I'm currently reading Anthony Horowitz's Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk (2011). And very entertaining it is too. There are some flaws - the proof reading is poor, and there's some language I suspect is anachronistic (were people really 'gunned down' in Victorian England?) - but it's a strong, convoluted story and Horowitz has a good turn of phrase.
He also has a nice line in gently reprimanding Arthur Conan Doyle for flaws in the canon: the lack of interest in Mrs Hudson's background and circumstances, for example, or the failure to follow up what happened to various criminals after Holmes's investigations were completed.
There's something that's troubling me, though. The story's set in 1890, but Watson is writing in 1915 at a time when 'a terrible and senseless war rages on the continent'.
I don't think that Watson would have referred to the First World War as 'senseless'. Certainly not at such an early stage. I fear that's a modern perception that's colouring the narrative.
In my forthcoming book, The Last Post, I quote a passage from John Buchan's 1926 novel The Dancing Floor, in which Edward Leithen reflects on the emergence of anti-war literature. 'The vocal people were apt to be damaged sensitives, who were scarcely typical of the average man,' he observes. 'There were horrors enough, God knows, but in most people’s recollections these were overlaid by the fierce interest and excitement, even by the comedy of it.'
I suspect that, as a patriot, as an army doctor and as a veteran of the Afghan wars, Watson would have been inclined to agree with Leithen's sentiment. He would surely not have seen conflict with Germany as being 'senseless'. Unhappy and regrettable, perhaps, but necessary.
Showing posts with label First World War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First World War. Show all posts
Saturday, 16 August 2014
Thursday, 7 August 2014
A hundred years ago
A hundred years ago today, the bodies of eight men were retrieved from the Thames Estuary.
On the 5th of August 1914 the first British shots had been fired in the First World War, aimed at the SS Königin Luise, a German steam ferry found laying mines. The ship was sunk, but so too was the British light cruiser HMS Amphion, which struck one of those mines early the next morning.
The bodies that were recovered came from both ships, four from each. They were buried together, four coffins covered by the Union Jack, four by the German ensign, and they were accorded full military honours.
At the end of the ceremony, a British bugler sounded the Last Post.
And that, in miniature, is why I've written my forthcoming book on the Last Post. There's something deeply intriguing about a piece of music that originated in the British Army but was so widely adopted that it became a universal, sacred anthem of death and remembrance, applicable equally to both sides in a conflict.
On the 5th of August 1914 the first British shots had been fired in the First World War, aimed at the SS Königin Luise, a German steam ferry found laying mines. The ship was sunk, but so too was the British light cruiser HMS Amphion, which struck one of those mines early the next morning.
The bodies that were recovered came from both ships, four from each. They were buried together, four coffins covered by the Union Jack, four by the German ensign, and they were accorded full military honours.
At the end of the ceremony, a British bugler sounded the Last Post.
And that, in miniature, is why I've written my forthcoming book on the Last Post. There's something deeply intriguing about a piece of music that originated in the British Army but was so widely adopted that it became a universal, sacred anthem of death and remembrance, applicable equally to both sides in a conflict.
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Time
An article by Neil McCormick rightly celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the release of You Really Got Me by the Kinks, on 4 August 1964. (Though he oddly places it with Decca Records rather than Pye.)
It's a slightly disturbing concept that You Really Got Me emerged exactly halfway between the declaration of war in 1914 and today. And slightly disturbing that I was born on the far side of that divide.
On the subject of time - after six years on this blogsite, I've finally found the time setting and adjusted it to London.
It's a slightly disturbing concept that You Really Got Me emerged exactly halfway between the declaration of war in 1914 and today. And slightly disturbing that I was born on the far side of that divide.
On the subject of time - after six years on this blogsite, I've finally found the time setting and adjusted it to London.
Monday, 4 August 2014
Remembering stuff
As part of the saturation commemoration of the centenary of Britain's declaration of war against Germany, LBC Radio has asked the main party leaders at Westminster to pen a letter to the Unknown Soldier. The results can be read and (if you have the stomach for it) heard here.
Ed Miliband's contribution to this exercise encapsulates much of what irritates me in modern politics.
It starts with the greeting 'Dear Friend'. Really? The Unknown Soldier is Miliband's friend? Even though the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition doesn't know who this dead man was, they're still friends?
Miliband goes on to make nervously sure he's ticked all the correct boxes, mentioning troops from 'across the world - from the Indian sub-continent to Africa, from Australia to the Caribbean'. Though you'll notice he manages to avoid saying what all these troops had in common, presumably because he doesn't want to use the word 'Empire'.
And it wasn't just men. There were women on the Western Front too. Indeed the only person named in the message is Edith Cavell. There's even room in a five-paragraph letter to get in a mention of football.
(You can tell he's not really at Tony Blair's level, though; Blair would have managed to get in a reference to those executed for 'cowardice'.)
Finally, we get the lessons that we should learn from the First World War: it's 'a reminder of the brutality of conflict' and a 'warning to those in power to avoid entering into war unless it is absolutely necessary'.
Well, obviously. And let's be entirely fair: Miliband has long said that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, and the greatest achievement of his time as leader has been to prevent Britain - and thereby America - from a military engagement in Syria. (Why he doesn't make more of this, I have no idea.)
But how are we to know whether a war is 'absolutely necessary'? One way to judge Miliband's political thinking might be if he told us whether he thinks the First World War was necessary.
Unfortunately he doesn't have time for that, because his entire attention is on a touchy-feely embrace of the past that focuses on individual experiences (preferably of those who can be categorised as being representative of an oppressed group).
This, of course, is the media treatment of history, and Miliband is merely responding to a challenge laid down by a media organisation. Which is fine. In broad terms, I think the media are entirely justified in their approach. It's probably true that most of the public aren't much interested in the big themes of history, and there's nothing wrong with an account of the past that centres on empathy rather than interpretation.
But Miliband's not just a member of the public. He also (presumably) still thinks he's a potential prime minister. And as such, I expect something a bit more insightful from him. Something that hints at an awareness of the geopolitical implications of 1914-18, for example.
The same mindset is evident in most of his words and actions, in, for example, the way that Labour's main economic attack on the government is that David Cameron doen't 'get' the economic reality experienced by 'hard working families' and 'the most vulnerable in our society'. A potential prime minister should aspire to being more than a sympathetic ear in times of trouble.
Behind this is a real problem, that the media's handling of history is mirrored in its coverage - on our behalf - of current conflicts. The obsession is with getting footage and accounts of the victims of war. All of which tell us nothing more than what we already knew: war is bloody, horrible and destructive. The coverage has an impact, though. Show enough of the suffering and the call will come that something must be done. And we blindly rush in to support the overthrow of governments with little thought of who or what will take their place. Whilst paying sentimental tribute to our 'heroes' in uniform.
Maybe I'm being unfair to Miliband. After all, there was that stand on Syria. And he's far from being alone in Westminster, Broadcasting House or the country more widely. But I want more from him than Blairite emotionalism. I want an alternative, which is supposed to be his job.
Ed Miliband's contribution to this exercise encapsulates much of what irritates me in modern politics.
It starts with the greeting 'Dear Friend'. Really? The Unknown Soldier is Miliband's friend? Even though the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition doesn't know who this dead man was, they're still friends?
Miliband goes on to make nervously sure he's ticked all the correct boxes, mentioning troops from 'across the world - from the Indian sub-continent to Africa, from Australia to the Caribbean'. Though you'll notice he manages to avoid saying what all these troops had in common, presumably because he doesn't want to use the word 'Empire'.
And it wasn't just men. There were women on the Western Front too. Indeed the only person named in the message is Edith Cavell. There's even room in a five-paragraph letter to get in a mention of football.
(You can tell he's not really at Tony Blair's level, though; Blair would have managed to get in a reference to those executed for 'cowardice'.)
Finally, we get the lessons that we should learn from the First World War: it's 'a reminder of the brutality of conflict' and a 'warning to those in power to avoid entering into war unless it is absolutely necessary'.
Well, obviously. And let's be entirely fair: Miliband has long said that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, and the greatest achievement of his time as leader has been to prevent Britain - and thereby America - from a military engagement in Syria. (Why he doesn't make more of this, I have no idea.)
But how are we to know whether a war is 'absolutely necessary'? One way to judge Miliband's political thinking might be if he told us whether he thinks the First World War was necessary.
Unfortunately he doesn't have time for that, because his entire attention is on a touchy-feely embrace of the past that focuses on individual experiences (preferably of those who can be categorised as being representative of an oppressed group).
This, of course, is the media treatment of history, and Miliband is merely responding to a challenge laid down by a media organisation. Which is fine. In broad terms, I think the media are entirely justified in their approach. It's probably true that most of the public aren't much interested in the big themes of history, and there's nothing wrong with an account of the past that centres on empathy rather than interpretation.
But Miliband's not just a member of the public. He also (presumably) still thinks he's a potential prime minister. And as such, I expect something a bit more insightful from him. Something that hints at an awareness of the geopolitical implications of 1914-18, for example.
The same mindset is evident in most of his words and actions, in, for example, the way that Labour's main economic attack on the government is that David Cameron doen't 'get' the economic reality experienced by 'hard working families' and 'the most vulnerable in our society'. A potential prime minister should aspire to being more than a sympathetic ear in times of trouble.
Behind this is a real problem, that the media's handling of history is mirrored in its coverage - on our behalf - of current conflicts. The obsession is with getting footage and accounts of the victims of war. All of which tell us nothing more than what we already knew: war is bloody, horrible and destructive. The coverage has an impact, though. Show enough of the suffering and the call will come that something must be done. And we blindly rush in to support the overthrow of governments with little thought of who or what will take their place. Whilst paying sentimental tribute to our 'heroes' in uniform.
Maybe I'm being unfair to Miliband. After all, there was that stand on Syria. And he's far from being alone in Westminster, Broadcasting House or the country more widely. But I want more from him than Blairite emotionalism. I want an alternative, which is supposed to be his job.
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