The Truth about the Christmas Day Truce

Forget the advert from Sainsburys and even the video from Paul McCartney, this is a first hand account of the Christmas Day Truce a hundred years ago tomorrow:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/24/-sp-letter-extraordinary-sights-christmas-day-first-world-war-truce

Amazing photographs

As a student of history I thought I'd seen many of the best photographs that were taken in WW1.  but ocasionally you see something new that makes you stop and look again.

These are stereoscopic images to be looked at through a viewer.  Although some look a little posed, it is good to see some different perspectives (literally) of the War:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/nov/08/photographs-from-the-front-line

Testament of Youth

I came to Testament of Youth by way of the classic BBC TV serialisation: Cheryl Campbell gave an outstanding performance as Vera Brittain.  I read the book shortly afterwards, and I've even seen a one-woman stage version.

The reviews for the new film version look good and I'll definitely see it- even though the film makers seem to have moved Somerville to Radcliffe Square and rebadged BNC:

The BBC filmed in Somerville, and there was some brilliant editing to make sure that the tracking shots did not pick up any of the new buildings.

An Amazing Memorial

I found this quite astonishing: a family in France has kept the bedroom of their son who was killed in WW1 exactly how it was since he died:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11162640/First-World-War-memorial-bedroom-to-fallen-French-soldier.html

This is just so much more personal than lists of names carved into stone memorials across Europe.

In Birdsong one of the most poignant sections s when one of the soldiers turns up again as a shell-shocked eteran in a care home, and to me this seems similar: the impact of the eventys ogf 1914-1918 do not end.

 

In Flanders Field

I  read this review at the weekend and immediately ordered the CD:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/26/in-flanders-fields-review-first-world-war-michael-morpurgo

The CD features Coope, Boyes and Simpson, ie is Morpugo-less, but nonetheless it is brilliant.  It arrived just over an hour ago and I'm currently listening to it.

I know some of the music, especially the songs that feature in Oh What A Lovely War, but these performances are stripped back and much rougher.  Brilliant!

 

MCMXIV

I wanted to post something today because of the date, and after much deliberation there was only choice:

MCMXIV
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day--

And the countryside not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Philip Larkin

Inevitably Alan Bennett quotes from it in The History Boys.
 

Bullet Proof Vests Made From Silk

This almost reads like an April Fool Joke (remember San Serif?) but a quick check on the date proves that this is definitely not the case.

Apparently if Franz Ferdinand had been wearing his bullet-proof vest then he might have survived the assassination attempt - and the whole of 20th (and 21st) Century history would have been different:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/29/bulletproof-silk-vest-prevent-first-world-war-royal-armouries

Battle of the Historians

It was a surprise to find Simon Heffer writing in the NS, but as I'd read most of the books he mentioned I read and enjoyed the article very much:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/07/simon-heffer-first-world-war-battle-historians

I particularly liked the put down of Max Hastings as being someone who writes about the past rather than being a historian.

All it needs to turn it into an exam question is inverted commas and the dreaded word "Discuss".

The First Casualty in the History War

Despite a valaiant fight the Secretary of State for Education finally succumbed to the massed ranks of historians who had been pounding him for months.

He can now be found in the Whips Office of the House of Commons.  Do I see the possibility of a UK remake of Kevin Spacey's series for Netflix?

You might think that. I could not possibly comment....


 

Journalism is not always the first draft of history...

...especially when the Daily Mail is involved:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jul/14/dailymail-firstworldwar

The Lights Are Going Out

I've just found this report about plans to sitch off lights in public buildings on 4th August to commemorate (rather than celebrate) the outbreak of war in 1914:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/10/lights-out-lamps-mark-first-world-war-start

I think it's an excellent idea, and Sir Edward Grey's comment about the lights going out all over Europe almost always provokes an involuntary shiver.

I also like Alan Bennett's misquotation:

"They're rolling up the maps all over Europe.  We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

In its own way this has a ring of truth too: it was WW2 that ended with Europe in flames and another redrawing of the map...

 

Debunking WW1 Myths

This is fascinating: a historian (Dan Snow - for it is he) debunks popular myths about WW1 and receives hate mail from people because the truth does not match up with their own preconceptions/illusions/handed down family stories:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10931918/Historian-Dan-Snow-received-hate-mail-for-debunking-World-War-I-myths.html

The only one that really surprised me was "Lions led by Donkeys": it was only recently that I read that Alan Clark (of Diaries fame) admitted making this up for his otherwise excellent book The Donkeys.

It's proably why I never got on with religion: I always want to corroborate my sources, or at least evaluate the authors as objective observers - always a vain hope when it comes to matters spiritual.

Once again we're back to Alan Bennett: that's not how it was; that's just how he thinks it was.

And tomorrow the July crisis begins in earnest...

The centenary proper starts today

Today is the centenary of the assassination of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo: not in itself the cause of WW1, but certainly the starting point for the series of events over the next month that led to the outbreak of war.

At moments like this it's good to turn to Alan Bennett who touched on this period in Forty Years On.

One of the characters in the play within the play is remembering the period before the war, and another debunks his memory:

"Tempest: ...One boat on the wan, listless waters of the lake and nothing stirring in Europe for years and years and years.

Hugh: That's not how it was. That's only how he thinks it was. Really it was wars and rumours of wars, jut like any other time."

Bizarre historical coincidence: my copy of the script is now just over forty years old.

 

Europe 1914 - 2014

This is amazing: an interactive map showing the changes in the map of Europe between 1914 and 2014:

http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/infographics/25427811.html

#fallofempires
 

Adlestrop

We're getting near to the start of the main centenary season, but before we do so I heard on the radiothis morning that today is the centenary of the unscheduled stop that Edward Thomas's train made in Adlestrop.

Here's the poem:

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.         

 I think we read it in school, but I've never studied it and the discussion on the radio was fascinating. Thomas did not write the poem until 1915 when he was at war, and with that knowledge you immediately see that incredible pause -  "No one left and no one came" - as if there is a vast holding of breath before the start of the July Crisis and everything that followed on from it.            

German War Art

This article about German artists during WW1 is astonishing:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/14/first-world-war-german-art-otto-dix

I suppose we all know about the war poets, and to a lesser extent the British war artists, but it's salutary to be reminded that the horror of war was a universal experience.

It's also ironic to notice that the Nazis condemned such art as degenerate before plunging the world into a war that was even more barbaric.

 

The Best Books about War

The Daily Telegraph has an interesting list of the best books about war and battle:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10630791/Best-war-and-history-books-of-all-time.html

I'm pleased to say that in terms of fiction I've read Birdsong as well as the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker, but am surprised not to find Strange Meeting, Susan Hill's masterpiece on this list.

In terms of factual books it's good to see The Guns of August on the list: an old book, but most current writers seem to include it in their bibliographies.  The list is far wider in scope than just WW1, but I'd also nominate The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer in any list of books on the Great War.

A Bulletin from the History Wars

This is an excellent article about the history of history books (plus plays and films) about WW1:

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21599798-first-world-war-was-defining-event-20th-century-thousands-books-have

I've read both of the heavywights on the cuases of the war and have enjoyed them both: heavy going in places, but it is a difficult story to tell.

Now I'm looking forward to hearing both Margaret MacMillan and Christopher Clark lecture on the subject at the Newbury Festival in May.

 

Battlefields

It's been a busy few weeks and I've not had chance to post for a while: now it's time to catch up.

i found this link to photographs of battlefields some time ago and immediately bookmarked it as the photographs of the Somme reminded me of the trip we made there one year on the way back from holiday - and the strange fulfillment of a dream about the place that had happened some months before.

http://www.westernfrontphotography.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5664

We'd driven to northern Italy for our holiday - a long drive over two days but a chance to find somewhere interesting to stay and sample the local wines.  but when we started planning our return we realised that our departure coincided with the start of the Italian holidays - and total gridlock.  We'd been away for a fortnight and so decided to set off a day earlier, and to add an extra stop in Northern France while we visited a battlefield.  My shelves at home are full of history books, but all we had with us was a road atlas for Europe - this was well before the age of the mobile internet - or even the internet. 

I searched the Atlas for the area around Calais and quickly discovered Albert, and I knew that this was one of the key locations of the Battle of the Somme.  We arrived by lunchtime and spent the afternoon exploring the trenches and memorials: the monument at Thiepval is far bigger than it looks in any photo and the whole area has a strange, haunted atmosphere.  Inevitably we spent too long there and it was getting dusky as we set off to look for a hotel.  The local Best Western was closed for the season but finally we arrived in Albert itself: not much to look at, but there was a small family hotel in the far corner of the square.

There was nowhere to park, so I lurked in the square while my wife went into see if there was a room.  When she came back there was mixed news: there was a room, but it was small, and under the roof and had two single beds.  If we stayed we would have time to visit more of the battlefield and if we drove on to look for a better hotel nearer the coast that would be the end of our expedition - so we stayed.

In my dream we had been staying in a strange place and from the window of the hotel I looked out on to a village square: the dream was vivid and quite real, and I wondered if it was linked to a story I had been trying to write.  I parked in a space that had become available and then we staggered up the steep stairs with several heavy pieces of luggage.  As we walked along the top corridor I began to feel a sense of deja vu that grew stronger as we approached the room.  When we went into the room I felt I had been there before and as I approached the window I knew what I would see: the view of the square that I had seen in my dream. 

 

A Necessary War

I watched Max Hustings' documentary on WW1 last night and was impressed; it'll be on iplayer for the next few weeks so I might revisit it.

It was on the whole a balanced account of the main issues and he interviewed a number of other key historians of the period to good effect.

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph has also seen Niall Ferguson's programme which is to be broadcast later this week:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10660290/The-Necessary-War-BBC-Two-review.html

I aim to watch it, but from what I've seen already plus read in the reviews it definitely seems that Max Hastings is the winner. in this case it will definitely be over by Christmas!

 

Oh What A Lovely War

The history wars have been quiet for the past few weeks, so it's good to read this fascinating article by Michael Billington about Oh Wat A Lovely War:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/17/oh-what-a-lovely-war-stratford-east

There cannot be many critics who can compare a revival with the original production fifty years ago.

Symposium: The Great War

The Programme for the Newbury Spring Festival arrived last week and I immediately spotted this.

Forget the Three Tenors - this is the Four Historians:


Symposium: The Great War

P G Wodehouse

This is a strange one.  For some time I'd been aware of a massive and gaping hole in my reading life: I'd borrowed and read (and hugely enjoyed) my parent's copy of The Inimitable Jeeves while still at school, but beyond that I'd read nothing else by P G Wodehouse.

 Last year I received the usual book token from the in laws for my birthday and after trekking off to my local Waterstones emerged some time later with a P G Wodehouse omnibus called The World of Blandings.  beyond the fact that it contained the first novel in the Blandings series I knew little about it, and I'm afraid that life took over and for nearly 12 months the book sat on the shelf and rebuked me each time I walked past it.

And then, out of the blue came the chance for a business trip to India, which included an eight hour flight.  Needless to say the book came with me and i finished the whole omnibus - two novels and several short stories - during the trip.

I can remember Wodehouse dying, but what I had not realised was that he had published so much before the First World War.  The first of the Blandings novels is Something Fresh and it was published in 1915 after being serialised in a magazine: thus Wodehouse must have written it in 1913-1914, and it contains references to Lloyd George and the suffragettes.  but the thought that struck me after I'd finished it was something altogether different: in the story Lord Emsworth is engaged in an endless battle of wits with Freddie Threepwood, his second son, who eventually marries an American and emigrates to the US, but we know that in the real world many second sons of the aristocracy (and indeed many first sons as well) did not survive the war.

There is no war or rumour of war in Blandings, but somehow Wodehouse continued to write about his earthly paradise for another 60 years. I now have the next three books in the sequence already on order.

A Contrary View - linked to a TV series...

I seem to remember reading an interview with Alan Bennett where he mentions historians like Niall Ferguson as his inspirations for the character of Irwin in The History Boys.

And now Ferguson has entered the History Wars by opening a new front suggesting that Britain should have stayed out of the war in 1914:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/britain-first-world-war-biggest-error-niall-ferguson

It will be interesting to see what Commander-inChief Gove makes of this.

History's wisdom comes in the form of an oracle

The ongoing history war has continued to produce some excellent writing.

I particularly liked this article by Christopher Clark which argued about the dangers of drawing easy lessons from history:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/1914-conflicts-history-repeating-first-world-war

I think the phrase:

"History's wisdom comes to us not in the form of pre-packaged lessons but of oracles, whose relevance to our current predicaments has to be puzzled over."
  

is a brilliant rejoinder to the many politicians who are bound to use the anniversary to draw too many facile comparisons over the next four years.

I have The Sleepwalkers still on my bookshelf, and hope to use an imminent long flight to make a serious start on it.

Family History

Both The Guardian and Daily Telegraph websites have dedicated sections for all their coverage of the First World War (although the Telegraph refers to it as World War One).  Through a link from here I found a website of forces war records:

http://blog.forces-war-records.co.uk/

I could not resist the opportunity and entered my paternal grandfather's name and within seconds I had found full details of his army career, although this was in the Boer War rather than First World War.  He had some service in WW1 in West Africa, but I don't think he was in the army at the time.

I also had a great aunt whose first husband was killed on the Somme.  I only know her subsequent married name, so will have to do some family history research before i can investigate this any further.

The website had a link to a shop which sells reproduction campaign medals, but i have my grandfather's original medals.

More Counterfactual History

And if you are wondering what would have happened if Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand had made it safely back to Vienna and became emperor then this is the book for you:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/19/archduke-franz-ferdinand-lives-richard-ned-lebow-review

Either I am going to have to increase my reading speed considerably or give up sleep for the next four years...

On the Incompetence of Chauffeurs

The death of Princess Diana in in a chauffeur driven car in the Pont de l'Alma produced (literally) many millions of column inches of comment and speculation. 

But IMHO the wrong turning taken in Sarajevo by the chauffeur of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, despite the subsequent claims by his descendants was to have a far greater effect on world history:


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/archduke-franz-ferdinand-first-world-war?CMP=twt_gu

History Repeats Itself...

As a non-practising historian I’ve been following the developments of Mr Gove’s History Wars with interest.  I’ve also been reading The War That Ended Peace, Margaret MacMillan’s brilliant history of Europe in the run up to the outbreak of war, and was intrigued to find the following comment about Prussian educational policy in the 1890s:

“In 1890, the Prussian Ministry of Education decreed that the history taught in schools show the greatness of the Prussian state and its rulers: ‘One of the most essential purposes of the Volksschule [elementary schools] is to point out to the children the blessings which come to them through the regained national unity, independence, and culture which were restored by the hard and self-sacrificing struggle of the Hohenzollern rulers’. Wilhelm thoroughly approved: ‘We must’, he told a conference of headmasters, ‘bring up nationalistic young Germans, and not young Greeks or Romans’.”

As another historian said about a sequence of events in another European country  “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

What did you do in the History War?

This is getting better every day, and now we can see the plan that he was following.

Clearly Michael Gove intended a quick forensic strike against the BBC and the media in general n terms of their portrayal of WW1 before wrapping himself in a Union Flag and opening a second front in time for May 1915 and the forthcoming general election. 

But if History teaches us anything it is wars never run to plan and poor Govey's Old Contemptibles are being pummelled by the Guns of January as masses of historians (who really do know their subject) turn their concentrated fire on him.

In the face of sustained broadsides from Margaret MacMillan, Richard Evans, Tristram Hunt (and even Baldrick) Gove's advance juddered to a halt well before its objectives and troops are now digging in for a sustained war on both sides.

It's going to be a long four years, but hopefully it will give me time to finish The War That Ended Peace (current reading), The Great War in Modern Memory (looking reproachfully at me from the shelf) and The Long Shadow of the Great War (the results of a Christmas Book Token). I've just finished Catastrophe by Max Hastings, but there's no time to rest as publishers will be gearing up for a big push as the anniversaries keep rolling on..

This was in The Observer at the weekend:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/michael-gove-blackadder-first-world-war-david-mitchell

January 1914

The papers are full of WW1 related stories at the moment - and it can only get worse  over the next four years.

We're already in the middle of a row between Michael Gove and Tristram Hunt on the political interpretation of the War (my money is on Hunt), but meanwhile The Observer had this fasciniating article on the news for January 1914:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/january-1914-no-hint-war

It seems that no one had any idea what was just around the corner.  What a surprise!