Looking backwards and forwards by Mary Hoffman

Since I have the first-of-the-month position in which to write History Girls posts, I can take the opportunity to wish all our Followers a very happy and fulfilling 2016.

And I can, Janus-like, look back over 2015 and forwards to the coming year, in which the History Girls will turn five! Watch out for a special birthday party on 1st July.

Statue of Janus in the Vatican Museum

First, we have lost some of our regular History Girls and gained some new ones. We say goodbye to  Laurie Graham, Christina Koning, Eleanor Updale and Clare Mulley and au revoir to Louisa Young, who leaves us a monthly poster but will be back as a Reserve and also a guest in 2016. Eleanor and Louisa have been with us since the beginning and we wish them all well..

In their place we welcome Vanora Bennett, Katherine Clements, Katherine Webb, Miranda Miller and Julie Summers. You can read about the new HGs on the About Us page. People only ever leave us because of pressure of work and sometimes they come back; the door is always open.

Looking back over last year shows we had a slew of anniversaries, from VE Day (70 years) on 8th May

VE Day celebrations in London (Imperial War Museum)

to the sealing of Magna Carta (800 years) on 15th June.

Magna Carta 12 97 version

 And there was the Evacuation of Dunkirk (75 years) at the end of May/beginning of June;

The Little Ships, Chatham (Colin Smith Creative Commons)

the Battle of Waterloo (200 years) on 18th June

Artist: Thomas James Barker

 and the Battle of Agincourt (600 years) on 15th October.

15th century miniature

It's a bit heavily biased towards the military and the political, perhaps because History being "about chaps" tends to show up in commemorations. What do we take from the celebration of these dates in the calendar? The Battle of Britain Memorial Service (also 75 years autumn 2015) created more column inches over Jeremy Corbyn's non-singing of the National Anthem than anything about what was actually being remembered and honoured.

Photo credit: Beata May

But there's a world of difference between a battle victory for the British at Waterloo and that at Agincourt. In both cases the French were on the losing side (though Wellington said it was a close-run thing) but the more recent conflict led to eighty years of peace in Europe. Whereas Henry V's victory in France against a force far superior in numbers came bang in the middle of what we loosely call the Hundred Years War and marked the high point of English possessions in France.

After Henry died young his infant son, Henry Vl was crowned king of England and France but it was downhill all the way after Agincourt in terms of England claiming territory across the Channel. That was an ambition that seemed obvious and right to English kings for reasons the woman in the street now (and possibly then)would find incomprehensible.

Borders are artificial politically-imposed boundaries but they do at least make some sense when marked by a large geographical feature like a stretch of water. In our era, when Superpowers from countries thousands of miles away from a conflict feel they have a right (or to put it more charitably, a duty) to intervene with bombs and drones and soldiers, the whole notion of sovereign states is differently undermined.

"Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it"

says the Norwegian Captain to Hamlet in explanation of his massed forces marching on Poland.

Hamlet Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain Yes, it is already garrison'd.

Which brings me to next year's major anniversary, at least for me. Not a battle or a treaty or a natural disaster but the 400th anniversary of  the death of Shakespeare on 23rd April. The History Girls really must do something special for that. My own personal celebration of the life of my favourite writer will include publishing on that date my YA novel Shakespeare's Ghost. The cover came yesterday and you will be seeing more about it here.

BBC 2 will continue its very successful The Hollow Crown series with the first tetralogy (to be written, though later historically) of the three Henry Vl plays and Richard lll. The previous cycle had a very memorable Ben Whishaw as Richard ll, Jeremy Irons as Henry lV and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal/ Henry V. The ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch will play Richard lll and Geoffrey Streatfeild his older brother Edward lV. I can't wait!

By coincidence I have just finished reading Dan Jones' The Hollow Crown, the sequel to his The Plantagenets. it is very readable indeed and it's such a complicated period of battles, treachery, familial in-fighting and summary executions that one needs a clear guide.

But back to 2016. There are a host of anniversaries coming up from the Battle of Hastings (950 years) on 14th October

to the Great Fire of London (350 years) in September.

Artist Rita Greer 2008

And from January to December there are bound to be mentions of the 80th anniversary of the succession and abdication of Edward Vlll.

Here on The History Girls we have a stellar list of guests lined up, including Tracy Chevalier and Alison Weir.

It only remains for me to wish you all the very best that 2016 can bring and preferably no battles!

Fighting Cocks and Showcased Skeletons, or Respect in Retrospect, by Clare Mulley

The record of history is a living thing, not just connecting people across time but ever-evolving, reflecting the changing sensibilities of those looking back. Each generation considers the past with fresh eyes, re-selecting the people, events and themes of importance and re-evaluating the motivations, implications and lessons to be learned. Sometimes it is wonderfully surprising how controversial the past can turn out to be.

One of my favourite pubs in my old stomping ground of St Albans has recently been targeted by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, which claims to be the oldest pub in the UK, dating from the eighth century, has drawn criticism for its historic name. PETA spokesperson Dawn Carr has suggested the pub be re-named to Ye Olde Clever Cocks to reflect a change in society’s attitudes.

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans

The St Albans pub does indeed sit on the site of an old cock-pit. The round, sunken arena was still evident in the floor when I use to drink there. But although this brutal sport is occasionally still secretly organised in England, it was made illegal here in the 1830s. Today the Fighting Cocks does not celebrate or encourage cock-fighting any more than The Flying Pig in Cambridge promotes porcine parachutists, or London’s The Hung, Drawn and Quartered advocates a return to capital punishment. In fact the landlord, Christo Tofalli, claims that the Fighting Cocks is particularly animal friendly, being near the park and welcoming dogs.

Signpost to the historic cockpit inside
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans

PETA may be a well-motivated organization, but their suggestion completely disregards the value of social history. Sanitizing our past exploitation of animals will do nothing to prevent future abuses; possibly the reverse. Beyond that, such heritage has inherent value, worthy of respect and protection, as landlord Tofalli appreciates. ‘This is an historic building with a remarkable story behind it’ he commented. It is a story that wants to share with locals and tourists and so, I am pleased to report, he is not planning a pub name-change soon.

Sometimes however the clash of interests and perspectives can be more difficult to negotiate. Last month the remains of a German soldier, believed to be those of Private Friedrich Brandt, were put on display in a Belgian museum. Private Brandt was not a soldier of the Second World War, nor even of the Great War before it, but of the Battle of Waterloo two hundred years ago. His skeleton, less skull but with the telling discovery of a French musket-ball between his ribs, was found, traditionally enough, under a car park near the battle-site. It was the curvature of the spine that led to his unofficial identification as Private Brandt, a twenty-three year old, known to have kyphosis, from Hanover. The skeleton was subsequently put on show at the ‘Waterloo Memorial 1815’ display in a Belgian museum.

Skeleton of the Waterloo soldier,
believed to be Private Friedrich Brandt, Belgium

Within days the respected military historian, Rob Schäfer, had launched a petition, Peace for Friedrich Brandt, asking to have the bones removed from display and respectfully reburied. Schäfer is able to picture the young Brandt in the early 1800s, feeling ‘as though he were on the adventure of a lifetime’ as he left his Hanover home to make his way to the ports of the German North Sea. He would have then ventured across the channel and completed his training in the - to him very alien - environment of East Sussex, before fighting alongside his English counterparts at Waterloo. ‘Friedrich’s compatriots would have buried him with honour’, Schäfer argues compellingly, before asking whether it is no less our duty to do the same.

Yet Françoise Scheepers, director of the Belgian Tourist Office for Brussels and Wallonia, has stated that the purpose of the memorial display was ‘not to shock but to pay tribute’. The museum is non-profit making, so there is no commercial exploitation. By humanizing the story of the Battle of Waterloo, their display hopes to engage young people with their history, helping them to appreciate that the soldiers were not just statistics but the ‘people made of flesh and bones’ with whom Schäfer can already empathise so well.

The Battle of Waterloo
(Image courtesy of Rob Schaefer)

Voltaire famously argued that ‘we owe respect to the living. To the dead we owe only the truth’. Do we teach disrespect to the living by displaying the bones of the dead, or do we teach history? Private Brandt signed up to fight the French under Napoleon, not to champion the teaching of history or the humanity of his fellow-fallen. However, in life he also sought adventure rather than peace. If he has no traceable descendents, who is to say whether a quiet burial would be a mark of greater respect than his redeployment to promote an understanding of the cause for which he gave his life? I would certainly prefer to be useful post-mortem, but I doubt that such a role was something Private Brandt envisaged or would have aspired to.

More broadly, what is it that makes the display of Private Brandt’s remains so much more provocative than those of the Ancient Egyptians, or other human reliquary? At what point, if ever, and under what terms, do bones become historic artifact rather than human remains? Is it the relatively young age of Private Brandt's skeleton, or is it something else that makes this display seem so disrespectful, such as the familiarity of his name? Or is it the fact that we have marked so many military anniversaries recently and honoured so many dead, and because we have developed such a culture of respect for fallen military heroes?

Both animal rights and respect for human remains are important issues that comment on people’s capacity for empathy, altruism, and the value of respect. Engagement with history demands similar qualities. While we must be careful not to impose modern sensibilities on our appreciation of the past, without a degree of respect and an attempt at empathy, any engagement loses meaning. The only thing that is absolutely clear is that sometimes it is the dialogue we have with history itself that is as important as the facts and artifacts of the past. Unless we ask the questions, unless we consider, criticise and debate not just the facts and stories, but the interpretations placed upon them and the uses made of them, history will itself become dead and meaningless.

Waterloo - Celia Rees

 Every History Girl posts on an allotted date. Mine is the 18th. I have to admit to having sometimes suffered from Date Envy. Other days are Special. New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Valentine's, Solstice, Equinoxes, the year is studded with Special Days. The 18th? Not very special at all. Nothing much to say. Except this day in this month of this year. 18th June, 2015 will mark the Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo. Commemorations have already started with the unveiling of a plaque at Waterloo Station.

There are plans afoot for a various events to take place on the site of the battlefield itself including, perhaps, a re-enactment of the charge of the Scots Greys immortalised in the painting Scotland Forever! by Lady Elizabeth Butler. I'd like to see that.

Scotland Forever! Lady Elizabeth Butler

The Battle of Waterloo brought to an end a war that had been going on for twenty years, a war begun in furious reaction to events in France. Initially, Austria, Prussia and Great Britain set out to crush the Revolution that so terrified them. They were joined by Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, the Papal States and sundry other nations but the French refused to be crushed. They defended their new state based on Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. The Levée en masse, the mobilisation of the population, an army officer corps made up of youthful career soldiers under the ruthless leadership of a brilliant young Corsican enabled them to turn the tables on the formidable forces ranged against them. 

1796 Portrait of Napoleon at the Bridge of the Arcole by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros

Napoleon as a young officer

The French Revolutionary War turned into the Napoleonic Wars with armies ranging back and forth over the map of Europe. Such total war affected all the nations involved. In Britain, every city, every town, every village and hamlet was touched as more and more men were sucked away into the army and the navy. Even Jane Austen, not one for the bigger picture, has plenty of young officers to distract her more impressionable female characters, while the army and navy provided a convenient conduit for younger sons and impecunious brothers. In the first part of Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair, most of the male characters are in the army and one of the great pivotal scenes is the ball before Waterloo. 

The war affected families from the highest to the lowest. There are many songs and ballads that vividly attest to the deep and far reaching effects of this long running war. The Eighteenth of June graphically describes the carnage of its final battle with generals and common soldiers lying equal in death. 

The valiant Duke of Brunswick fell in the field that day,

And many a gallant officer fell in the awful fray.

And many a British soldier lay wounded in their gore,

Upon the plains of Waterloo where the thundering cannons roar.

The Eighteenth of June

Ballads like The Plains of Waterloo tell piercingly poignant stories of the love and loss suffered by the women, the soldiers' sweethearts and wives, who were left behind.

"Farewell my comrades, likewise my sweetheart."

These were the very words he said and then he did depart.

They dug my love a silent grave, the tears they were not few.

And they laid him in the cold clay on the Plains of Waterloo.

Although he's gone and left me no other will I take.

Through lonesome woods and shady groves I wander for his sake.

Through lonesome woods and shady groves I'll wander through and through,

And I'll mourn for him that's dead upon the Plains of Waterloo.

Plains of Waterloo arr. Kate Rusby

the Field of Waterloo as it appeared the Morning after the Memorable Battle of 18th June, 1815

Waterloo might seem distant to us now but the forthcoming commemorations are a reminder of a war that reached into almost every household, that changed forever the nature of warfare itself, introduced the idea of 'total war' and made possible, if not probable, the kind of European war that had its centenary last year. 

Celia Rees

www.celiarees.com