Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i History Extra

“One hundred years ago this month, a battle began that would go on to epitomise some of the worst aspects of the First World War. The third battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele, became infamous for the muddy conditions, the savaged landscape and the huge amount of blood that was shed for modest territorial gains. Yet the battle could have ended very differently. In this month’s cover feature, beginning on page 20, Nick Lloyd argues that thanks to bold leadership and a change of tactics, Britain came close to shattering the German defences in the autumn of 1917. Another controversial moment we are revisiting this month is a medieval massacre committed in the French town of Limoges in 1370. The man blamed for the atrocity was the English heir…

Today, Captain Matthew Webb is best remembered as the man whose face appeared on millions of Bryant and May matchboxes. To the Victorians, however, he was one of the great celebrities of the age: the first man ever to swim the English Channel. A former steamship captain in his late twenties, Webb was obsessed with swimming the Channel, training at Lambeth Baths and in the heavily polluted river Thames. With one unsuccessful attempt 12 days earlier behind him, on 24 August 1875 he made his way to the end of Dover’s Admiralty Pier. There, having been rubbed all over in porpoise oil, he dived in, and with three boats bobbing alongside, began the long breaststroke swim to France. Although the French coast was only 18 nautical miles away, Webb’s route…

“The Duke of Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim had far-reaching consequences for the European balance of power. It saved Vienna and enabled England and its Dutch and Austrian allies to take Ulm, Ingolstadt and the rest of Bavaria, thus binding many wavering German princes to the imperial cause. It also established Marlborough’s reputation as the finest general in Europe: he would enjoy many more victories, but none was as significant as Blenheim. At the time, no such decisive victory had been won in Europe by any general since the success of the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus at Lutzen in 1632, during the Thirty Years’ War. The battle of Blenheim was the first major defeat to be suffered by the armies of the French king Louis XIV who, for the previous 40…

Historic painting hidden under penguin poo A 118-year-old painting by south pole explorer Dr Edward Wilson has been discovered hidden beneath layers of penguin poo on the floor of a historic Antarctic hut at Cape Adare. The watercolour, which depicts a bird, is one of a number of artefacts taken from this and other nearby huts and is now undergoing restoration work by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. Wilson died alongside Captain Robert Scott on his doomed mission to the pole in 1912. Stolen brain of St John Bosco found in kettle Fragments of the brain of 19th-century Catholic priest St John Bosco, who founded the Salesian religious order which helped disadvantaged men reform their lives, have been found hidden inside a copper kettle. Bosco’s brain was stolen from the basilica…

Nick Knowles thought Julius Caesar deserved criticism for calling his daughter Julia, to make it obvious that he had wanted a son (My History Hero, July). But that was not the reason for her name. Caesar was only following the standard practice in Roman families of giving a daughter the female form of the family name. Hence the two daughters of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony to us) were both named Antonia, although to avoid confusion they were known as Antonia Maior and Minor! There are more serious charges to be levelled against Caesar. The Gauls paid a heavy price for his conquest of them. Plutarch estimates that in the course of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, a million Gauls were killed and a further million were enslaved. Fiona Gow, Banbury • We…

The last viceroy is sworn in 24 March 1947 Louis Mountbatten was the final viceroy of India after almost 200 years of British rule. The 1st Earl of Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, arrived in India on 22 March 1947 and – as this image shows – were sworn in at a ceremony in the Durbar Hall of the Viceroy’s House in New Delhi two days later. A great grandson of Queen Victoria, Mountbatten enjoyed theatrical ceremonies, but he also had extensive powers. As head of the British administration in India, he was responsible for planning the departure of the British from India and for finding a solution to the deadlock between the different Indian political parties. Mountbatten had been dispatched to India by the British prime minister, Clement Attlee,…

1885 ‘Gross indecency’ is criminalised The Labouchère Amendment, or section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, was proposed by a radical MP, Henry Labouchère (above), and passed with little discussion. It made “gross indecency” illegal in public or in private and imposed a maximum penalty of two years’ hard labour. It was another tool in the armoury of law enforcers and made it easier to prosecute homosexual behaviour. 1895 Oscar Wilde faces hard labour The playwright (shown above, left, with Lord Alfred Douglas) was the most famous victim of the Labouchère Amendment. After three trials in 1895 (the first a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry), Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in Reading Gaol. His name, face and…

A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini by Caroline Moorehead Chatto and Windus, 448 pages, £20 A few years ago Silvio Berlusconi gave a famous two-part interview to Boris Johnson and Nick Farrell, then respectively editor and Italy correspondent of The Spectator. In between the iced tea he prepared for his visitors, Berlusconi remarked that Mussolini’s dictatorship had been benign, that the opposition were sent into exile in pleasant island resorts, and that the Fascist leader had never killed anyone. Caroline Moorehead’s exceptional account of the awful vicissitudes of the Rosselli family may not be Silvio Berlusconi’s preferred reading this summer, although he has more time on his hands these days. At the heart of the book is the reconstruction of the lives of the…

Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent: A Fourteenth-Century Princess and Her World by Anthony Goodman Boydell Press, 270 pages, £25 Widely acclaimed as the ‘Fair Maid’ for her beauty, Joan Plantagenet was born in a time of great turbulence. The 15-year-old king, Edward III, had reigned for just a year, having been thrust onto the throne after the deposing of his father Edward II by his mother, the ‘She Wolf’, Isabella of France. England’s foreign rivals were gathering like vultures to take advantage of a weak and divided nation ruled by a boy. From the moment of her birth in around 1328, Joan’s fate was closely tied to that of the new king. Like him, she was the grandchild of England’s formidable warrior king, Edward I, and when her father…

When Greeks Flew Kites RADIO BBC Radio 4 Scheduled for late July As we try to make sense of the modern world, with all its anxieties, the past can offer a haven for consideration. In a series that takes its title from a Henry Ford quote – “What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew kites?” – novelist Sarah Dunant looks for alternative narratives to frame the present. The show will highlight tales of Renaissance demagogues, the power of youth in Reformation Britain and drugs policy in 20th-century Canada. Dunant also explores the idea of writing about history as a discipline constantly in flux.…

Where better to experience the northern lights than Haldde’s 19th-century mountain observatory? In the late ninth century, as Anglo-Saxon England was being devastated by Viking invaders, a very different Scandinavian visitor made his way to the court of King Alfred the Great. Ohthere was a trader and explorer from Arctic Norway. He told Alfred about his adventures at the northernmost fringes of Europe, travelling “as far north as whale hunters go”. A record of Ohthere’s account survives in Old English and through it we glimpse the landscapes, animals and peoples of the far north. Ohthere’s is a unique, authentic Norse voice from the Viking age. So when I was researching my book on far-travelling Norse voyagers, I took a road trip around Arctic Norway on the trail of Ohthere and…

“Nelson not only won a string of great naval victories and was always in the thick of the battle but made enormous sacrifices: like losing the sight in an eye, his arm and ultimately his life” Sailor and naval commander Horatio Nelson joined the Royal Navy at the age of 12. After losing the sight in one eye in fighting off Corsica and his arm in an attempt to conquer Tenerife, he took part in the victory against the Spanish at Cape St Vincent (1797). He returned home a hero after defeating the French at the battle of the Nile (1798) and went on to win the battle of Copenhagen (1801). His most famous victory, over a Franco-Spanish fleet, was at Trafalgar (1805), where he was killed during the fighting.…

Brian Lewis Fifty years ago, sex between men became legal in Britain. But was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act all it’s cracked up to be? A close investigation of the historical record reveals a more complex, ambiguous story. • Brian explores the campaign for gay rights on page 62 Nick Lloyd The battle of Passchendaele is central to Britain’s memory of the First World War. When researching this iconic campaign I was interested to see whether it conformed to the popular memory of mud, blood and futility. • Nick offers a fresh interpretation of the battle of Passchendaele on page 20 Yasmin Khan A small group of men decided to partition the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and more than a million people died as a consequence. The repercussions continue today…

From pioneering bungee jumps to advances in nuclear physics, it seems that many people don’t know where some of the most significant events in English history took place. In a recent multiple-choice poll, nine out of ten of those asked didn’t know that the atom was first split in Manchester. Meanwhile, four out of five were unaware that trainers were first produced in Bolton, with 42 per cent opting for Detroit. In light of the poll, Historic England has asked the public to nominate the sites in England that they feel have shaped the nation – from the house in Stratford where Shakespeare was born, to the apple tree in Lincolnshire which was said to have inspired Isaac Newton. The survey is split into 10 categories, with results for each…

“Victors and rulers control the narrative, but it belongs to all of us ” “What kind of history are we to teach? Thirty years ago I filmed the historian EP Thompson at the Glastonbury Festival. In his celebrated book The Making of the English Working Class Thompson sought to rescue “the poor weavers, Luddites and obsolete framework knitters from the enormous condescension of posterity”. The book made a big impact on my student generation – such an impact that the 1980s Conservative government revised the curriculum to counter the influence of that kind of social history. An advisory paper by historian Lord Hugh Thomas even had a preface by the prime minister herself saying kings and queens should be back at the core of the nation’s story. But in front…

Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is one of this summer’s blockbusters. What’s your favourite Second World War film and why? Andrew McDonald So many great films, including the likes of Das Boot, The Longest Day, The Battle of Britain and Inglourious Basterds. However, one that is above them all is The Dam Busters @TinaReher Casablanca, because it gives insights into political and public opinions of the era @OthellosIsland There is only one Second World War film worth watching: A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Everything else is a bit dull @Tosha_losha The Pianist, Saving Private Ryan, Life Is Beautiful. It’s hard to choose just one @jafarcakes Too Late the Hero – terrifying jungle warfare @snowboard74 The Great Escape – thought it was great…

It is gay working-class soldiers that Bourne most identifies with Fighting Proud: The Untold Story of the Gay Men who Served in Two World Wars by Stephen Bourne IB Tauris, 224 pages, £17.99 Based on projections from the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, which the author cites approvingly, it can be estimated that at least 250,000 gay or bisexual men served in the British armed forces during the Second World War. Yet their contribution to the war effort has often been overlooked; certainly, it did nothing to prevent the continuing criminalisation of homosexuality, or to dampen the spate of postwar prosecutions. It was only in 1967 that male homosexual acts were (partially) legalised and it was not until 2000 that the ban on gay and lesbian people serving…

Eureka by Anthony Quinn Jonathan Cape, 400 pages, £14.99 The Beatles have just released Sergeant Pepper; LSD is the drug of choice for the artistically avant-garde; and mini-skirts are worn ever shorter. The year is 1967 and London is about to start swinging. Nat Fane is a successful dramatist and screenwriter, living just beyond his means in rooms in Albany. He is working on the script for Eureka, an updated adaptation of a Henry James short story about the mysteries of art, for a wunderkind German director named Reiner Werther Kloss. Billie Cantrip is a ‘resting’ actress, earning her money waiting on tables, and living in a seedy house in King’s Cross with her boyfriend Jeff, an ill-tempered, unsuccessful artist. Nat meets Billie by chance and suggests her for a…

“The case had a direct effect on the British legal system” Gay Britannia TV AND RADIO networks BBC Scheduled for July and August Granted Royal Assent on 27 July, the Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men both aged 21 or over. Fifty years on, the passing of the act is marked with a season of programming, Gay Britannia, across the BBC. Among the many programmes on offer, on BBC Two there are two major dramas. Against the Law tells the story of Peter Wildeblood, a journalist whose lover, Eddie McNally, turned Queen’s evidence in an infamous court case, the 1954 Montagu Trial, which saw Wildeblood, and his friends Lord Montagu and Michael Pitt-Rivers, jailed for homosexual offences. The case had a direct effect…

Jamestown DVD (Universal Pictures, £14.99) It’s the early 17th century and a ship docks after a transatlantic crossing. From its deck step a trio of young English women: Jocelyn (Naomi Bat-trick), Alice (Sophie Rundle) and Verity (Niamh Walsh). It’s just as well that each of them is tough and independent-minded. They’ve travelled to the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, a frontier settlement – calling it a town would be giving the Jamestown of 1619 ideas above its station – where female company has been lacking for a long time. Considering he previously penned Lark Rise to Candleford and The Paradise for the BBC, historical dramas that tended to the saccharine, this isn’t necessarily what we expect from Bill Gallagher. The idea that this series for Sky is something…

1 Brodsworth Hall NEAR DONCASTER, SOUTH YORKSHIRE Where gardens have been restored The fine Italianate lawns and terraces of Brodsworth embody the Victorian garden aesthetic. Its pleasure gardens are six hectares in size and the entire site has undergone extensive restoration by English Heritage. Expect shaded ferns, bright flower beds and splendid topiary. english-heritage.org.uk 2 Witley Court GREAT WITLEY, WORCESTERSHIRE Where a fire wreaked havoc Once one of Worcestershire’s grandest country houses, Witley Court was gutted by fire in 1937. It survives as a ruin; its intricate and beautiful Victorian garden – complete with a renowned Perseus and Andromeda fountain – is a reminder of the estate’s former glory. english-heritage.org.uk 3 Waddesdon Manor WADDESDON, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Where thousands of plants flourish The grand neo-Renaissance manor at Waddesdon was built between 1874…

BEST TIME TO GO Arctic Norway is beautiful in summer (endless daylight, sparkling sea waters) or winter (dramatic darkness, snow, northern lights). GETTING THERE There are sizeable airports at Tromsø, Evenes and Bodø and smaller airports dotted around Finnmark. Summer is a nice time to hire a car and drive along the coast and since there’s only one major route through Finnmark (the E6), it’s hard to get lost. Alternatively, take the Hurtigruten cruise ship, which sails all the way from Bergen on the west coast of Norway up to Kirkenes on the Norwegian–Russian border. WHAT TO PACK Whether travelling in winter or summer, pack layers of clothing and waterproofs. After all, you’re in the Arctic. WHAT TO BRING BACK If you want to try Norway’s famous brunost (‘brown cheese’),…

1. Which famous British military victory was the subject of an anti-war poem by Robert Southey (left)? 2. What links Shirley Williams and Jiang Qing? 3. Prior to our present Queen, who was Britain’s longest-lived head of state? 4. If you travelled from Isca Dumnoniorum to Ratae Corieltauvorum in Roman Britain a. which road would you have probably taken b. in which modern-day cities would you have started and ended your journey? 5. “Then she is too tall…” What had Queen Elizabeth I just been told? 6. With which crime novelist would you associate this hotel, and why? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. The battle of Blenheim. 2. They were both members of a ‘gang of four’ (SDP founders in UK, political faction in China). 3. Richard Cromwell, lord protector 1658–59, who…

Bournemouth University, the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST) and the Museum of the Royal Navy have joined forces to excavate the historic French warship Invincible. The ship was captured by the British in 1747 and continued to be used in the Royal Navy until 1758, when it sank in the Solent after hitting a sandbank. The vessel lay there until 1979 when it was rediscovered by a fisherman. The project has been awarded £2m by the government’s LIBOR fund but an additional £1m is now needed to complete the work. “This is one of the most important Royal Naval wrecks of the 18th century,” says Dave Parham, associate professor in maritime archaeology at Bournemouth University. “While we know a lot about the ship’s history, we don’t know much about its…

On 19 September 1370 an English army drew up outside the French city of Limoges. A formidable fighting force of 4,000 men, it had been bombarding the city and undermining its walls for five days. Now, with a section of the ramparts weakened, it was ready to strike. “A large part of the wall collapsed, filling in the ditch,” wrote the chronicler Jean Froissart. “The English watched with eager anticipation, lined up in formation as they prepared to storm the city… They rushed its defences, broke through the main gate and started to slay the inhabitants, indiscriminately – as they had been ordered to.” According Froissart, the man who gave these brutal orders was Edward III’s eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, known to posterity as the Black…

As Dalrymple and Anand show, for the British occupiers of India, it was the baubles that mattered most Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand Bloomsbury, 352 pages, £16.99 The Koh-i-Noor was once nearly lost in an extraordinary moment of absentmindedness, or so the story goes. In 1849, the British took the great diamond from the child ruler of Punjab, Raja Duleep Singh. While the jewel waited to be sent as a gift to Queen Victoria in England, the brusque, pragmatic and pious imperial administrator John Lawrence was asked to look after it. Lawrence placed it in a tatty tin box in a waistcoat pocket before forgetting about it for six weeks. It took a reminder from Lawrence’s seemingly more bedazzled brother,…

Though he would no doubt love to believe it, Lenin did not alone bring down the army The Russian Revolution: A New History by Sean McMeekin Profile Books, 478 pages, £20 Inevitably the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 has been met with a wave of histories of the event. Some have been written from a new or interesting analytical perspective. Sean McMeekin’s contribution does not offer much of either. At first sight, McMeekin’s ‘New History’ seems to be anything but new. A bright future for prewar tsarism, a winning set of policies from the reforming prime minister Stolypin, Rasputin, German gold, military conspiracies, and a deluded, megalomaniac Lenin, who is described as “a one-man demolition crew sent to wreck Russia’s war effort”. These are topics that loom large…

Freya Anthony Quinn (2016) Freya Wyley, a secondary character in Eureka, is at the heart of Quinn’s earlier novel. Beginning on VE Day, when the young Freya first meets aspiring writer Nancy Holdaway, the book charts their intense relationship from Oxford in the immediate postwar years to London in the swinging sixties. In this bright new world, Freya first swims and then sinks as she works to make a name for herself as a journalist. The Long Firm Jake Arnott (1999) Crime fiction combines with carefully researched social history in a trilogy of novels by Jake Arnott, set in London’s underworld and featuring the gay East End racketeer Harry Starks. Harry first appeared in The Long Firm, which made use of five different narrators, each with a different perspective on…

Impossible Engineering TV Yesterday Scheduled for Tuesday 25 July Every construction project rests on foundations laid by preceding generations. So runs the idea behind Impossible Engineering, which looks at cutting-edge projects from the perspective of the technological advances that made them possible. It all makes for an eclectic series, which jumps from the pristine automated factory where Tesla cars are built to the tunnels dug beneath London for Crossrail; and from the top of the Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest freestanding tower despite being built in an earthquake zone, to high above the stratosphere where the International Space Station circles the Earth.…

There are plenty of history shows on radio to seek out this summer, such as the five-part The Compass: On the Black Sea (BBC World Service, July), which includes an episode on that area’s remarkable underwater archaeology. The Music of Time: Cuba (BBC World Service, August) tells the story of Cuban ‘son’ music through a single song, ‘Lágrimas Negra’, or ‘Black Tears’. The BBC season on partition encompasses radio as well as television. The three-part Partition Voices (BBC Radio 4, Monday 31 July) gathers together testimony from British Asians and Raj-era Britons. Pakistan, Partition and the Present (BBC World Service, Tuesday 8 August) explores what young Pakistanis know – and don’t know – about events 70 years ago. On TV, Not Guilty (Channel 4, summer) tells the stories of gay…

Royal revolutionaries EXHIBITION Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte and the Shaping of the Modern World Kensington Palace, London Until 12 November - 020 3166 6000 • hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace The lives of three German princesses who married into the British monarchy during the 18th century come under the spotlight at Kensington Palace this month. Enlightened Princesses explores these women’s contributions as patrons of the arts and sciences, helping to promote Britain onto the world stage. Princesses Caroline, Augusta and Charlotte fulfilled their dynastic duty, producing more than 30 children between them and becoming mothers to future kings. But all became actively involved in some of the most progressive scientific and medical advances of the day. These ranged from women’s health to championing inoculation, as well as publicly supporting the creation of London’s…

Cucumber ice cream I’ve never cooked a cucumber before and was surprised how long they take to soften. But after trying this delicious Victorian cucumber ice cream, published in The Book of Ices by Agnes Marshall in 1885, I’ll be doing it more often. The Victorians seem to have been quite adventurous with their ice cream flavours – a recipe for spinach ice cream also appears in the book. This recipe has no eggs, which produces a lighter, fresher-tasting ice cream. Before the arrival of electricity, freezing ice cream would have required a supply of natural ice (stored in ice houses throughout the year) and would have been very time-consuming. I have to admit that took the modern approach and used a freezer. INGREDIENTS 1 large cucumber 4oz caster sugar…