The ghosts of the past..

I spent a lot of my time daydreaming about how places looked in the past.  I'm pretty obsessed by it.  I find old pictures fascinating, especially when the scene they depict hasn't changed much.  It's almost as if the ghosts of the past are near enough to touch.

I've seen a few people superimpose images of the past over modern day images and they've really captured my imagination, so I thought i'd have a go at it.  Today I borrowed an amazing book from the library - 'The Great War: A Photographic Narrative'. It's a fascinating collection of images, some very familiar, some i've never seen before.  I heartily recommend having a leaf through it.

Anyway, included in the book was the image below, from the Imperial War Museum archives.



The picture was taken in September 1914 on Agar Street, at the site of the Charing Cross Hospital in London (now a police station). It shows some of the first wounded being brought back from early clashes of the First World War. It's an interesting image - particularly the policemen holding back the crowds.  Obviously this sight was something of a novelty at that stage of the war - depressingly less so later on.

I had a look on Google Streetview and tried to locate the same point today. Here it is:

I don't have Photoshop, but with a little bit of tweaking on Powerpoint i've managed to produce the following image:

It's not perfect, but hopefully good enough to create that sense of the past lapsing into the present that I find so fascinating.  Almost 100 years ago now..

World War One Centenary Visit last month

Early in October, I was lucky enough to be included in the second batch of teachers and students to take part in the WW1 Centenary Project, which is aiming to provide the opportuntiy for two students from every Secondary school in the country to visit the battlefields of the First World War. I've been meaning to update but haven't got round to it yet, but I thought i'd share a few of the pictures to give you a flavour of what it was like. This is us at Vimy Ridge - see me somewhere on the right... Vimy Ridge is on the site of an important German stronghold in the war which dominated the surrounding area, and which was successfully captured in a textbook assault by the Canadians, working together as an army rather than invidivually for the first time. The site has enormous importance for the Canadians, and today is the site of their memorial to the missing. From Vimy, you can also get an excellent view of the 1915 Loos battlefield, which is still dominated by the twin 'crassiers' (slag heaps). My great-grandad started his war here, joining his unit the Royal Fusiliers shortly after their blooding in the battle. Here we are at the Theipval memorial to the missing, which contains 70,000 names of British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell in this area but have no known grave. I was drawn to this shaft of light that seemed to be shining on these names... I paid a visit to a local man of mine - Herbert Nobbs of March, who is commemorated on my local war memorial. I stood opposite his name today during the ceremony. Near Sheffield memorial park - part of the 'Iron Harvest' that is still being recovered from fields almost 100 years later. Sheffield memorial park - the ditch near the fence is the former front line trench, from which the Pals battalions (who are commemorated here) advanced from on the 1st day of the Somme, and met with such terrible losses in their attempts to capture Serre. View towards their objective - Serre, and the former site of No Man's Land. Touching memorial to the 'Acrington Pals' Shell crater behind Sheffield memorial park Railway Hollow cemetery, behind Sheffield memorial park. A beautiful little site - so called because of the narrow gauge railway that ran up to the former British front lines. I find the inscriptions on many of the graves especially moving. Ulster Tower, Somme - site of the German stronghold 'the Schwaben redoubt', and one of the few successes on the 1st July 1916. Look closely in the field to the right of the tower, and you can see a thin chalky line in the field - this is the remains of the German front line.

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Tyne Cot cemetery, in the early morning mist.  I've visited several times but i've never seen it look so striking.

Dennis Judd's 'The Boer War'

I've just finished reading this - I highly recommend it to Year 12 students who are about to study the Boer War.

 

Unlike Pakenham's book, which deals with the war in a lengthy, though entertainingly written narrative, Judd's work is organised instead into chapters which focus on different aspects of the war as a whole.  In many ways this makes it a more accessible book than Pakenham's, although the latter probably remains the definitive work on the subject if you can battle your way through the whole thing!  The advantage of Judd's work is that those who are more pressed for time can read a chapter in isolation without feeling like they are missing out on the wider picture - for example, there is a chapter on the 'Pro-Boers', which I found particularly interesting.  Considering Lloyd George's steely conduct as PM during the latter stages of the Great War and beyond, it seems surprising to hear of him putting himself out on a limb to criticise the Boer War, and making himself unpopular to the extent that he was forced to flee one rally dressed as a policeman!

 

I shall certainly be adding this book to the reading list in the future. Unfortunately we do not have a copy in the library, but I ordered mine using the Cambridgeshire library inter-library loan service where several copies seem to be available.

 

I will be copying some sections of this book as reading for you in the future, but if you can get a copy i'd highly recommend it.

Pre-reading on the Boer War

I hope that everyone has had a restful half term!

Current Year 12s - we will be covering the Boer War up until Christmas. The schedule is very tight and it is a big topic. There will be no time to go back and go over topics again. Therefore, you MUST read up on these topics before we cover them. I will give you a copy of this sheet in class, but it is your responsibility to read up on the topics before the deadlines and to have completed notes on them.

Please also note - i have a lovely stack of reading for you on the first topic (causes of the Boer War). I won't see you for a week, so please come and collect it. I'll try and remind you in registration.

Also, I am currently reading Dennis Judd's book 'The Boer War' and can highly recommend it. It's accessible and very readable, and groups topics together (e.g. military defeats, Liberal reforms), so might be a bit less formidable than the Pakenham book. You can order the book from the library.

Topic to research	Date to be completed by	What specific books/articles you have read (full reference please – the course textbook doesn’t count)
Causes of the Boer War	11th November
Fighting the Boer war – the three stages of the war – initial defeat for British (‘Black Week’), followed by seeming success (e.g. capture of Pretoria/Bloemfontein), followed by the Guerilla War. Also, attitudes to the ‘scorched earth’ policy – particularly the work of Emily Hobhouse	18h November
How the war was reported, the 1900 ‘Khaki election’, ‘National Efficiency’	25th November
Liberal reforms after the war	2nd December
Reforms to the army after the Boer War (e.g. Haldane reforms)	9th December
The significance of the Boer War – particularly in terms of lessons learned before WW1	16th December

'The Reason Why' - Cecil Woodham Smith

I've just finished reading this book - i've found it one of the most gripping history books i've read for a long time.



Although there are more recent works on the 'Charge of the Light Brigade' (this was published in 1953), i doubt any of them can compare to 'The Reason Why' in terms of sheer readability.  I love a good narrative History book - some of my favourites include Beevor's 'Stalingrad', Holland's 'Persian Fire' and Middlebrook's 'The First Day on the Somme'.  All of these books i've found just as gripping as any novel, and Woodham-Smith more than compares to them.

'The Reason Why' describes the background to the Charge, in particular focussing on the role of Lucan and Cardigan as the two principal instigators in the disaster.  Both are painted as essentially hot-headed aristocrats, out of their depth in their commands and widely disliked by their troops, although Lucan is at least described as being intelligent (Cardigan is derided as being essentially vain and stupid).

Of particular interest is a lengthy section on the purchase of commissions, which leads to both Cardigan and Lucan buying command of their various units over the heads of other officers who had actual experience of fighting and actual aptitude, in some cases leading to these officers leaving the British army in despair.

Cardigan's essential unsuitability for command was shown after he became the commanding officer of 15th  The King's Hussars.  Cardigan became so infamous for his bullying of this unit that he was eventually dismissed.  Here the story might have ended, except by 1836 Cardigan was back in charge of the 11th Hussars, despite his earlier dismissal.  The reasons behind this are explained at length in the book, but essentially it reveals the ridiculously out-of-date system of command in the British Army that led to such disaster in the Crimea 20 years later.

Also explored in the book is the tempestous relationship between Lucan and Cardigan - despite being brother-in-laws, they detested each other long before the fateful decision was made to put Lucan in overall charge of the Cavalry division sent to the Crimea, including the Light Brigade under the Charge of Cardigan.  This would've been an explosive situation anyway,  a situation made far worse by Raglan's inept leadership - he gave Cardigan the impression that he had an independent command and did not have to listen to Lucan, and failed to arbitrate in the dispute between the two.

Woodham-Smith's description of the fateful decision to land at the Crimea is particularly vivid.  It never fails to amaze me how insane it seems that a whole armada of ships, British and French, left Bulgaria intending to invade the Crimea, without having any firm idea of where they were going to actually land!  When one compares this to the level of planning that went into the D-Day invasions less than 100 years later it seems amazing that this could have ever happened.

The landing at the aptly-named 'Kalamita Bay' was as unplanned and chaotic as one might expect.  One morbid piece of detail is that the army that left the beach head, heading towards its first confrontation with the Russians, was soon followed by hordes of vultures, despite them not being native to the Crimea.  It seems that the temptation of thousands of soldiers dropping from the ranks and dying of exhaustion and cholera was enough to attract them away from their natural habitat in North Africa, hundreds of miles away.

The actual events of the Charge are as vivid as one might expect.  Woodham-Smith doesn't blame any one party, but instead points the finger at the madness of allowing a British army to be led by soldiers who had no experience of warfare and no formal training,  leading to Raglan's infamously vague order that sent the Light Brigade to their destruction and into the pages of history.

I highly recommend reading this book - I found it fascinating.

Year 12 blogs

Some excellent work from our Year 12s so far. Here are a selection of the blogs started - please have a read and comment on each others! (and on mine too of course!)

http://thethinredlinehistory.blogspot.co.uk/ (Morgan)

http://colleenloveshistory.blogspot.co.uk/ (Colleen)

http://historysloth.blogspot.co.uk/ (Sam T)

thetrumpcardigan.tumblr.com (Kyle)

http://samgray97.blogspot.co.uk/ (Sam G)

http://jesstortoise.blogspot.co.uk/ (Jessica)

Back to Flanders and the Somme..

I'm feeling hugely excited this weekend, as on Friday I am lucky enough to be taking part in the pilot project of the government initiative to take two KS3 students from every school in the country to the battlefields of the First World War.  It was a difficult choice deciding who to take - I decided to run a competition in which students had to argue why they would like to go, and how they thought the First World War should be remembered. In the end, I selected two Year 8 girls who impressed me with the effort they had put into a display convincing me to take them, which included sources from the various important figures of the war including Lloyd George!  I was also impressed that one of them brought along her family album which included a fascinating collection of photographs and postcards connected to her relative who had served throughout the war.

The itenary of the trip looks amazing; it is a four day trip, taking in the key British sector of Ypres and Poperhinge, and the sites connected with the battle of Passchendaele such as Tyne Cot.  We will also be visiting Essex Farm dressing station/cemetery, famous for its association with John McCrae who wrote his famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' there.

After that, we head on to Vimy Ridge - site of one of the decisive Canadian victories of the war - before taking in the monumental Thiepval memorial, which looks over the battlefields of the Somme inscribed with its sombre roll call of the names of thousands who have no known grave.

I hope the two students find the First World War as interesting as I do.  I often reflect that one of the turning points for me when I decided History was the subject I wanted to focus on, was visiting Ypres as a Year 9 student back in the late 90s.  The power of the place overwhelmed me;  I felt that the ghosts of the past were so close that you could almost touch them.  The unexploded shells at the side of the road, waiting for bomb disposal experts to collect, and still being unearthed 80 years after the guns fell silent; the ponds that dot the landscape, caused by distant artillery barrages and mine explosions; even the steel rods that hold up the humble farmer's barbed wire - survivors from the Great War.

Perhaps the places that had the most powerful impression on me of all was Langemarck German cemetery.  I know that I am not the first to comment on the eerie atmosphere of the place; particularly the 'comrades' stood at the end of the cemetery, which one observes upon entering, standing watch with bowed heads over the mass grave of thousands of German soldiers, interred without ceremony into essentially a huge flower bed.


I wonder how much longer such places will hold a sway over the popular imagination. I had an interesting discussion with some of my Year 9s this week.  We have just started studying World War One, and I find it completely fascinating, but quite a few students seem to be completely obsessed with World War Two, and repeatedly ask when we are going to start studying it.  This confuses me;  I wonder it is because World War Two on the whole is more familiar to them, occupying as it does a more visible place in computer games, films, and the primary school curriculum.  Also, I suppose in many respects it is a 'sexier' subject, with its abundance of film, fast moving tanks, aircraft, music etc.

However, as I tried to explain to them, the Second War can only really be understood as an extension of the First, and in my view occupies a place in the British psyche that remains haunting to this day.

Have you been to the battlefields of the First World War? Did you have a similar experience to my own? What impressions were you left with?

Some links to help you research the Crimean War for independent study

Dear students,

I hope that you are enjoying getting to grips with 'The Experience of Warfare in Britain'.

Remember that you are required to regularly undertake independent study over and above the homework and reading that I set you in class. This is to help extend your subject knowledge and make the topic more accessible for you.

You'll be glad to know that Sawtry Library has purchased many of the books on the reading list for your consumption. The books with an asterisk to the left are available in the library. I've asked that they be made reference only so they should always be available to read in your study periods.

READING LIST FOR ‘THE EXPERIENCE OF WARFARE IN BRITAIN’ UNIT 2

 

*Badsey, Stephen — Crimean War (War Correspondents), Bramley Books 1997

Beckett, Ian — Home Front 1914-18 (National Archives, 2006)

Byrne, Mike — Britain 1895-1918 (Hodder and Stoughton 2005)

*Kelly, Christine (ed) — Mrs Duberly’s War (Oxford University Press, 2007)

*Lynch, Michael — An Introduction to 19th century British History 1800-1914 (Hodder Murray,

1999)

Macdonald, Lyn — 1914-18 Voices and Images of the Great War (Penguin Books, 1991)

Morgan, K O — The Boer War and the Media in the Journal 20th Century British History Vol

13 No 1 March 2002 (published by Oxford Journals)

Marwick, Arthur — The Deluge (Macmillan, 1965)

Marwick, Arthur — The Home Front (Thames and Hudson, 1976)

*Packenham, Thomas — The Boer War (Abacus, 1991)

*Ponting, C — The Crimean War Chatto and Windus, 2004)

Rappaport, H — No Place for Ladies: the Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War

(Aurum Press, 2007)

*Rees R and Stewart G – AS Edexcel GCE History: the Experience of Warfare in Britain, 1854-

1929 (Heinemann, 2008)

*Robinson, Jane — Mary Seacole (Constable and Robinson, 2005)

Sibbald, Raymond — War correspondents: the Boer War (Jonathan Ball,1993)

*Small, Hugh — Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel (Constable, 1998)

Van Reenan, R — Emily Hobhouse: Boer War Letters (Human and Rousseau)

W*ilson, K M — The International Impact of the Boer War (Acumen, 2001)

Winter, J M — The Great War and the British People (Macmillan,1985)

Winter, J M — The Experience of World War I (Oxford University Press, 1989)

 

Internet links to help you find out more about the Crimean War:

A site containing most of Roger Fenton's Crimean War photographs
http://www.allworldwars.com/Crimean-War-Photographs-by-Roger-Fenton-1855.html

Full online archive of 'Punch' magazine - a periodical containing many of the famous cartoons we will be looking at for the Crimea, Boer War and WW1.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=punch

Mary Seacole's autobiography 'Wonderful adventures of Mary Seacole in many lands' , which describes her experiences in the Crimea, is widely available as a free ebook online, good if you have  a tablet or Kindle. Here is one such link:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/seacole/adventures/adventures.html

Also, with your library card you can gain access to a range of online resources, including the British newspaper archives. It is fascinating to look at contemporary newspaper coverage - for instance, you can read first hand William Russell's reports back from the Crimea. You can log in from home here:
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/online-db.htm

The Crimean War Research Society links - includes links to a Channel Four documentary on the Crimean War which you could watch as part of your independent study.
http://cwrs.russianwar.co.uk/cwrsentry.html

You are spoiled for choice when it comes to reading for this topic. If you are not sure what or how to research please ask me and i will show you how.  Also, if you are using an online blog, please let me know when you have updated it, and comment on my own blog so that i can see you are reading it!

'No Place For Ladies'

I've just finished reading this book - I highly recommend it to all future Year 12s about to study 'The Experience of Warfare in Britain', but also to anyone with an interest in the role of women in the past and social history in general.  It's a fascinating book and a riveting read.




As the title suggests, Rappaport concentrates on the role of women in the Crimean War,  although there is also much interesting detail about the army of the day.  For example, how generally soldiers were expected not to get married, due to the length of their service (21 years after the Napoleonic Wars, changing to 10/12 years after the 'Time of Service in the Army Act 1847'), and the fact that wives were seen as an inconvenience since the soldiers could be expected to be posted abroad for years. Therefore, it was heavily discouraged, and soldiers who wished to get married had to seek the permission of their commanding officer. If this permission were not given, and soldiers still got married, this meant that the families of soldiers could expect no help from the army in terms of food, accomodation etc.

However, even if a soldier had obtained the blessing of his commanding officer, once the soldiers were called on active service, e.g. the Crimean War,  all help for soldier's families ceased once they had left the country. Little or no provision was even given for soldier's to be able to send part of their wages back to help their families, so in many cases the soldier's families became completely destitute, which eventually led to such a scandal that Queen Victoria herself had to intervene to encourage charitable organisations to help these families.  It seems incredible, even given the stereotypical Victorian belief in lack of social welfare, that so little should have been done to help these families, given the official lionization of the soldiers themselves as they left for the front.

The Crimea is also interesting in that it was the last war in which some women were allowed to accompany their husbands on campaign. Lots were drawn to decide who would have the 'honour', although again no provision was made to look after them, so women had to find their own food, clothing and shelter, or hope that the soldiers would take pity on them and share their (meagre) rations.

(Below - a picture of an army wife on campaign in the Crimea)



It is also interesting how, given the famous lack of organisation of the British army in the Crimea and their failure to provide adequate food/shelter/medical care for their soldiers,  that they made so little use of the women who had accompanied their husbands on campaign to take over these roles. This was in contrast to the French, who employed 'Cantinieres' (usually the wives of non-commissioned officers) to provide food and drink to soldiers. They even had their own natty uniform (see below), and apparently scandalised the women in the British camp by wearing trousers!





I highly recommend Rappaport's book as an intriguing glimpse into a little known aspect of 19th century Britain.

Amazing 3D images from World War One..

There's something about the grainy, flat images from the Great War that give it a sense of unreality, however there have been a few times when i've seen images that are so vivid that I feel that I can step into the picture. Here's a really good example - a set of images taken by the French army with a special 3D camera that gives an incredible depth to the picture - see the example below..


Anyone who has visited the museum attached to Sanctuary Wood at Ypres will be familiar with these type of pictures (if I recall correctly, the collection they have there are very gruesome!)

Another example has to be the colour pictures taken by Albert Kahn, a French photographer. Considering the limitations of the technology of the day, there's something about the pictures bring the war to life in a way that the black images fail to do.  Perhaps it is also the subject matter - not always pictures of the horror of battle, but instead an ordinary 'poilu' (French soldier) having his lunch in the middle of a typically French courtyard..



The colour pictures almost make one feel that you are looking at a still from a modern recreation for a film, rather than an actual image of the First World War that is almost a century old..


I often wonder how far black and white images distance ourselves from the subject matter. I've even had kids ask if the past actually happened in black and white!

ADMEN - how to effectively ensnare a History teacher!

 

I am a sucker for anything with a vaguely historical label on it. Today I needed to buy some teabags, and once I had seen these there was no other obvious option:

However, once I had sampled a cup of this fine beverage, I then began hankering for that other staple of Arctic explorers and soldiers - the 'hard tack' biscuit.

I've heard before of how durable these biscuits are - see this article for example, and i've heard that there are examples of American Civil War hard tack biscuits still extant in museums!

So, I thought i'd have a go at making my own.  There are various recipes online, ranging from the more obviously historical to ones aimed at parents wanting to entertain their bored kids with something vaguely educational. I decided to go for the former,  as most of the more historical recipes tended to make clear the essentially inedible nature of the biscuits.  This seems to be borne out by the historical evidence. Hard tack biscuits were a staple of both the Royal Navy and the average British soldier for many years, seeing as they were portable, didn't go off and were essentially indestructible! In particular, hard tack biscuits, along with bully beef, are mentioned in virtually all accounts of the average soldier's food in the Great War.

 However, this account from Private Pressey of the Royal Artillery (courtesy of Spartacus Educational)gives a good idea of how far these 'biscuits' were away from the modern hob nob.

'The biscuits are so hard that you had to put them on a firm surface and smash them with a stone or something. I've held one in my hand and hit the sharp corner of a brick wall and only hurt my hand. Sometimes we soaked the smashed fragments in water for several days. Then we would heat and drain, pour condensed milk over a dishful of the stuff and get it down.'

So, in a bored moment this afternoon, I had a go at making my own, and here is the result:

 

Ingredients are essentially flour, water and salt. Cooking instructions: bake in the oven for an hour until rock hard.

 

Eating instructions: either soak them in milk or tea, or just tuck in, although I advise that you make sure you have the number of a dentist to hand.

 

Verdict: not too bad, although I think I added too much salt. My wife tried some and said that she now feels like a shrivelled slug.

 

'A Young Cavalryman's Crimea Campaign'

A few weeks ago I picked up this book from a boot sale.  It is a collection of letters written during the Crimea by Richard Temple Godman,  who at the time was a young officer in the 5th Dragoon Guards. 



(Richard Temple Godman is on the left - pretty lucky that he had his picture taken by the famous Roger Fenton!)

He took part in most of the major incidents of the war, from landing at Varna, to taking part in the 'charge of the Heavy Brigade' during the battle of Balaklava, and observing the siege and eventual storming of Sevastopol.

Having recently read Trevor Royle's 'Crimea', which is more of a top-down account of the war, I found it really interesting to read the same events written about from the perspective of a minor officer.  Godman is pretty scathing of the British army and its leadership throughout, having particular venom for Lord Raglan. Here is what he has to say about Lucan (the commander of the cavalry division):

'July 17th 1854

Lord Lucan inspected us the other day and taking the command of the regiment clubbed it completely; he is a regular muff...there seem to be a good many muffs among the chiefs'.

Godman also vividly describes the effects of cholera upon his company, which had a devastating impact upon his comrades before they came anywhere near a Russian. He is clear throughout of the lack of preperation given for the campaign:

'August 18th 1854 - Camp near Varna (Bulgaria)

My dear Father - We have had a dreadful time of it the last week or ten days, having suffered more severely than any regiment out here.......Fancy a sick man on the plains of Bulgaria as we were, with very little medicine and no comforts or, one may say necessaries, such as arrowroot for the sick.  One of the doctors told me that if they had had these things, some lives at least might have been saved...The only thing we had to give our convalescents was common sailors' biscuits; no wonder they could not get better'.

Here Godman talks of the complete lack of medical preperations for the casualties suffered after the Battle of the Alma:

'Camp - Balaklava, Sunday October 22nd 1854

I believe you think in England that every preperation has been taken to make the sick and wounded as comfortable as possible; such is not the case, indeed anything so disgraceful as the whole department it is impossible to imagine.  The other day I was told on good authority that 500 men went to Scutari (the British hospital in Turkey that Florence Nightingale was about to take over) after Alma,  sick and wounded in one ship, and attended by two surgeons, and five men,  one of whom died on the way, and the poor fellows had no one to assist them or look after them.  On their arrival no preperation for their reception had been made'.

Just in case you think Godman is some kind of reforming young Turk, he has interesting comments to make about the restorative power of flogging, and also interestingly comments on how he has heard of Florence Nightingale's regime at Scutari and that he personally is horrified at the idea of being treated by a woman, perhaps showing that the legend of the 'Lady of the lamp' was by no means universal amongst the soldiers.


I really enjoyed this book.  Highly recommended reading - and I will probably be plundering it for sources for you poor Year 12s of the future!

Plans announced for the commemorations of the centenary of World War One

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10108162/First-World-War-centenary-plans-revealed.html

Interesting to see that these plans are now starting to be announced in more detail.

Also intriguing to see that Telegraph's comment on how the commemorations might feed into Scotland's referendum on Independence.  I hope that the commemoration of these events doesn't become too politicized, although I suspect that is inevitable.  Certain aspects look set to become a poltical battlefield - particularly in terms of the significance of the war.

I suppose it's also a good opportunity to remind us that Britain was far from united in 1914 - indeed it looked likely that there was going to be a civil war in Ireland over Home Rule before the war started, and there had been significant industrial unrest such as strikes in the years leading up to the war. 

I think it's important to bear these dissenting voices in mind as we approach the centenary.  After all, no-one has a monopoly on the legacy of this uniquely turbulent time in British history.

Last 'veteran' of WW1?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-16929653

I had an interesting conversation with my wife a couple of days ago in response to this story, which happened in February 2012.  I'm quite interested in the last veterans of different conflicts so I often look them up online, and Florence Green is listed as the last survivor of the First World War.

For the uninitiated, she served as a mess steward at King's Lynn in Norfolk during the war as part of the WRAF (Women's Royal Air Force). She never left the country or was exposed to any more danger than any other civilian in Britain at the time.

I argued that it was silly for her to be considered the last 'veteran' of the war, considering that she had never left the country and had never been involved in any danger, and that the (dubious) honour of being listed on Wikipedia as such should have fallen to Claud Choules, the last surviving 'combat' veteran who served in the Royal Navy during the Great War and witnessed the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow.

However, my wife argued that I was being somewhat chauvinist and that I should recognise that Mrs Green played an important part in the war, and that it is good that the story of people on the Home front is being recognised.  I came around to her point of view in the end - after all, she was the last surviving person to have worn uniform in the Great War in the entire world.  I suppose that she is also emblematic of the great social change that the war wrought in Britain, and it would be silly not to recognise that.

What do you think?

The Somme: Secret Tunnel Wars

Last week there was an excellent documentary on the BBC entitled 'The Somme: Secret Tunnel Wars', presented by Peter Barton. It is well worth a watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01skvnh/

The documentary focussed on the subterrenean war beneath the battlefields of the Western Front, which although having received some coverage in Sebastian Faulk's 'Birdsong' and recent Australian film 'Beneath Hill 60' is generally one of the less well known aspects of the Great War.  In particular, the documentary focusses on the vicious campaign of mining and counter mining fought between the British and Germans at La Boiselle, at a place known as 'The Glory Hole', where an elite British mining team, formed from a group of men who formerly excavated the sewers underneath Manchester,  set about trying to undermine and blow up the German positions in advance of the battle of the Somme in July 1916.  Watching Barton descend into these tunnels, closed for nigh on 100 years, and from which certain individuals still reside, trapped under hundreds of meters of French soil, was rather terrifying.  Once again, one is reminded of the extraordinary danger men of the Great War were put through day after day, although surely the horror of being buried alive with no chance of rescue must rank among the most terrible of fates!

Earlier in the year during our Year 9 trip to the Somme we drove past the excavations at this location whilst returning from the remains of the Lochnagar crater, itself the work of the miners who were the subject of this programme.

More on the project at the 'Glory Hole' can be found here http://www.laboisselleproject.com/

The Experience of Warfare in Britain

Hello and welcome to the blog for Year 12 History at Sawtry Community College.  This year we are going to introduce a new Year 12 unit for our upcoming history students - Edexcel 'The Experience of Warfare in Britain 1854-1929'.

It's a subject close to my own heart as i've always been interested as a historian in the relationship between war and political/social change.  The First World War in particular has long been a fascination of mine; my great-grandfather John Frederick Walter Harry Edney joined up in September 1914, entered the theatre of war during the aftermath of the Battle of Loos in 1915, and served right up until the end of the war serving in most of the major battles from the Somme to Ypres and the final offensives in 1918.  Therefore, I feel a strong personal connection with the topic we are about to study, and I imagine many of our students will be able to tell similar stories.

This blog has been created to comment on aspects of the course that may feature in the news, e.g. archeological discoveries, TV programmes, books that I am reading/that have been recently been released, as well as serving as a place for debate about the course.  Although it has been primarily set up for students of the course, I would welcome any comment from anyone else who may have an interest in the subject.

I hope that this blog proves useful and/or interesting!