of England’s most isolated watering holes

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

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Russia Specialists Since 1980

5 days from

£825 Highlights of St Petersburg Tour Discover the classical grandeur of one of the world’s most captivating cities on Regent Holidays’ 5-day escorted tour. Explore Peter the Great’s Peter and Paul Fortress, discover the treasures of the world-renowned Hermitage Museum in its 250th anniversary year and enjoy excursions to the opulent estates of Russian royalty away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

MOSCOW & ST PETERSBURG CITY BREAKS | GROUP TOURS | TAILOR-MADE HOLIDAYS | RIVER CRUISES | TRANS-SIBERIAN To speak to a Regent Holidays Russia Specialist call

020 7666 1244 www.regentholidays.co.uk

“This is William, my great great uncle. I never knew him, but it meant the world to me to visit Tyne Cot and pay my respects”

VISIT. UNDERSTAND. NEVER FORGET. ‘Visit, Understand, Never Forget’ are our watchwords for why we should all go on a battlefield tour at least once. There’s no better time to do that than in 2014 as we commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of World War 1 and 70 years since D-Day, Arnhem and the Battle of the Bulge. As the UK’s leading battlefield tour operator, Leger Holidays would be privileged to help you mark the occasion and ensure the legacy of those we lost is never forgotten.

No one knows the battlefields better For more than 15 years our Battlefield Tours have been acclaimed for the expertise of our specialist guides who share their knowledge of military history; bring the human tragedy of war to life; and go the extra mile to help you locate those you may want to remember.

0844 692 3259 or see www.battlefieldvisits.co.uk For more details, a brochure or to book call

Terms and conditions apply, see our website for details. *Price is based on the 4 day tour and includes the early booking special offer

All Quiet on the Western Front * 4 or 5 days from £259

Join this fascinating tour and discover the stories of tragedy and bravery from the Somme and Flanders.

Departures throughout 2014

We take care of everything

Flanders Fields • Tyne Cot Cemetery • Irish Peace Tower • Ploegsteert Memorial • ‘Last Post Ceremony’

The Somme • Historial Museum at Péronne • La Boisselle • Thiepval Memorial • Ulster Tower

Tunnels & Trenches • Arras • Wellington Quarries • Arras Memorial • Vimy Ridge

Knowledgeable, Specialist Battlefield Guide 3 or 4 nights’ accommodation with breakfast Travel by executive coach or upgrade to Silver Service luxury coach for rear lounge, extra legroom and much more More than 510 regional coach joining points

Save

up to

£20

SAVE £10 on Jun to Oct 2014 departures when you book by 28 Feb 2014. SAVE £20 on 2015 departures when you book by 30 Apr 2014 Quote Ref: B14155

Choose from more than 48 escorted battlefield tours... send for your FREE brochure today.

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TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Attend the colourful Kandy Perahera in Kandy, Sri Lanka ri Lanka’s iconic hill country can be found for real in Kandy, a colourful and characterful city sitting amid lush greenery. Kandy is best known as the home of Sri Lanka’s most famous Buddhist treasure, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, but a visit here offers far more. Many people ﬁnd the cooler climate a welcome respite from the searing heat of Colombo and other coastal areas, and anyone on the trail of either the island’s historic tea scene or seeking wildlife sanctuaries will ﬁnd Kandy the perfect pit-stop. As with so many former colonial centres, Kandy has a poignant British garrison cemetery. If possible, come around the time of the Kandy Esala Perahera, an amazing series of processions in the city to honour the sacred tooth. Featuring trademark large

numbers of elephants, this event is arguably Sri Lanka’s best-known festival. It takes place during the month of Esala, which falls in July and/or August each year – in 2014 it’s from 10–20 August. The last four nights are the most notable, with the biggest and best processions taking place. This is a popular time to be in town, and you should book accommodation and transport ahead and, if possible, arrange seats by the procession. Do come though: it is the peak time to be in Kandy, when the city is at its best and most lively. As well as the elephants, Kandyan dancers and drummers who lead the procession in their thousands are the stars of the Perahera. If you’re in town at another time of year seek out one of the nightly performances given at a few venues across Kandy.

4 An elephant and Kandyan dancers light up the Kandy Esala Perahera, arguably Sri Lanka’s best-known festival IF YOU LIKE THIS... 쎲 To ﬁnd a colourful, off-beat festival aim for Thailand when Songkran is held. This celebration of new year is characterised by mass water ﬁghts. It happens in April and you should be prepared to get soaked! 쎲 Steamy south Asia can also be discovered among the back-

waters and houseboats of Kerala, India. BEST TIME TO GO Come for the ﬁnal few days of the Perahera – but book ahead. TOUR OPERATORS Travel Sri Lanka can arrange tailor-made packages across the island. travel srilanka.co.uk

Discover Oman’s historic cities n a part of the world that’s big on modern opulence, Oman bucks the trend. Its history dates back millennia, from the gathering of early copper trading wealth to a 19th-century Indian Ocean empire that included Zanzibar and Mombasa. After a period of isolation Oman has been quietly modernising, and visitors travelling to the country will ﬁnd a distinct and different slice of Arabia.

Muscat, the capital, is the logical starting point, and though its suburbs sprawl along the coast, the main sights are in Mutrah: the eponymous souq and fort and the Bait al-Baranda museums. Similarly unmissable are Old Muscat and the Al-Jalali and Al-Mirani forts. Oman has a wealth of other sights, including the historic cities of Nizwa and Salalah and the forts at Jabrin and Bahla.

So great is the concentration of historic defences that you may even ﬁnd fort fatigue setting in. At this point it’s time to head to the pools and plantations of Wadi Shab or Wadi Bani Khalid – green oases at odds with visions of the Arabian Desert. It seems just a matter of time before a greater number of visitors explore Oman’s delights. By going now, you’ll keep ahead of the crowds.

CORBIS/REX FEATURES

5 A view of Old Muscat, with the “unmissable” Al-Mirani fort in the background

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

IF YOU LIKE THIS... 쎲 You can stay on the trail of Omani history by exploring the Sultan’s Palace in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania. 쎲 Another underappreciated Middle Eastern destination with a lot to offer is Jordan, especially once you venture beyond Petra. BEST TIME TO GO Oman is best visited in October and November or March, April and May. Winter travel is also possible but high summer is best avoided. TOUR OPERATORS Steppes Travel is a specialist in Oman with tours covering classic sights and more. steppestravel.co.uk

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TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Take a historical road trip to Civil War sights in the USA merica was made for the road trip, and there is no shortage of historical delights, from settler sights in Massachusetts to the fascinating remnants of Gold Rush California. Of all the history to be explored nothing explains, puzzles and endures like the American Civil War. Today, Civil War battleﬁelds, cemeteries and memorials in states including Virginia, Maryland and Tennessee are given added poignancy due to their locations in some of America’s loveliest scenery. Amid green rolling countryside thousands of young Americans on each side lost their lives. Washington DC seems a good place to start, with a journey north to Gettysburg, scene of the turning point of the war. It is logically combined with Antietam National Battleﬁeld, which on 17 September 1862

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became the scene of the bloodiest single day in US history. South-west of the capital, Manassas offers a precious, preserved view of a rural battleﬁeld. Meanwhile, Fredericksburg is a classic 18th-century town and Lexington’s Appomattox Court House (now designated a National Park) was where the Confederacy ﬁnally surrendered. The insights of local guides and national park rangers can be fascinating. You’ll ﬁnd Civil War history in many places across the south, with hundreds of historic sites recorded and preserved by the Civil War Trust (civilwar.org/civil-war-discovery-trail). The trust is currently commemorating the 150th anniversary of the war in a four-yearlong programme of events. As this is America, you’ll need a car and be prepared to travel reasonably long distances.

IF YOU LIKE THIS... 쎲 A few days in Savannah, Georgia will show you a more modern take on the classic American south. 쎲 While America was shaking, Italy was unifying. Explore this colourful, complex story in, among other locations, Palermo in Sicily. BEST TIME TO GO Come later in the year for a blast of fall foliage – October and November are ideal. TOUR OPERATORS Battleﬁeld Breaks (battleﬁeld-breaks. com) offers a tour of several key Civil War sights. Try also US-based Tauck (tauck.com).

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CORBIS

The Ohio Monument at Gettysburg National Military Park, scene of a battle that proved the turning point of the American Civil War

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

6 Of all the history to be explored in the United States, nothing explains, puzzles and endures like the American Civil War

BBC History Magazine Top 10 Travel Experiences

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K I R K E R C U LT U R A L TO U RS f o r

d i s c e r n i n g

t r a v e l l e r s

Our programme of Cultural Tours has been created to provide discerning travellers with a range of carefully crafted escorted holidays. Key subjects covered include Art, History, Architecture, Archaeology, Gardens & Music and groups typically consist of between 12 and 22 like-minded travellers. A selection of tours are highlighted below - for full details, ask for a copy of our Cultural Tours & Music Holidays brochure.

FLORENCE - CRADLE OF THE RENAISSANCE A FIVE NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAY | 17 NOVEMBER 2014

Our new tour with the art historian Charlie Hall has been designed to introduce some of the lesserknown treasures of Florence alongside the city’s great collections and galleries. We shall follow the development of the Renaissance which began when immensely rich and powerful families used their position to endorse their standing in society.The legacy of this artistic patronage is still to be found everywhere. Staying at the 4* Santa Maria Novella in the heart of Florence, we will explore the city’s many renaissance churches and chapels including the exquisite Ruccellai Chapel and the church of San Lorenzo designed by Brunelleschi.We will also visit the Bargello, Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio with its collection of works by Ghirlandaio, Donatello & Michelangelo.There will be some free time at the end of each day to enjoy exploring this fascinating city independently. Price from £1,325 for five nights including flights, accommodation with breakfast, three dinners and the services of the Kirker Tour Lecturer.

Piazzo Santa Maria Novella

1914-2014 | THE WW1 CENTENARY We are marking this signifi i cant anniversary with two new escorted holidays, as well as a study weekend in Oxford - ask for details.

ISTANBUL & GALLIPOLI

THE WESTERN FRONT

From Homer’s Troy to Rupert Brooke’s Gallipoli, the military history and legacy of the Trojans, Greeks, Byzantines and the Ottomans will be explored on this holiday to one of the world’s great melting pots. After four nights in Istanbul during which we visit Haghia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, the Archaeological Museum, the Naval Museum and the Florence Nightingale Museum the tour will move to Çanakkale. Visits will be made to the site of the ancient city of Troy and to the Gallipoli battlefield Charles Dixon,The landing at Anzac, 1915 sites at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove. Price £1,990 per person including flights, six dinners, four lunches and the services of our Tour Lecturer Dr Neil Faulkner.

Our six night tours to the Western Front will include stays in Ypres, Arras and Amiens. Visits include the Flanders Fields Museum, Messines Ridge, Paschendael, the French cemetery at Notre Dame de Lorrette, the German Cemetery at Neuville, theVimy Tunnels,Tilloy and The Menin Gate where we will witness The Last Post ceremony, which takes place each evening.We also spend time at the battlefields of Bullecourt, Cambrai and the Somme. The tour will travel by Paul Nash,The Menin Road 1919 Eurostar between London St.Pancras and Lille. Price £1,489 per person including six dinners, standard class Eurostar and the services of the Kirker tour lecturer, Hugh MacDonald-Buchanan.

SIX NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAYS 29 SEPTEMBER & 15 OCTOBER 2014

AN EIGHT NIGHT ESCORTED HOLIDAY | 3 JUNE 2014

Ask for a copy of our 2014 Cultural Tours & Music Holidays brochure Holidays include: Albania, Greece & Macedonia Sicily - An Enigmatic Island A Journey Through Romania The Palaces & Galleries of St Petersburg Umbria - The Essence of Italy

Speak to an expert:

020 7593 2284

quote GMH

www.kirkerholidays.com

TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Tour Normandy’s D-Day beaches

s historical jaunts go, there’s little to beat Normandy, which has, down the centuries, been one of Europe’s most fought-over and coveted possessions. Different eras raise their heads dependent on location: Roman remains at Lillebonne; the Norman invasion of England leaving behind Bayeux’s famous tapestry; Rouen’s cathedral, famously painted by Claude Monet; and the city’s sights relating to Joan of Arc. Honﬂeur’s beautiful port also makes for a ﬁne overnight stop. A main attraction for those interested in the Second World War is the series of beaches where the Allies landed on 6 June 1944. The D-Day beaches (code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword) stretch along the coast between Cherbourg and Honﬂeur, and simply walking on any one of them provides a poignant start to exploring the wartime history of the region. The wide-open sands, backing on to quiet lanes and villages, seem a world away from the pitched battles, bitter ﬁghting and terrible casualties of that day, which are evidenced by the war cemeteries and frequent memorials found IF YOU LIKE THIS... in the area. Numerous 쎲 Belgium and museums help explain the northern France story, including Bayeux’s are also marking a signiﬁcant anniverBattle of Normandy sary of conﬂict in Memorial Museum and 2014 – the centenary many smaller attractions of the outbreak of devoted to subjects the First World War. as broad as batteries, 쎲 Normandy’s mulberry harbours and laid-back rural the daily life of the air and maritime occupied French. history have echoes Marking the 70th in Cantabria, northern Spain. anniversary of the landings, 2014 is sure BEST TIME TO GO to be a busy year. Most Early June is visitors come as part understandably of an organised tour, or busy, as is August they drive, and the sites when Normandy can be visited year-round. throngs with visitors Public transport is from around the possible to most beaches world. Avoid these times for quieter but can be infrequent, so visits to the check in advance and be beaches. mindful of times.

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Simply walking on one of the D-Day beaches provides a poignant start to exploring the history of the region

CORBIS

Pointe du Hoc, which sits between Omaha and Utah beaches. A daring US Rangers raid captured German fortiﬁcations here on D-Day

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TOUR OPERATORS Leger Holidays offer four and seven-day escorted coach tours of the D-Day sites. leger.co.uk

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Explore the secrets of Renaissance Florence lorence, the medieval heart of beautiful Tuscany, needs little by way of introduction. Its pell-mell of streets, lined with low-rise russet-roofed buildings, radiates out from the spectacular duomo, or cathedral, one of the great buildings in the world. To walk the lanes of Florence from Santa Maria Novella train station, a sensational modernist ediﬁce, to the banks of the river Arno, preferably in the hours around dawn, is to take a stroll to another era. The ambience of the city alone would be enough to make Florence a must-visit destination, but the city keeps some of its ﬁnest secrets behind lock and key, only accessible to those in the know. Take a look at the Ponte Vecchio, the city’s iconic, shop-lined covered bridge and you may notice that there is an

8 additional level to the buildings. This, and the sealed passageways linking the bridge to Palazzo Vecchio on the north side of the Arno and the Palazzo Pitti on the south, form the Corridoio Vasariano (Vasari Corridor). This kilometre-long walkway, lined with priceless Medici portraits by Rembrandt, Rubens and others, was built for Cosimo I in 1564 to allow private and safe passage between the two palaces. It also kept the city’s elite away from the riff-raff below. You can access the Vasari Corridor by tour only, either by sporadic small-group tours laid

on by the Polo Museale Fiorentino (ufﬁzi.ﬁrenze.it/en/ musei/tutti.php) or a more expensive English-language tour. Either is well worth the effort. The corridor also passes through the church of Santa Felicita, so if you can’t get to see the corridor from inside you can pop in here and get a ﬂavour of the exclusivity it bestowed on those using it. That, and the different take on the city the corridor offers, is something best contemplated over a refreshing gelato or two – another thing Florence does rather well.

IF YOU LIKE THIS... 쎲 For another slice of Italy’s hidden history, take the spooky scavi (excavations) walking tour of the necropolis underneath the Vatican in Rome and get an exclusive peek at St Peter’s tomb. Book well in advance at vatican. va/roman_curia/ institutions_connected/uffscavi 쎲 If Florence is proving too crowded you can aim for Fiesole, a slice of Tuscan hilltop perfection that’s a half-hour bus ride away. BEST TIME TO GO Florence is at its best in early summer and autumn. TOUR OPERATORS Florence Town (ﬂorencetown.com) organises Englishlanguage tours of the Vasari Corridor for a pricy but worth-it €125 (£106).

Walk Papua New Guinea’s iconic Kokoda Track

9 The Kokoda Track is fast becoming one of the world’s great historical pilgrimages

hy trek 60 miles through the sweltering New Guinea rainforest, up and across the mighty Owen Stanley Range of mountains? Certainly not for a relaxing, gentle stroll: the Kokoda Track is a brutal way to spend a week and a half, slipping and sweating along

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an unrelentingly steep trail in sweat-soaked humidity. And yet this walk is fast becoming one of the world’s great historical pilgrimages. Thousands of Australians, and a growing number of other nationals, attempt the Kokoda Track every year. They come to explore the history of one of the Second World War’s toughest battles, to better understand the brutal conditions endured by Japanese and Australian soldiers as they fought over this long, thin ﬁnger of territory that held the key to control of New Guinea. The skirmishes have come to be seen as pivotal in the development of Australia as a nation, as the Australian troops’ victory here possibly prevented an invasion of Queensland, and

changed the shape of the war in the Paciﬁc. Tackling the track is tricky without a guide who knows the route well and can advise on supplies and sustenance along the way. They can also illuminate the trek with stories of the war and introduce trekkers to local peoples living in villages passed through along the way. Despite the growing popularity of Kokoda, Papua New Guinea is still one of the world’s most remote destinations. Safety is an issue in a small number of cases in larger towns – and especially Port Moresby – but as in so many places, the reality of visiting does not match the reputation. That said, it’s a good idea not to ﬂaunt valuables, here as anywhere.

IF YOU LIKE THIS... 쎲 For another curious slice of history head to the Venice of the Paciﬁc, Nan Madol in Pohnpei, Micronesia. BEST TIME TO GO British summer is the time when you’ll ﬁnd the trail driest and at least a little cooler. TOUR OPERATORS Peregrine Adventures offer Kokoda Track treks, the experience of which requires in their words “ﬂexibility, patience and good humour”. peregrineadventures.com

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CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Part of the Vasari Corridor, which is lined with priceless portraits of the Medici

1944 -2014

Copyright A ex Green 2014

ormandy CELEBRATEs liberty

www.normandy-dday.com

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The vast cruciform church of Biete Giyorgis has been called, with some justification, the eighth wonder of the world Biete Giyorgis, one of a complex of incredible rock-hewn churches that make the Ethiopian town of Lalibela an unforgettable place to visit

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TOP 10 TRAVEL EXPERIENCES 22

Follow the pilgrims to the amazing rock churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

thiopia is Africa’s secret historical gem. Treasures are found across the country, from Gondar’s Arthurian castles to Axum in the far north, rumoured (and much-believed in, if you’re Ethiopian) resting place of the Lost Ark of the Covenant. In the east is the ancient walled Islamic city of Harer, where tiny mosques are found in trees and poet Arthur Rimbaud’s house is now a small and fascinating museum. Nowhere, though, is quite like Lalibela. Nestled high in the country’s central mountains, this small town appears on ﬁrst sight to be an unremarkable market centre, coming to life on market days when farmers arrive from miles around to sell their produce. What brings a steady ﬂow of visitors here, however, is the miraculous, mysterious complex of rock-hewn churches found in several groups around the town. As the fame of Lalibela has grown, so has awareness of the churches, and many people are familiar with Biete Giyorgis, the vast cruciform church that has been called, with some justiﬁcation, the eighth wonder of the world. The best and busiest time to be here is around IF YOU LIKE THIS... Timkat, the noisy 쎲 If you’re keen on Ethiopian Orthodox Africa’s historical festival of the epiphany. sights, aim for Such is the sacred Sudan’s magical pyramids at Meroe. nature of these church쎲 For another es, though, that even unexpected twist dawn services are on Christianity, try common in Lalibela and the Coptic side of should not be missed. Cairo, Egypt. The connection with an ancient mysticism, BEST TIME TO GO and the feast for the Timkat, the Ethiopian Orthodox senses, is intense for all festival of the who witness a service at Epiphany, takes one of the churches. place on 20 January Just walking around each year. This cointhem is atmospheric cides with the dry enough, with narrow season, which is a paths deep in the rock good time to get connecting the churches around, although and exposing pilgrims offering less in the way of greenery. squirrelled in niches praying quietly to TOUR OPERATORS themselves. Rainbow Tours Visit, and you’ll almost are specialists in certainly emerge with a African destinations different perspective on and offer tailorChristian history, Africa made and small and the misunderstood group tours. country of Ethiopia itself. rainbowtours.co.uk

Modern day Normandy Landings

Re-live history

time of year

Want to ﬁnd out more about the Normandy landings, a pivotal time in World War II? Visit early in 2014, avoid the crowds and make the most of the region’s museums and attractions.

Visit brittanyferries.com/2014dday or call 0871 244 0170 Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras.

INCLUDED IN YOUR TOUR Fully escorted tour with local English speaking guides throughout Scheduled flights from London Heathrow direct to Sri Lanka. Other regional flights are available at a supplement Accommodation in 4# hotels and all meals as specified Air-conditioned/heated transportation, (excluding the jeep safari) Entry fees to all sights All airport taxes and security charges

JEWELS OF SRI LANKA TOUR Dambulla, Kandy, Yala National Park & Mount Lavinia

£1,095

9 DAYS FROM

Your included meal guide: B = Breakfast, L = Lunch, D = Dinner DAY 1: UK to Colombo Depart London on your scheduled flight to Sri Lanka, DAY 2: Dambulla D On arrival, transfer to your hotel where you will have the rest of the day to relax and explore. DAY 3: Dambulla B/L/D Today you will explore the stunning Sigiriya Rock Fortress, a World Heritage Site dating back to the 5th century AD. Also known as the ‘Lion Rock’, it is a citadel of unusual beauty rising 200 metres from the jungle. Following lunch, continue on to the ancient city of Polonnaruwa, where you can admire the ruins of the Royal Palace and wander around the Gal Vihare, famous for its splendid carved Buddha statues. DAY 4: Dambulla & Kandy B/L/D Visit the Dambulla Rock Temple, where the impressive caves contain over 2,000 square metres of painted walls and ceilings, which were once gilded by the ancient King to mark his place of worship. You will then travel to Kandy, visiting a spice garden en-route. Visit the famous Temple of Tooth Relic in the afternoon and, after dinner, relax whilst watching an eclectic cultural show. DAY 5: Kandy B/L/D Travel to the beautiful botanical gardens in Peradeniya, boasting more than 4,000 species of trees, plants and creepers and a stunning Orchid House. Next, continue to Giragama to visit a tea factory and plantation before a city tour of Kandy, including a bazaar and an arts centre.

DAY 6: Kandy & Yala B/L/D Today’s highlight is a trip to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, established in 1975 to care for wounded and abandoned elephants. Witness these magnificent creatures in close quarters and see young elephants being fed, bathed and trained. After lunch, journey through Sri Lanka’s striking scenery to your hotel near to Yala, a region renowned for its wildlife and cultural ruins. DAY 7: Yala B/L/D Enjoy the morning at leisure before your exciting jeep safari around the magnificent Yala National Game Park, the largest in Sri Lanka. The park is home to elephants, wild boars, buffaloes, bears, deer and crocodiles as well as a number of migratory and indigenous birds. You may even spot a leopard! DAY 8: Yala & Mount Lavinia B/L/D Travel to Galle, once the chief port of Ceylon and the centre of the Dutch regime in the 17th century. A city tour lets you discover the majestic Galle Fort and the surrounding historic buildings which reflect the Dutch heritage which once reined the country. Travel north for your final night at the famous Mount Lavinia Hotel. DAY 9: Colombo to the UK B Transfer to the airport for your flight to the UK.

Dambulla

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Our 9 day, 7 night tour allows you to experience the beautiful interior of Sri Lanka, exploring the delights of Dambulla and Sigiriya Rock and the colonial cities of Kandy and Galle too. Visit ancient temples of past civilisations, wonder at the beautiful botanical gardens in Peradeniya, meet the elephants at the Pinnawala Orphanage and take a safari through Yala National Park.

Colombo airport • Pinnawala •

Colombo Mount •1

2

Kandy

Lavinia

•Galle

Coach

2014 DEPARTURES Feb

27th

£1395

Mar

19

£1395

Apr

2nd

£1395

Oct

th

15

£1395

May

14

th

Sep

24

th

£1395

£1195

Nov

12th

£1395

Jun

4

th

£1095

Dec

3

£1395

Jul

2nd

£1295

th

rd

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS Visit the Sigiriya Rock Fortress Meet the elephants at the Pinnawala Orphanage Explore the Dambulla Rock Temple Tour the Temple of Tooth Relic City Tour of Kandy and Galle Enjoy a Cultural Show

• 4 night Sri Lanka Beach Stay from £199

Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya

These add-ons can only be taken at the end of the main Jewels of Sri Lanka Tour.

£1395

3rd

EXTEND YOUR STAY • 4 night 4# Magical Maldives add-on from £439 • 4 night 4# Kerala Beach Stay from £295 • Highlights of Kerala 3 night Mini Tour from £299

Yala

2

Polonnaruwara and Yala National Park Experience a Jeep Safari Visit a Tea Factory and a Tea Plantation

To book call 0843 224 0504 Quote offer code MSRT80

Open 7 days a week 9.00am-9.00pm Or visit www.mercurydirect.com/msrt80

ABTA No: V0211

Prices will vary dependant on departure date and airport choice. A visa and insurance must be obtained before travelling to Sri Lanka, we are happy to arrange these for you. Availability may be limited. All offers are subject to availability & can be withdrawn without notice. Terms & conditions apply. Prices are per person based on 2 adults sharing.