Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2018 i History Extra

In the early hours of the morning on 11 November 1918, an agreement was signed that would bring to an end four and a half years of bloodshed across the globe. The First World War was over, but the battle for its legacy was only just beginning. We have now reached the centenary of the armistice, and in this month’s issue we are marking the occasion with a supplement exploring many facets of the conflict. Our cover feature is a debate between Professors Gary Sheffield and Richard J Evans over whether the outcome of the war justified the tremendous cost in lives. Elsewhere, a panel of experts assess the longer-term impact of the conflict, from the psychological scars to the environmental devastation. But the end of the war brought joy…

At the beginning of November 1688, one of the greatest invasion fleets in English history was sailing towards the Devon coast. With 40,000 men aboard 463 ships, William of Orange was in deadly earnest. To his admirers, the Dutch prince’s slogan, “For Liberty and the Protestant Religion”, captured the tone. Here was a Protestant prince who would topple the hated James II and VII, secure the Anglican faith and save England from Catholic absolutism. Although William himself was suffering from acute seasickness, his fleet made a splendid sight; his men lined up with bands playing as they sailed past Dover. The next day, the 4th, was William’s birthday. But the 5th, celebrated by Protestants as the anniversary of the gunpowder plot, started badly. The sky was hazy and visibility poor,…

The discovery of the gunpowder plot was a sensational public relations victory for James I. The Scottish king had been struggling to escape from his predecessor Elizabeth I’s shadow and win the hearts of his English subjects. Now, a Catholic conspiracy to obliterate the entire apparatus of government had been exposed, just hours before Guy Fawkes planned to light the fuse from his waiting lantern. Many took it as proof that the God who had kept Queen Elizabeth safe from plots also watched over the new regime. Londoners were encouraged to celebrate: a letter of John Chamberlain describes “great ringing and as great store of bonfires as ever I think was seen”. Sermons and prayers in parish churches carried the story all over the land. The trial of the gunpowder…

THE MARY ROSE New nanotechnology is being used on the Mary Rose as a way of preserving the Tudor warship. Tiny magnetic particles, a thousandth of the width of a human hair, will capture iron ions in the wood to stop production of an acid that could destroy the ship’s timber. SOCIAL DRINKERS Scientists examining evidence of brewing at the Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have claimed that our ancient ancestors enjoyed alcohol more than 10,000 years ago, and believe social drinking played a role in our evolution into larger-brained primates.…

“I’m having problems with restoration just now. Not home improvements, I hasten to add, though our old garage certainly needs it! No, it’s about restoring historic buildings. And not so much why, but how far? Here in the UK, restoration is a simple issue. We preserve the building as it is and we hand it on. We don’t speculate. In China meanwhile, they just go for it. What counts is not the actual fabric of a building, but the sense of place, the memories and stories it conjures up. A lost Song dynasty tower? Remake it. The hanging gardens of Babylon don’t exist any more? Just rebuild them. I’m just back from Athens, where they’ve taken a very different path. There, restorers are still working on a painstaking conservation project…

@NinaLewis16 The manuscripts of any of Shakespeare’s plays in his own hand. Preferably Romeo and Juliet, Henry V or Hamlet. @ScoobyySue I’m intrigued by the story of the Amber Room at Charlottenburg Palace in Prussia. There are a lot of conspiracy theories, but I’d love to see it found and erected in all its glory. @Patrici27245220 Wallingford Castle. Michelle Haynes Everything lost in the National Museum fire in Brazil. Helen Mears A copy of Cardenio, Shakespeare’s lost play. Chris Skoyles King John’s crown jewels that were lost in the Wash. @LJDzialo The 13 paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. @madamedefarge61 The diamond necklace that Marie Antoinette didn’t purchase. Liam McKee The contents of the Library of Alexandria. Mary Bateman The lead cross found on Arthur’s ‘grave’…

Seapower States Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World Andrew Lambert One of the most eminent historians of our age investigates the extraordinary success of five small maritime states – Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic and Britain. This highly original work demonstrates how their identities as ‘seapowers’ made them more dynamic, open and democratic than their lumbering continental rivals. 7 maps, 9 b/w + 8 pp. colour illus. Hardback £20.00 The Kremlin Letters Stalin’s Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt Edited by David Reynolds and Vladimir Pechatnov This penetrating and vivid study of the more than 600 written messages that Joseph Stalin exchanged with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt between 1941 and 1945 offers fascinating insights into the wartime machinations and personal relationships of…

Behind the Throne: A Domestic History of the Royal Household by Adrian Tinniswood Jonathan Cape, 384 pages, £25 On 31 July 1737, the Princess of Wales’s dancing master was unexpectedly summoned to his royal mistress. But it was not instruction on the finer points of the quadrille that Princess Augusta needed. This young woman from Saxe-Gotha in Germany had suddenly gone into labour. It was her first child and the pains were coming fast and furious. She was then at Hampton Court, where her in-laws, George II and Queen Caroline, were in residence. They wanted her to give birth there, but her husband, Prince Frederick, long-estranged from his parents, was determined that the baby would be born at his London home, St James’s Palace. Accordingly, with the help of the…

A History of the World in 21 Women: A Personal Selection by Jenni Murray Oneworld, 304 pages, £16.99 Thomas Carlyle, the 19th-century Scottish historian and philosopher, argued that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men”. In this charming exploration of the history of the world through the lives of 21 women, Jenni Murray sets out to disprove this claim. Her selection of women is pleasingly varied, covering Benazir Bhutto, Joan of Arc, Artemisia Gentileschi, Professor Wangari Maathai, Coco Chanel, Frida Kahlo, Toni Morrison, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Hillary Clinton, among others. There is little here that readers of biographies or regular viewers of historical documentaries will be surprised by or find particularly new, but the strength of the collection lies in Murray’s relaxed and intimate style.…

Little by Edward Carey Aardvark Bureau, 430 pages, £10.99 In 1761, Anne Marie Grosholtz is born in a remote village in Alsace. When she is six years old, Marie’s mother takes her to Berne to join the household of the eccentric Doctor Curtius, a sculptor who creates wax models of the human body, its inner organs, and the effects of disease on them, for the city hospital. After her mother’s death, the young Marie is left as Curtius’s ward to learn the secrets of his macabre craft. When the doctor falls foul of the hospital authorities and departs Berne for Paris, she accompanies him. In the French capital, the diminutive girl, now dubbed ‘Little’, finds life difficult. Tormented by her overbearing landlady and forced into a menial role, Marie is…

EXHIBITION / FREE ENTRY ‘This Vexed Question’: 500 Years of Women in Medicine Royal College of Physicians Museum, London Until 18 January 2019 - 020 3075 1539 • history.rcplondon.ac.uk/events This year, for the first time in history, men and women are expected to enter the medical profession in equal numbers. To mark this milestone, as well as the centenary of the parliamentary act that gave some women in Britain the right to vote, and its own 500th anniversary, the Royal College of Physicians is exploring the stories, and battles, of famous and forgotten female figures from more than half a millennium of medical practice. A range of objects will be on show – from medieval records to medical equipment, letters and portraits, as well as items never before seen publicly.…

Linzer torte Packed with redcurrant jam and topped by a delicate pastry lattice, this Austrian cake is named after Linz, a picturesque Baroque town on the Danube. References to the torte date back to the 17th century. One of the earliest known recipes can be found in the spectacularly named Book of All Kinds of Home-Made Things, Such as Sweet Dishes, Spices, Cakes and also Every Kind of Fruit and Other Good and Useful Things, etc. INGREDIENTS 250g butter 250g flour 125g icing sugar 50g ground hazelnuts 2 tsp cinnamon powder Pinch of ground cloves Pinch of salt Grated lemon rind Egg for coating Redcurrant jam Butter for the mould Flaked almonds, to taste METHOD Make a pile of flour. Slice the butter into cubes and rub into the flour…

‘Imperfect as the world was in 1919, a scenario in which Germany was victorious would have been much worse’ Yes says Professor Gary Sheffield Was the outcome of the First World War, from the British point of view, worth the sacrifice? At the time, the vast majority of the British population thought it was. But the society of today is very different from that of a century ago and, not surprisingly, we struggle to grasp why our predecessors were prepared to endure privation and the death of young men on a vast scale. Even in Ireland, a majority supported the war until the events of 1916–18 overturned the consensus. In 1914 the UK was a democracy, albeit an incomplete one, governed on liberal principles. The masses actively supported a total…

In the First World War, British soldiers sang (to the tune of a well-loved hymn): “When this lousy war is over, no more soldiering for me / When I get my civvy clothes on, oh, how happy I shall be!” But the postwar world was not the promised land the soldiers longed for. While almost everyone dreamed of peace and normality, the war left too many unhealed wounds and unsettled debts. The First World War spilled blood and squandered resources on a colossal scale. For several years, the European powers put one-third to one-half of their national incomes into the fighting. When the fighting stopped, the survivors hoped for a return to peacetime prosperity. Europe’s economies began to grow again, but from lower bases than before. France and Britain recovered…

‘New imperial possessions – Syria and Lebanon for France, Iraq and Palestine for Britain – proved poisoned chalices’ In Britain, we usually consider the Treaty of Versailles to be the most important and problematic political legacy of the First World War. But we need to think more broadly. Among the larger themes, three stand out. Old empires crumble The First World War was total war, testing not just the armed forces but also the whole economy and society of each belligerent power. And losing total war meant total defeat. First to crumble in 1917 was Russia: the March revolution toppled the tsar, and the November coup brought Lenin and the Bolsheviks to power, though they then had to fight a five-year civil war to gain full control of the country.…

Kwasi Kwarteng As an MP, I see a number of fine Victorian buildings in my Spelthorne constituency. Local architecture and the story of the British empire appeal to my interest in history and politics. • Kwasi reveals how Britain’s empire shaped its great cities on page 58 Lucy Worsley I travelled all over America in the hot summer just past, investigating how the country’s history gets used and abused by politicians and people alike in the process of building a nation. • Lucy considers the American Civil War’s contested legacy on page 22 Michael Palin The mid-19th century was a great time for polar exploration. These weren’t military or commercial expeditions, they were simply intended to gather as much information as possible about parts of the world as yet unknown.…

An early first-century AD gilded horse head, which was once part of a statue of Emperor Augustus, has gone on public display in Germany for the first time. Discovered in 2009, close to modern-day Frankfurt, the remains of the sculpture and other associated finds have thrown new light on the relationship between the Romans and German ‘barbarians’. The artefacts indicate the presence of a Roman settlement in the region at a time when historians previously believed Rome intended to subdue the Germanic tribes with military force. The evidence implies that the Romans lived next to and traded with these tribes for a number of years.…

WWII board game discovered in Jersey A Monopoly-style board game played during the Second World War has been found in a Jersey loft. Printed exclusively on the island, the game –called Occupation – refers to challenges faced by islanders during the Nazi occupation of 1940–45, such as food rationing. Stained glass discovery Researchers analysing stained glass panels from the Miracle windows of Canterbury Cathedral’s Trinity Chapel have found them to be 700 years older than thought. Previously believed to be the work of Victorian restorers, the two panels have now been dated to the 1180s. Ancient Egyptian embalming recipe revealed Tests carried out on a mummy dating from 3,700-3,500 BC have revealed the ingredients used to embalm it. The list features plant oil, conifer tree resin, a plant-based gum and…

Queens and pharaohs I read with interest the results of your poll 100 Women Who Changed the World (September), and would like to throw a few other inspirational names into the hat. Hatshepsut was the most successful female pharaoh, even more successful than some of her male counterparts. Gorgo, wife of Leonidas I, is the best-known of the Spartan women, who were ahead of their time. They had more freedom than other Greek women of their era – and women everywhere, until arguably the last 50–60 years! Then there is Æthelflæd. The daughter of Alfred the Great fought the Danes, won battles, fortified Mercia and raised her nephew, Æthelstan, who became the first king of a united England. Rose Norton, Bedfordshire Elevating a fanatic How disappointing it was to see…

For an early Tudor English traveller, Italy was to England as London was to the villages that dotted the nation. Imagine, then, how the teenage Thomas Cromwell felt when, around 1500, he left the constraints of Putney, a Thameside backwater that had yet to be engulfed by the sprawling capital, and wandered as far as the Italian peninsula. This was not the sophisticated Cromwell of later years – the chief minister and fixer who helped Henry VIII to engineer the annulment of the monarch’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon – but the unmistakably provincial son of a Surrey tradesman. He was a lad travelling from a kingdom on the European margins to the very centre of continental culture. In Italy, he would surely have marvelled at the sheer number of…

In 1759, the Sussex shopkeeper Thomas Turner wrote in his diary of his wife’s illness. He was convinced his “only friend” was about to die. As it turned out, Turner was right and Margaret (Peggy) Turner passed away on 23 June 1761. Still, Turner (who was 32 when his wife died) was a busy man, not only a shopkeeper, but also an undertaker, schoolmaster, surveyor and overseer of the poor. He wrote wills and helped with taxes. He played cricket and read widely, including the work of William Shakespeare, Joseph Addison and Samuel Richardson. To all intents and purposes, Turner was surrounded by friends. And yet, as he wrote in his diary, he felt “deserted”: “Not one, no! not one that attempts to pour that healing balm of compassion into…

This Dark Business: The Secret War Against Napoleon by Tim Clayton Little, Brown, 448 pages, £25 In Napoleon Bonaparte, Britain’s greatest political cartoonist, James Gillray, found a chief target for his caustic and satirical wit. It was Gillray’s famous image of ‘Little Boney’ from January 1803, for example, that was largely responsible for the enduring myth that Napoleon was unusually short. In fact, he was about 5ft 6in – average for the time, and approximately the same height as presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. As Tim Clayton outlines in his new account of both the propaganda war against Napoleon and secret plots orchestrated by the British, the emperor was keenly aware of the damage caused by such portrayals. In exile on Elba after his first abdication, he even complained…

The Persecution of the Templars: Scandal, Torture, Trial by Alain Demurger Profile, 368 pages, £25 The crushing of the Knights Templar was one of the more spectacular and sinister episodes of the European Middle Ages. Founded in the wake of the First Crusade, the Templars were knights sworn to a monastic rule, committed in life and by death to the defence of the Christian territories of the Holy Land. In 1291, after almost 200 years, they were driven from the last bastion of the crusader states. They withdrew to Cyprus and their European bases, but did not give up hope of reclaiming the Holy Land. Instead, their end began on 13 October 1307, when Philip the Fair of France had all the Templars of his kingdom arrested. In response to…

March of the makers Handmade TV BBC Two Scheduled for late October As evidenced by the way different regions are associated with different kinds of products, Britain has a rich manufacturing history. It’s a past celebrated by Steph McGovern in a living history series that finds the business journalist leading a group of craftspeople on visits to various cities and exploring the industries that have become synonymous with these locales. Getting hands-on will be part of the deal as we see demonstrations of the techniques behind such products as Sheffield cutlery and Wensleydale cheese. The series will also explore how the industries shaped Britain’s cities. Past imperfect? Archive on 4: The Good Old Days: The Politics of Nostalgia RADIO Radio 4 Scheduled for Saturday 27 October We stand at the…

Paul Robeson was an American singer (bass-baritone), and stage and film actor also known for his political activism. Following the success of the London premiere of the musical Show Boat, in which he sang ‘Ol’ Man River’, he starred in a West End production of Othello, and a number of films, including a big-screen adaptation of Show Boat. He later supported the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War, but his leftwing sympathies and backing for the American civil rights movement led to him being blacklisted and having his passport taken away during the McCarthyite era. He died in Philadelphia in 1976, aged 77. When did you first hear about Paul Robeson? My dad had some of his records so I heard his voice before I knew his name –…

‘In Britain more than 80,000 were diagnosed with shell shock – a number that grew due to the lasting effects of combat trauma’ Throughout the First World War, men on the western front lived and fought in dark, muddy trenches. After enduring the worst of the physical landscape, many then sought refuge in its grandeur and beauty. After the war, 14 Lake District summits were donated to the National Trust as a memorial, while climber-poet Geoffrey Winthrop Young dedicated the space to comrades united in “the fellowship of hill and wind and sunshine”. The Zone Rouge, stretching across north-eastern France, is a very different memorial to war. After the armistice, the area was declared unfit for human habitation on account of the devastation. Even today, there are areas scarred by…

The events marking the centenary of the First World War over the last four years have seen considerable financial investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) the Arts Council and the government. Numerous art works, books, films, and TV and radio programmes have been produced. In London, the Imperial War Museum revamped its First World War galleries, and – around the UK – events and exhibitions have taken place, alongside community history projects. While some organisations were motivated by their own interests (to increase footfall, audiences, funds and profile), both individuals and communities envisaged that participation would offer a sense of engagement, integration and identity. Funding by the HLF’s ‘First World War: Then and Now’ programme offered opportunities to uncover local histories of the conflict. Historians hoped that new research…

The French playwright Olympe de Gouges was, by any standards, one of the most extraordinary women of her day. Born in 1748, she established her own theatre company, campaigned against slavery and even published a pamphlet, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, which begins with the words: “Women are born free and remain equal to men in rights.” But as the French Revolution slid into sectarian bloodshed, Gouges’ outspokenness made her dangerous. By 1793, horrified by the extremism of Robespierre and the Jacobins, she had produced a subversive poster demanding a national referendum that would let people choose between a republic, a loose federation or a restored monarchy. That was too much for the regime. Shortly after her friends in the moderate Girondin faction had…

How were fairies defined during this period? While many people imagine Tinkerbell-like pixies, this sweet and sanitised image of the fairy is a Victorian construction. Late medieval and early modern ideas of fairies were pretty nebulous and varied, but there were some common themes. Fairies in this period tended to be discussed with a blend of wonder and trepidation. They were generally, though not always, as tall as a human. They were also supernaturally attractive and could seduce young women and men, imperilling their eternal souls. What role did fairies play in daily life? Fairies were a feature of medieval culture and served various functions. Noble families sometimes claimed descent from fairies, in which cases the fairy often served as guardian of the family, as was the case in the…

Your feature Veggie Victorians (September) held some resonance for me. My maternal grandfather, born in 1871, although not a vegetarian, was a Victorian who may have been influenced by the movement, for he showed empathy to the plight of farm animals. He died before I was born so I never knew him, but I was brought up on anecdotes furnished by my mother, in which he made comments like: “If the lady who likes her lamb chop had to kill the lamb, she would soon give up eating meat!” and: “Not a happy Christmas for the turkeys!” Lamb was never eaten in our house, and I believe his posthumous influence on the lives of my family contributed to us, along with his daughter and grandchildren, eventually eschewing meat in the…

The British in India by David Gilmour Allen Lane, 640 pages, £30 Can you write well about a small minority living in a country without discussing the people they live among? David Gilmour clearly thinks so. His latest work chronicles the social life of the expatriates who lived in India during the 300 years of British trade and political dominance there. After tracing the number of Britons at different moments in time (there were 155,000 in India in 1901, 0.06 per cent of the population), Gilmour explores their Indian careers. He charts his subjects’ origins and motivations, their voyages to India, their work, domestic, sex and social lives, and their deaths. The result is a work of extraordinary range and detail. Gilmour is especially sensitive to the importance of small…

A Place of Greater Safety Hilary Mantel (1992) Before she turned to Tudor England in Wolf Hall , Hilary Mantel wrote this ambitious epic about the French Revolution. In nearly 900 pages, Mantel blends fact with fiction to reconstruct the lives and careers of the three revolutionary leaders, Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins. She follows them from the provinces to Paris through the heady days of the early revolution and on, via their intricate political manoeuvrings and the terror they instigated, to the guillotine. City of Darkness, City of Light Marge Piercy (1996) The women of the French Revolution come to the fore in this memorable work of fiction by the American feminist, poet and novelist Marge Piercy. Claire Lacombe escapes poverty as an actress; chocolate shop-owner Pauline Leon is…

It’s 20 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement brought the Troubles in Northern Ireland to an end. Nevertheless, the legacy of these years is still with us, as The Life After (BBC Two, Saturday 6 October) explores. Featuring poetry from Nick Laird, the documentary looks at the conflict through the eyes of mothers, sisters and daughters who lost loved ones. On Radio 4, highlights include Analysis: How Democracy Dies (Monday 29 October), in which Professor Matt Qvortrup offers a historical view of the techniques autocrats employ to whittle away at democratic systems. New episodes of In Our Time (Thursdays) include a programme about the writer Edith Wharton, and two shows on Shakespeare – as a chronicler of Roman and English history. Home Front (weekdays), the show following…

1. Why did English cricketer Ted Pooley miss the first ever Test match against Australia in 1877? 2. a. What did suffragette Mary Richardson (left) famously do in the National Gallery on 10 March 1914? b. Which political organisation did she join in 1933? 3. What was the ‘Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion’? 4. Why is the English victory over the Scots at Northallerton in August 1138 known as the battle of the Standard? 5. What is this goat-like mythical beast and which English medieval family used it as a badge? QUIZ ANSWERS 1. He was in gaol in New Zealand following a punch-up over a bet. 2. a. She slashed Velázquez’s painting, The Rokeby Venus. b. The British Union of Fascists. 3. An 18th-century Methodist sect. 4. Because the English…