Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2015 i History Extra

This month a National Civil War Centre is opening in Newark, offering visitors an in-depth exploration of the conflict that ripped the British Isles apart in the 17th century. To mark the occasion, we have gathered 10 of the country’s leading Civil War historians to explode some of the myths that surround the clash. Discover what they had to say on page 33 and then find out more about the new centre on page 84. We’re also remembering another war this month, as we come to the 70th anniversary of VE Day. The BBC is commemorating the event with a range of programmes, including an oral history series, The Greatest Generation , which comprises interviews with some of the most remarkable veterans of the Second World War. Series producer Steve…

“The resistance to the siege at Mafeking provided rare positive news among the defeats of the early months of the Boer War. So when the town was relieved in May 1900, spontaneous ‘Mafeking Night’ celebrations erupted across the country. Crowds flooded London’s West End, singing, dancing and waving flags; similar scenes were repeated in cities across the nation. A new word entered the English language: ‘maffick’, meaning ‘to rejoice in a boisterous fashion’. Robert Baden-Powell returned to Britain as a national hero. He was promoted to inspector general of cavalry, and introduced reforms that would prove their worth during the First World War. During the siege, Baden-Powell had employed a force of uniformed boys known as the Mafeking Cadets as lookouts and messengers. The courage and dedication of the boys…

I did enjoy the article Dressed for War (March). Reading about the ban on turn-ups on trousers, I was reminded of an article written by George Orwell in his wartime ‘As I Please’ column in the Tribune. He was writing in reaction to an announcement by the Board of Trade lifting the ban on turned-up trouser-ends – hailed by one tailor’s advertisement as “a first instalment of the freedom for which we are fighting”. Orwell commented: “If we were really fighting for turned-up trouser-ends, I should be inclined to be pro-Axis. Turn-ups have no function except to collect dust, and no virtue except that when you clean them out you occasionally find a sixpence there.” However, he went on to argue in the article that clothes rationing had been a…

There is no doubt that the generation that lived and fought in – and survived – the Second World War has a claim to being one of the greatest generations in British history. These survivors are now in their 90s or beyond; they are our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents. And what they went through at comparatively young ages is difficult to appreciate more than 70 years on. Not only did millions of Britons suffer through the Depression years but, when war came, they fought from the very beginning right through to the end in the cause of freedom and democracy. They saw their homes and families come under direct and sustained attack from German bombers. Then, after their hard-won victory, they endured 10 years of postwar rationing and austerity.…

You’ve said in the past that very few Indians from history are well known in the west. Why do you think that is? I think it is partly because India has often been seen in terms of big collective groupings. We think of it as having religions, castes, languages and regional groups but we rarely think of the individuals that have made up India’s history. Then it is also partly because of the way Indian history has been told: it was initially the stories of dynasties such as the Mauryans or Mughals and, subsequently it has been social history and history from below which is also all about groups. I would say, as well, that in India there has been a very weak tradition of biography. It is very popular…

1 May, 12.20pm Lusitania leaves New York with 1,959 passengers and crew. All have ignored a German warning in the New York Times that “vessels flying the flag of Great Britain” will be “liable to destruction”. 5 May, evening German submarine U-20 , commanded by Kapitänleutnant Schwieger (right), sinks a small three-masted schooner off the south coast of Ireland. 5 May, 10.30pm The British Admiralty begins broadcasting a message at regular intervals to all ships that a U-boat is active in the Irish Channel. 6 May, morning Schwieger’s U-20 torpedoes two merchant ships off Ireland. 6 May, 7.52pm Captain Turner (left) of the Lusitania receives a wireless signal that submarines are “active off south coast of Ireland”. He receives five more warnings. 7 May, 8am Encountering fog, Turner orders the…

Great Battles: Waterloo by Alan Forrest Oxford University Press, 240 pages, £18.99 When the British think of the land battles of the Napoleonic wars they think first of Waterloo: the iconic battle, greatest of all British victories. Even though there were three times as many Germans as Britons at Waterloo, for Germans Leipzig became the enduringly iconic battle. The French and those Belgians who remembered Napoleon with affection preferred to cherish victories but immortalised Waterloo as a location of tragedy, of terrible but gallant defeat. For the Dutch, it represented the triumph of the House of Orange; it is their lion that still dominates the battlefield. The cultural history of the battle and its afterlife in the narrative of nations form the main themes of this lucid, measured and fascinating…

VE Day: Remembering Victory TV BBC One, scheduled for Monday 4 May On 8 May 1945, following Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, Winston Churchill officially announced the war in Europe was over. What followed was an extraordinary celebration as Britons spilled onto the streets and had a huge party to celebrate VE Day, an event still remembered for its scenes of good-natured carousing. “It was quite a sedate era in many ways and if someone asked you to come and have a dance with them, that was a big step for someone to take,” says Chris Granlund, producer of a documentary marking the 70th anniversary of the victory in Europe. “The social boundaries were much, much stricter back then, but of course on VE Day it seemed that they’d all collapsed.”…

OPENING National Civil War Centre Newark, Nottinghamshire From 3 May • nationalcivilwarcentre.com Newark’s Grade II listed Old Magnus Building, a former 16th-century grammar school, has been transformed into a new, £5.4m state-of-the-art visitor centre, dedicated to the bloody civil wars fought across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland between 1638 and 1652. Michael Constantine, manager of the National Civil War Centre, says: “The town of Newark was of vital importance to both crown and parliament during the Civil War, providing an important crossing point over one of England’s major rivers – the Trent – as well as occupying a strategic location on the Great North Road and the Fosse Way. The town has some of the best-preserved Civil War earthworks and a wealth of artefacts and objects from the period, many…

Steam Diesel Narrow Standard Museum 1 Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Kent 3 Didcot Railway Centre (DRC) Oxfordshire 5 South Devon Railway Devon 7 Llangollen Railway Denbighshire 9 Swanage Railway Dorset 2 Mid Hants Railway ‘Watercress Line’ Hampshire 4 The Severn Valley Railway Worcestershire 6 The Railway Touring Company Throughout UK 8 The Apedale Valley Light Railway North Staffordshire 10 The Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway North Wales 1. Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway Attracting visitors from around the globe, ‘Kent’s Mainline in Miniature’ stretches 13½ miles across the picturesque Romney Marsh. Operating the most complete collection of one-third full-size steam locomotives in the world since 1927, a journey on…

1. What caused a five-year legal dispute between the Scrope and Grosvenor families in the late 14th century? 2. Who made his first recorded English appearance at Covent Garden in May 1662? 3. How did Christopher Columbus use astronomical tables to intimidate the natives of Jamaica in 1504? 4. What was invented by the 16th-century Pembrokeshire scholar Robert Recorde? 5. Who was Britain’s first Scottish prime minister? 6. What is this mythical creature and with which influential late medieval woman is it associated?…

Jane Austen is one of the best-loved novelists in the history of English literature. She was born into the lower ranks of the landed gentry in Hampshire – the county in which, apart from a five-year spell living in Bath, she spent all of her life. Austen’s novels Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815) were critically ignored during her lifetime but have since won global acclaim for their wit, biting irony and brilliant social commentaries on Regency England. Two further novels, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey, were published after Jane’s death, probably from Addison’s disease, in 1817. When did you first learn about Jane Austen? Way back in my adolescence when I read Pride and Prejudice, quickly followed by Emma and Sense and…

David Starkey The process of drafting and editing Magna Carta between 1215 and 1225, and the debates about its composition, reminded me so much of the depiction of the 20th-century civil service in the TV series Yes Minister . • David discusses his new book on Magna Carta on page 63 David Olusoga The new research behind my upcoming BBC Two series shows that slave ownership was widespread and ordinary. Britain’s slave owners lived everywhere from the Orkney Islands to the Isle of Wight, and 40 per cent of them were women. • David Olusoga writes about British slave owners on page 56 Vanessa Collingridge Very rarely does a site so well known, both visually and in terms of its story, not only live up to its billing but blow…

It might have seemed like a good idea to the three young men who broke into a Parisian villa one August evening. The owner was away in the country, allowing them to successfully pillage the entire place from top to bottom. Having collected a huge pile of pilfered goods, common sense would tell you to leave as fast as possible. However, the attractions of the larder and wine cellar proved too much for the young men, who settled in to the abandoned champagne and cognac with increasing delight. Unfortunately, strains of drunken singing were carried on the night air to the villa’s neighbours, who promptly called the police. Twenty men arrived to deal with the burglars, who had by now lit the gas, drunk the wine and become a little…

@HistoryExtra: After the success of the #RichardIII excavation, is it time to dig up other famous skeletons? Should we excavate the likes of Elizabeth I and the princes in the Tower? @Raugravine Leave acknowledged tombs and grave sites alone. Do not disrespect the dead Victoria Worsley I don’t see why people think it is unacceptable to ‘disturb’ our royals but don’t say a word about the Egyptians, whose remains are on display in museums for people to gawk over. Why do some get to be reburied with dignity, while others are deemed to be objects of display? @MartinWalker666 Same ethics as animal bones/dinosaur bones – what’s dead is dead. Burial grounds have never been sacred Alannah Travers The prospect of finding out so much about such intriguing historical figures (primarily…

John Gladstone The prime minister’s father By 1834, John Gladstone and his family had acquired 2,039 slaves for which they were awarded £93,526 by the Slave Compensation Commission. The heart of their slave empire was in British Guiana, at that time the most profitable of the British Caribbean colonies. John Gladstone used the compensation to diversify, investing in the booming railways. His son, William Ewart Gladstone, rose to become prime minister, making a speech in defence of slavery. The Gladstones replaced slaves with indentured Indian labourers on their Guyana plantations. Nathaniel Wells The mixed-race absentee In many ways a typical absentee slave owner, Wells was the favourite son of a prominent St Kitts plantation owner. Sent to Britain for his education, on his father’s death he inherited a fortune worth…

Seneca: A Life by Emily Wilson Allen Lane, 272 pages, £25 Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a complex, prolific, and not entirely lovable thinker and statesman of Nero’s Rome. A man of towering ambition, he went to the capital city to make his name. For better and worse, he did, and Emily Wilson does justice to his paradoxes in this wise and lively book. A Stoic philosopher, orator and man of the world, Seneca served as tutor and enabler to Nero; in effect, as Wilson says, “his chief speech writer and public relations officer”. Seneca hoped to make Nero into a good prince, but when he turned into a tyrant who murdered his stepbrother and mother, among others, Seneca did not protest. Nero rewarded him with power and riches until, inevitably,…

What started with a quarrel over wine quickly spilled over into bloody carnage. On Tuesday 10 February 1355, two students at the University of Oxford complained about the quality of the wine at the Swindlestock Tavern. When the innkeeper responded with “stubborn and saucy language”, one of the students threw the wine vessel at his head. Locals rang the nearby church bell to muster the townsmen, who violently attacked another group of students. More bells pealed, this time from the university church, rousing students and scholars into the fray. Tensions between town and gown had been simmering since scholars and students began to congregate in Oxford in the 12th century, fed by disputes over commercial rights and the special legal status of students. Finally, those tensions came to a head.…

Strangely enough, I didn’t have high hopes of my first visit to the Great Wall of China. Even though (or because) it’s one of the most famous structures on Earth, I thought it could never live up to its billing, nor those iconic photographs of watchtowers and wall snaking into the misty, grey-green mountains. At that time I was living in Hong Kong. The Easter holidays were coming, my mum was flying out to meet her new baby grandson and we were going stir-crazy living on a tiny and densely populated island. We needed fresh air and big views. We needed to start working through our Asia bucket list. Quite why Beijing seemed like the ideal holiday destination is hard to fathom. It was even more crowded than Hong Kong,…

1 TITANIC BELFAST Northern Ireland SCOTTISH MARITIME 2 MUSEUM Scotland TITANIC EXPERIENCE 3 COBH Ireland 1. TITANIC BELFAST Titanic Belfast is an unmissable experience on any trip to Belfast. It is located right in the heart of Belfast at the birthplace of this world-famous ship’s construction and celebrates the rich maritime heritage of Belfast. Housed in an iconic six-floor building, this state-of-the-art visitor experience features nine interpretive and interactive galleries which explore the sights, sounds, smells and stories of Titanic, as well as the City and people which made her. Enjoy breath-taking views of the slipways where Titanic was launched, relax in one of the superb restaurants and choose a souvenir from the Titanic Store to remind you of your trip to the home of Titanic. Complete your Titanic experience…

6 May 1527 The army of the Holy Roman Emperor sacks Rome Charles V’s imperial troops mutiny and rampage through the Vatican, looting and killing In the early 16th century, Italy was a dangerous place to live. Torn apart by endless wars between the French king, Francis I, and his bitter rival, Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, the peninsula had become a byword for massacres, plunder and rapine. But nothing made a greater impression on the European imagination than what happened on 6 May 1527, the day the imperial army hurled itself on Rome. The sack of Rome was never part of Charles V’s plan. His troops had already beaten the French; the problem was that funds had run short – so the imperial army’s commander,…

Cosmetic surgery may be considered a relatively modern phenomenon, but new research has highlighted its long history – and the reason that it fell out of favour in 17th and 18th-century Europe. A study, published in the journal Social History of Medicine, explores the work of 16th-century Italian surgeon Gasparo Tagliacozzi. His refinements to methods of reconstructive surgery included forming a new nose from skin taken from a patient’s arm (see illustration below). The surgeon would first use specially designed instruments to form a flap of skin – known as a ‘pedicle’ – from the arm. This would then be connected to the nose, and the patient would have their arm bandaged in a raised position for up to three weeks until the skin was firmly attached. After another two…

Browned Off and Bloody-Minded The British Soldier Goes to War 1939–1945 Alan Allport Viewing World War Two from the ordinary British serviceman’s perspective, Alan Allport’s colourful, deeply moving and unique social history explores the diverse experiences of the more than three million unlikely citizen-soldiers who served in the British Army from 1939 to 1945. 22 b/w illus. Hardback £25.00 The Liberation of the Camps The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath Dan Stone In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust reveals the painful, relentless challenges the liberated faced and the daunting complexity of rebuilding their lives. 24 b/w illus. Hardback £20.00 Wellington Waterloo and the Fortunes of Peace, 1814–1852 Rory…

An Iraqi friend just sent me pictures of the destruction of the monastery of Mar Behnam by the so-called Islamic State – spurts of fire as a church founded in the fourth century was reduced to rubble. I remember a picnic there 25 years ago with the local Christian community: flatbread, white cheese, olives and sweet black tea in the sunny foothills of Kurdistan. After the bulldozing of Nineveh, Nimrud and Hatra, it is another blow to the legacy of Iraq already so damaged by the 2003 war and its aftermath. It set me thinking about the history of Iraq, the birthplace of the first civilisation. Like all great civilisations, Iraq had several flowerings: Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Greek and Arab. It had many religious communities: Jewish, Christian, Manichaean, Sunni and…

Reputations rise and fall over the course of time – even those of national icons. The 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill provides another opportunity to assess – or to re-assess – his place in history. For much of his life, he was a deeply controversial figure. As he himself well knew, though, changed perspectives on such people invariably bring changed interpretations. This is what he wrote of his father, Lord Randolph, and of politicians in general, at the close of his filial biography: “The eulogies and censures of partisans are powerless to affect his ultimate reputation. The scales wherein he was weighed are broken. The years to come bring weights and measures of their own.” A third of a century later, Churchill made the same point,…

Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy by Frank Close Oneworld, 400 pages, £20 Frank Close is a renowned physicist who has written a number of successful books on scientific matters. Half Life is a fascinating account of a complex character. Close’s title, and the depiction on the book’s cover of the mirror-image of half of each side of his subject’s face, are tantalising. Without being too pedantic – as it’s clearly a deliberate choice – the lack of a question mark in the book’s subtitle, Physicist or Spy, rather leaves the reader wondering whether they are mutually exclusive. This is particularly confusing because Close’s contention is that he was both. Bruno Pontecorvo (1913–93) has long been a subject of fascination. An Italian-born Jewish communist, he…

King John: England, Magna Carta and the Making of a Tyrant by Stephen Church Macmillan, 352 pages, £25 The 800th anniversary of Magna Carta has inspired a wealth of literature on John, one of England’s most reviled monarchs – and Stephen Church’s new study is among the most welcome. Church provides readers with a lively, nuanced and balanced account of the king, his family, upbringing and reign. John, youngest of Henry II’s surviving sons, emerges as someone whose “cosseted” boyhood left him ill-prepared for the military and political challenges of his later life. Church’s account of John’s activities as a “troublesome brother” during Richard I’s German captivity affords important insights into John’s character, especially the period in which he hoped to claim the English throne. He is portrayed as a…

If the Dead Rise Not Philip Kerr (2010) Arguably the best of the Bernie Gunther novels, this story is divided between 1930s Berlin and 1950s Cuba where the threads of all that happened 20 years before finally twist together. In 1934, Bernie is working as a house detective at the famous Hotel Adlon on Unter den Linden when two bodies are found. But he only learns the full truth about the reasons for the murders during his postwar exile in pre-Castro Cuba. Garden of Beasts Jeffery Deaver (2004) A German-American hitman for New York mobsters is captured by the FBI and given a choice: prison and possible execution or a trip to Berlin to assassinate a key figure in Hitler’s regime. In this fast-moving, if occasionally implausible thriller, Paul Schumann…

1 St Edmund Hall, Oxford Where some of the first students lived Before the colleges were conceived, medieval students were usually housed and educated in halls of residence. St Edmund Hall is the only one to survive, named after St Edmund of Abingdon, former archbishop of Canterbury, who taught there in the 1190s. seh.ox.ac.uk 2 St Andrews University, St Andrews Where Scots built their own university Scottish students had to go abroad to study – Paris, Oxford or Cambridge. In 1410 a school of higher learning was created in St Andrews, soon gaining a charter of incorporation and privileges from the bishop of St Andrews. In 1413, Pope Benedict XIII conferred university status with a series of papal bulls, one of which can be seen in the museum there. st-andrews.ac.uk…

BEST TIME TO GO Spring and autumn are ideal. Winter can be bitterly cold, while summers swelter. Visit early morning or late afternoon to avoid the busiest times. GETTING THERE Mutianyu is about 50 miles north-east of Beijing. Day tours are available from the capital; alternatively, take a taxi or bus from Dongzhimen. WHAT TO PACK Take water. Consider sturdy hiking shoes to tackle the climb to the wall and for long strolls along the top. WHAT TO BRING BACK Tea sets, calligraphy, carved jade ornaments, silk and Mao memorabilia are among the most popular quintessentially Chinese souvenirs. READERS’ VIEWS Check out the visibility forecast. Mist or even heat haze can greatly reduce what you see. Anne Stark Visit the more-remote, less-crowded sections of wall at Simatai or Mutianyu (two…

Brown Windsor soup The origins of Brown Windsor soup are unclear. No one is quite sure where the recipe originates, but it is said to be have been one of Queen Victoria’s favourite soups, and was often served at palace banquets. The soup seems to have been viewed in a comedic light in the second half of the 20th century, and was featured in television and radio comedy shows such as Fawlty Towers and The Goon Show. But despite this (or maybe because of it) and because I am a big fan of robust, meaty soups and stews, I was intrigued to see what Brown Windsor soup would taste like. I have to admit, sadly, I was a bit underwhelmed by the result. Perhaps with some tweaks to the recipe…