'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  The reasons behind this are explained at length in the book, but essentially it reveals the ridiculously out-of-date system of command in the British Army that led to such disaster in the Crimea 20 years later.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.