A history of Los Angeles and the man who fought the Japanese occupation of Malaya: October 30th: today's top history news

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s views on the Holocaust in October 1942
An article from the archive of The Guardian dating back to 30 October 1942 is published on the newspaper’s website. It quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Temple’s speech to protest against Nazi persecution of Jews, which he gave the previous day at the Royal Albert Hall.

‘The road to success’: A History of Los Angeles in Pictures
Although palm trees have become a symbol of Los Angeles, they were never grown locally. One the photographs in the slideshow charting the history of the city, published on the website of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, thus shows a palm tree being transported and planted on the Central Avenue of Los Angeles.

Recollections of life in Czechoslovakia in 1989
Edward Lucas moved to Czechoslovakia in 1989 as a freelance journalist. In an article on the MailOnline, he recalls his experience of the year of the collapse of the Berlin Wall as the only western journalist in the country.

Memoirs of the last SS adjutant to Hitler
Fritz Darges died last Saturday, aged 96. He requested that his recollections of working alongside Hitler during the Second World War only be published after his death. It is hoped that his memoirs will finally prove Hitler’s personal involvement in the Holocaust and refute the claims made by revisionist historians that Heinrich Himmler, rather than Hitler, gave orders for the extermination of Jews during the Second World War.
Darges’ death and the publication of his memoirs are reported by both The Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

Resistance in Japanese occupied Malaya
Captain Freddy Spencer Chapman was a British Special Forces officer who led a small resistance war against Japanese troops during their occupation of Malaya. The disruption which his war inflicted on Japanese supply lines was allegedly such that the Japanese sent out 4,000 troops to defeat what they believed to be a 200-strong force of Australian guerrillas. Brian Moynahan recalls the heroism of a man who has been largely forgotten in his latest biography Jungle Soldier published on October 15th. Annabel Venning reports on the MailOnline.

Origins of the name America and lost wonders of the USSR: 29th October: today's top history news

M1 Motorway Turns 50
The first section of the motorway was officially opened by transport minister Ernest Marples on November 2nd, 1959. To mark the anniversary, a slideshow of images of the time is featured on the website of the BBC.

Where does the name America come from?
The Waldseemuller map of 1507 gave America its name and was the first document to depict America as a separate continent. There is only one known surviving copy of the map which is displayed in the US Library of Congress. An article on the BBC website tells the story of the map.

British divers discover ancient city
According to The Telegraph, British divers on holiday in Montenegro may have discovered the remains of an ancient Greek or Roman temple. A team from the University of Southampton’s Department of Maritime Archaeology are due to carry out further research on the site later this month.

The extraordinary abandoned wonders of the Soviet Union
The WebUrbanist website features a special series devoted to the abandoned infrastructure and cities of the Soviet Union. The second part of the series tells the story of seven of these sites, from a 19th-century island fort to a mine complex, and is illustrated with fascinating photos.

How de Gaulle told the SOE to 'go home': 28th October: today's top history news

‘You have no business here’
According to the latest Special Operations Executive (SOE) personnel file released by The National Archives, in September 1944, de Gaulle told the British officer Peter Lake, who trained French resistance fighters in the south of France before D-Day, to ‘go home’. The file contains reports of Lake’s mission in the Dordogne region and of his meeting with de Gaulle three months after D-Day.
The release was reported by the French press agency Agence France Presse (AFP) and on the website of the BBC.
Further information is also available on the website of The National Archives.

Views of German reunification from across the Channel
To mark the 20th anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall, France has opened some of its diplomatic archives relating to the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. Yesterday, some of the documents dating back to 1989 were presented to the press for the first time. The remaining archives will be made public on November 9th. The article by the press agency AFP is published on the website of Le Monde.

The Difficulties of Confronting Brazil’s Past
Almost 500 people are believed to have been killed or disappeared in Brazil during the dictatorship between 1969 and 1985. Thousands of others were tortured, exiled or stripped of their political rights. The Brazilian government has recently announced its plans to create a Truth Commission to investigate the crimes committed by the security forces at the time. Jan Rocha reports, on the website of the BBC.

Mystery of Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition solved at last?
In The Guardian, Maev Kennedy reports on the latest finds by Robert Grenier, the archaeologist who has sought to explain the mysterious disappearance of Sir John Franklin’s two ships, in 1845, for the past 30 years. He will give a public lecture at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on Friday.

People Power in 1989 ... and Today

Did civil resistance bring about the end of the Soviet Empire? That was the question posed before a distinguished panel at the British Academy in London last night. Former Polish defence minister, and leading Solidarity figure, Dr Janusz Onyszkiewicz was joined by the former British General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, and the Oxford professors Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton-Ash. The latter are editors of the newly launched publication Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present.

Given the gathered experiences of the panel, the discussion naturally centred on eastern Europe, and in particular, the night of the 9th November 1989 in Berlin. This was the moment when the borders between east and west Berlin were forced open and, in the wake of the resignation of the government, the communist authorities' plan for a controlled passage of only a few dozen 'refugees' to the west was overtaken, and overpowered, by the gathered will of hundreds of thousands of people.

Lord Guthrie, the head of the British Army in east Berlin on the night in question, described the feeling of being carried by the surging, singing and dancing crowds, as they swept down Unter Den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate. His relationships with his opposite numbers among the GDR and Soviet military had led him to believe there would be no brutal repression of the uprising, as in past times. He was proved correct. The handful of soldiers stationed on the border refused to open fire on the massive crowds, or even to perform rudimentary passport checks. The dreaded concrete was breached and, in one epic movement, the Iron Curtain torn down.

A less impulsive, but equally momentous process of people power had been happening in Poland for years. Dr Onyszkiewicz described how several tributaries of civil resistance built up, gathering into a flow of opposition before combining to force democratisation. Having had demonstrations violently suppressed by the authorities in the 1970s, the opposition learnt to maximise the effects of their actions by gradually gathering resources, pointedly avoiding the open conflict that formerly been their failing.

Instead of facing troops, for example, the 1980 Gdansk shipyard held a sit-in strike. This more refined, controlled approach paid dividends. Led by Lech Walesa, encouraged by the church, and combined with the organisational skills honed during the 1979 visit of Pope John Paul II, the Solidarity movement - as the opposition had become known - gained not only millions of members but serious concessions over the course of the next decade: unions were officially recognised; pamphlets were circulated; high-level links were established with the Polish Politburo.

Even imposition of martial law in the early 1980s did not significantly hamper the groundswell of civil resistance that was gathering. Even before the floodgates were opened in Berlin, limited elections followed by defections had handed Lech Walesa the unique role of the only non-Communist leader of an authoritarian Communist state.

Such narratives are imbued with ambiguities. How far can people power fully explain the events in Gdansk, Warsaw, Leipzig and Berlin? Where are the limits of civil resistance? Unavoidably, economics has a large part to play. As is well-documented, the situation within the Soviet economic sphere contributed significantly to its eventual downfall. Decades of mismanagement and overspending on defence had left it in a critical state. Garton-Ash noted how the Carter administration had begun to tie IMF loans in the Eastern Bloc to factors such as human rights, thus directly linking the internal treatment of civil society to economic conditions.

For these and other reasons, Gorbachev was reluctant to intervene directly when dissident movements struck in 1989. Surprisingly, Garton-Ash stated that the Soviet leader actively discouraged the leaders of Eastern Bloc countries from doing so too. As Dr Onyszkiewicz added, the effects of civil resistance may have been drastically different had this policy been reversed.

The media had a part to play too, often catalysing actions on the ground into something more powerful. A prime example was the West German newsreader who began his 9th November evening news broadcast with a cryptic message, hinting that the frontier gates had been opened. Although this wasn't strictly true, large amounts of east Berliners could receive both the television and the coded signal. The rumour soon spread, and many thousands gathered on the streets.

The panel underlined the relevance of the topic to the present day. The 'Colour Revolutions' of the 21st century - in the Ukraine, in Iran, in Burma - have largely ground to a halt. Why then, the panellists were asked, has democratisation not occurred in these places? The simple answer, is that the world has changed. Although critical information is more readily available via outlets such as the internet and satelite television, that information is also more readily controlled. Do Google, for example, have to answer for helping Chinese authorities limit the spread of dissent? Has the new media landscape - so lauded in developed countries as an educational, 'inherently democratic' device - become a tool of repression?

The altered geo-political situation, as shown by today's multipolar power politics, is another key factor. It is not that the developed world does not express its desire for democratisation. However, the leverage its leaders, medias and populations once exerted to bring about that change, has been diluted. This fact is linked inextricably to a more globalised economy. In another age, as Carter and Reagan well knew, the US President could control how developing countries acted via economic pressure. Now, mass manufacturing and internal markets such as India and China are central to the global and US economies. Likewise, energy-rich regimes such as Russia and Saudi Arabia can leverage the actions of more democratic but energy-dependent states. Bilateral alliances between these regional powers, and the spread of nuclear weaponry, further muddy the waters.

If one lesson can be taken from last night's discussion, it is that only time will tell whether civil resistance alone can effectively bring about democratisation and regime change. If true change is to come to people still living in repressed circumstances, or without a vote, it will not simply be a matter of gathering together in suitably large numbers. Multiple, perhaps infinite, factors were involved in producing the momentous events witnessed across eastern Europe in November 1989. An alternative, more provocative, conclusion is that it is democracy itself rather than authoritarianism which is now outdated, and that other methods of gaining political and civil freedom should be explored.

Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present is edited by Sir Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, and published by Oxford University Press.

David Williamson explains why events in the ancient German capital twice threatened to unleash a third world war, in Berlin: The Flash-Point of the Cold War, 1948-1989

Berlin, BNP and the Greenock Blitz

In the wake of the BNP on BBC furore last week, it's interesting to note how two columnists, in the same paper but from opposite sides of the Atlantic, treat the issue of multiculturalism. Andrew Sullivan scratches the surface of America to find a strong, native black culture in both past and present. David Starkey, by contrast, says that Nick Griffin would have gone down a storm in 16th century England.

Alison Kraft, in our newly-published November Issue, tells how recent breakthroughs in stem cell research have their roots in postwar atomic medicine experiments in Britain and the States.

The Herald reports that UNESCO World Heritage status is to be conferred upon Scottish icons such as Gallus Glasgow banter, Folklore of the Fishwives and tales of Greenock in the Blitz

Completion of the controversial City Palace project, replacing the historic Palast de Republik in the heart of Berlin's tourist district, will not now occur until at least 2016, according to Deutsche Welle.

Staying in Berlin, Jon Henley, in the Guardian today, goes in search of the last remnants of the Berlin Wall, and of the life stories of some of its 136 victims. Paul Betts covered similar themes in History Today back in September.

The US military is using high-tech mapping methods to update the last geographical survey of Iraq's lost cities, carried out over 50 years ago. From the DVIDS site.

Braveheart, Lorca & Churchill on Race

by Derry Nairn


The London Film Festival is on for a few more days. Last Thursday saw the now-annual silent movie show in Trafalgar Square. The ever excellent Ian Visits blog has a report and some great links to some films that were shown.

Times Online and Times Archive both report today on Spanish efforts to positively identify the body and grave of Federico Garcia Lorca, the poet believed to have been executed by Franco's troops during the Spanish Civil War.

Mel Gibson, in the same newspaper, admits to having played 'fast and loose with the historical truth' in his 1996 film Braveheart. Historians respond.

Spare $16 million? The historic Cagaloglu spa - 'a stone's throw from Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque' - in Istanbul could be yours. From the BBC.

The Observer's Elizabeth Day reviews the second volume of David Kynaston's chronicle of postwar Britain. Don't miss the entertaining quotes at the end!

Was Churchill a racist? Ian Jack, in the Guardian, puts last week's debate over the British National Party's BBC appearance in a historical context. (Note: Paul Lay has written about the BNP today, and Kathryn Hadley touched on the same topic a few weeks back - in this very spot!)

Send us your review for your chance to win one of the latest history books

For the third month in a row, we are offering our readers the opportunity to review some of the latest history publications and to have thier review published on the History Today Books Blog.
For further information, visit the Books Blog.

A history of wine-drinking in France and British torture in Kenya: 23rd October: today's top history news

British Torture in Kenya
In June, five Kenyan veterans of Kenya’s struggle for independence presented the London High Court with a case against the British government for human rights abuses in the 1950s and 1960s. Yesterday, they presented further evidence detailing the torture they suffered and showing that the British government knew and authorised the torture of Kenyans in the 1950s and 1960s. The BBC reports.

The Greeks, not the Romans, imported wine into France when they settled in southern France in around 600BC
An article on the Cambridge University website reports on the results of the latest study by Cambridge University Professor Paul Cartledge.
We recently published an article by Paul Cartledge in our October issue. In Alexandria the Great he describes how, despite the destruction of Alexandria’s material past, the city’s reputation as the intellectual powerhouse of the Classical world lives on.

The earliest known film of a wedding
The film will be screened for the first time next week at the National Library of Scotland in celebration of Unesco’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. The Scottish Screen Archive features nearly 70 films which it is possible to view online. For further information, visit the Scottish Screen Archive website. The Times reports.

The Internet was born 40 years ago, next week, on October 29th, 1969
The Guardian reports.

The first email, the first virus and the first blog
The Guardian’s summary of the history of the internet.

Discovery of British submarine lost during the First World War
The wreck of a British naval submarine lost for the past 90 years was discovered in the Baltic Sae off the coast of Estonia last weekend. James Landale, the great-nephew of the 1st Lieutenant of the vessel, reports in an article published on the website of the BBC.

Only surviving Union Jack from the Battle of Trafalgar sells for £384,000, over 20 times the estimated sale price
The sale results are available on the website of the auctioneers Charles Miller Ltd.

The Lumber Jills meet the Queen and the history of escalator etiquette: 22nd October: today's top history news

Why do passengers on the London Underground stand on the right-hand side of escalators when we drive on the left? The mystery is solved by a 1920s film recently restored for the London Film Festival.
The Times reports on the history of escalator etiquette.

British views of German reunification and the BNP on Question Time
In The Guardian Timothy Garton Ash comments on Britain’s attitudes to German reunification 20 years ago, designed to prevent a reversion to dictatorship. However, with the BNP’s appearance on Question Time this evening, he argues that today Britain is the problem. Twenty years on, what is Britain’s position in the world?

The extraordinary life of Richard Sonnenfeldt
Richard Sonnenfeldt became Chief US translator at Nuremberg trials, aged 22. He died two weeks ago, aged 86. Is obituary is published on the website of The Times.

The Lumber Jills meet the Queen or the official recognition of the ‘Forgotten Corps’
The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was disbanded 59 years ago yesterday on October 21st, 1950. The Women’s Timber Corps (WTC) was part of the WLA and worked in the forests to provide wood for the war effort. The contribution of its surviving members, known as the Lumber Jills, was officially recognised for the first time yesterday when they were invited to a tea party at Buckingham Palacae. Rebecca English reports on the MailOnline.

Viking mythology revisited
Today is the first day of a major conference about Old Norse mythology at the University of Aberdeen. It brings together historians from all over the world who will recesses current scholarly opinion on Norse Gods and Goddesses. Further information is available on the website of the University of Aberdeen.

Interview with Michael Haneke in Der Spiegel Online about his film The White Ribbon portraying life in a north German village in 1931 and 1914.

Two new competitions: win copies of Robert Service's biography of Trotsky and the History Channel DVD The Crusades

Do you know where Trotsky and Lenin first met?

Which Pope, in 1095, first launched an appeal to the knights of France to journey to the Holy Land and liberate Jerusalem?

We have just launched two new competitions to win copies of Trotsky by Robert Service and The Crusades, the latest DVD released by The History Channel.

To enter, visit our competitions page.

The making of animal mummies and the birth of the discotheque: 20th October: today's top history news

The Making of Animal Mummies
On the website of Heritage Key Dr Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology at Cairo's American University, explains how animal mummies were made.

Reopening of Berlin Neues Museum
The Berlin Neues Museum had been closed for the past 70 years since the beginning of the Second World War. Situated in former East Germany, it was not reopened in the aftermath of the war due to a lack of funding. It was officially reopened by Angela Merkel last Friday. A highlight of the new display is a 3,400-year-old bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Read the full article on the website of Der Spiegel.
http://www.neues-museum.de/

Birth of the discotheque in the German city of Aachen 50 years ago this month
Interview with the world’s first disc jockey, Heinrich, on the website of Der Spiegel.

‘Renovation fiasco’ may cause pyramid in Bolivian Andes to lose its U.N. World Heritage Site status
Eduardo Garcia reports in an article published on the Reuters website.

100 years of personal histories and relationships in Britain
The Guardian reports on a new research project called Timescapes, launched by Leeds University, to record the relationships and personal lives of people in Britain from 1900 to the present.
www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk

Ego Krenz, the last leader of the GDR, reflects on his East German legacy in an article published in The Times.

Benjamin Disraeli, Sir John Soane…and the Lord who stole slippers:

House-historian, Melanie Backe-Hansen, explores the history of No.19 Curzon Street.

It is not surprising that when most people walk past this unassuming Georgian town house in Mayfair they miss the brown LCC plaque honouring the former residence of one Britain’s most popular Prime Ministers, Benjamin Disraeli. The house, built in 1758, has also been the home of a number of prominent politicians of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Lord William Powlett, who also became embroiled in a scandal involving the theft of a pair of slippers from Burlington Arcade! If that is not enough to grab your attention, the house also features a rare example of an architectural addition made by Sir John Soane in 1802.

No.19 Curzon Street is an archetypal Georgian townhouse, built on the Curzon Estate and named after Sir Nathanial Curzon (1675/6-1758), who initiated the development of the estate in the 1720s. The first resident to move into the house was Hugh Campbell, third Earl of Marchmont, who made it his London home for almost 30 years. In 1786, however, the scientist Sir John Saunders Sebright (1767-1846) moved into the house. Sebright was such a noted scientist and in particular an expert on breeding chickens that he has a species named after him – the Sebright Bantam. His work notably inspired Charles Darwin who called him ‘the father of [breeding] science’.

It was Sebright who commissioned Sir John Soane to make alterations to the house at the turn of the 19th century. Soane designed a west-facing addition at the rear of the house, which Soane expert, Ptolemy Dean, called ‘a very rare and important example of a surviving Soane townhouse addition’.

By 1820, No.19 Curzon Street had become the home of Lord William Vane Powlett. In 1812, aged 20, Powlett became an MP and remained in parliament for 45 years. However, it is not for his time in parliament that the politician is remembered, but rather an unusual event in 1847, when on a shopping expedition in Burlington Arcade he was charged with stealing ‘two embroidered slippers worth 12 shillings’. The case was taken to court, but was eventually dismissed. It was reported by The Times and the judge was recorded as saying ‘it was rather singular for a nobleman to carry away slippers in his pocket’.

In 1880, former Prime Minister and writer, Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield, moved into No.19 Curzon Street. In fact, Disraeli bought the house with the proceeds of one of his most successful books, Endymion. Queen Victoria had invited Disraeli to become Prime Minister in 1868 and he later served a second term from 1874 to 1880. It was at this time that Disraeli moved from No.10 Downing Street to his new home in Curzon Street.

Disraeli’s was recorded in Curzon Street in the 1881 census as a widower, aged 75, with the occupation of ‘Ex- Prime Minister’. He had 13 live-in servants. A later note was added to the census returns, ‘died 19th April, 1881 – R.I.P.’ Newspaper reports later claimed that ‘in the closing weeks of his life increasing crowds gathered round his house and his passing was followed by a general burst of sorrow.’

By 1888 the house had become the home of a matriarch, the Dowager Countess of Stafford, daughter of Charles Cavendish and directly related to the Cavendishes of Chatsworth in Derbyshire. The Countess lived in great style and was recorded in the 1891 census with 14 live-in servants. She kept the house for her children, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Byng, Major Lionel Byng, Field Marshall Sir Julian Byng, Viscount Byng of Vimy, and her two daughters, Susan and Elizabeth. When the Countess passed away, in 1892, a sales advertisement in The Times for the contents of her home gave great insight into the life she led. Items for sale included, Louis XIV tortoiseshell clocks, coloured engravings and a collection of Havana cigars!

At the turn of the 20th century, No.19 Curzon Street had become the home of the Honourable Mrs Knatchbull-Hugessen, Lady Brabourne. Lady Brabourne became well-known for holding exclusive music concerts in her home at Curzon Street, bringing in celebrated musicians and performers.

By the mid 20th century, this grand house, once home to the Prime Minister, had become too large for one family to run and was converted into office space. It was even known as Disraeli House for a time. It was only in the 1990s that the home was brought back into residential use, and although not in the original Georgian form, this town house, formerly home to many from the nobility of England and Ireland and featuring a unique architectural addition by Sir John Soane, still keeps the spirit of a home graced by the great and the good.

Melanie Backe-Hansen is the first person to be employed as an in-house historian by a UK estate agent. For further information on her work with Chesterton Humberts, visit http://www.chestertonhumberts.com/about_us_history_historian
Articles about the histories many other houses in London and across in the UK are available on Melanie’s blog:
http://property-blog.chestertonhumberts.com/

Black Monday, Adidas and Puma: 19th October: today's top history news

22 years ago: Black Monday
October 19th is the 22nd anniversary of Black Monday, a stock market crash that began on Wall Street and quickly spread around the globe. The Times assesses whether lessons have been learnt.

Digital models of Unesco world heritage sites
The Scottish Herald reports that a major heritage site in India will join Mount Rushmore, St Kilda and Skara Brae as part of a pioneering Scottish project to create digital models of 10 Unesco world heritage sites.

National Archives museum presents an ‘anti-British’ view of history
Michael Palin and other university professors are quoted in the Daily Telegraph arguing that a display about the British Empire in the National Archives museum relies on ‘lazy and disingenuous history’.

The history of Adidas and Puma
Kate Connolly explains in The Guardian how the two brands were created 60 years ago following a sibling fallout.

Human evolution is accelerating and ‘disease is the number one cause of evolution today’
The Korean news site OhMyNews reports on the latest research by a team of anthropologists at the University of Wisconsin.

Update on Pavlopetri project: the world’s oldest submerged town over a millennium older than previously believed
We reported on the launch of a project to carry out an underwater survey of Pavlopetri in May. An article on the BBC website provides the latest updates on the research.

More on the arrest of the Russian historian Mikhail Suprun
In The Telegraph Alexander Osipovich claims that the Russian state's punishment of historians is a symptom of 'creeping re-Stalinisation'. For further information read the article published on the website of The Guardian last Thursday.

The Collapse of Communism in Europe: A Re-examination 20 Years After

by Kathryn Hadley

Why did communist systems in Europe collapse twenty years ago? A big question. A question that has been repeatedly asked and a question that has been tentatively answered time and time again.

It was the question that a panel of six speakers sought to answer yesterday evening at The British Academy. All speakers were present and involved in various ways in the events and through each of their presentations they sought to both recapture the spirit and views of the time and to assess the latest research. Speakers included the British academic Professor Timothy Garton Ash; Dr Andrei Grachev, who was Deputy Head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1990 and Presidential Press Spokesman for Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991; Bridget Kendall, the BBC Moscow correspondent at the time; US Professor Robert Legvold; the Hungarian Professor Ferenc Miszlivetz, who was part of a Hungarian movement promoting East-West dialogue; and Dr Lilia Shevtsova, who was Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics of the World Socialist System in Moscow in 1989.

How were the changes perceived at the time? Was there a sense of the scale of events? Did people know that communist systems in Europe were about to collapse?

Professor Timothy Garton Ash warned against the dangers of studying the events in retrospect and of ‘hindsight bias’. In the light of these ‘illusions of retrospective’, even asking such questions may be misleading. There is a tendency to believe that the collapse of communism was bound to happen. However, it is not lose sight of what Garton Ash described as the ‘real alternatives that were there at the time’ and to examine why these real alternatives did not happen.

Indeed, most speakers stressed the unexpected outcome of the events at the time. According to Garton Ash, it is impossible to recapture the excitement of the time and times were exciting because nobody knew what would happen the following day. The outcome was also unexpected for Gorbachev. Bridget Kendall met Gorbachev on various occasions and argued that he did not want the collapse of the communist system. He ‘wanted evolution not revolution’, both to ensure popular support for his policies and that he remained in control.

As a student and member of a small group of East-West dialogue formed in 1985, Ferenc Miszlivetz remembered the hope and optimism of the time. The group sought to ‘give life’ to the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975 by establishing, for the first time, networks between students in the East and West. He described a growing sense of central European ‘togetherness’ which inspired a hope that things were gradually changing. Miszlivetz and members of similar groups that may have contributed to the collapse of communist systems on a local level had no sense, however, of the scale of what would come just a few years later.

If the collapse of communism was so unexpected, how then and why did it eventually fall?

On the whole, historians agree to a variety of causes. The fall of communism was the result of the complex interaction of all these causes on various levels, between different states, but also between states and societies.

Both Dr Andrei Grachev and Dr Lilia Shevtsova argued, however, that the collapse of communism in Russia came primarily from within due to the distinct nature of the Russian communist model. It fell victim to the contradictions of its own identities and ambitions, which were to realise social justice for all and to build and project the image of a Russian superpower in the world.

Shevtsova reiterated the words of Arnold J. Toynbee stressing the ‘suicidal statecraft’ of Russia. It gradually became increasingly difficult to realise these ambitions, in particular as war came to an end and states instead sought cooperation rather than conflict. Dr Lilia Shevtsova highlighted the uniqueness of the Russian civilisation: it was a militarised civilisation, which survived on conflict and war. The Russian economy had best performed in times of war. It was dependent on war and, from the First World War, to the Russian Civil War, the Second World War and the Cold War; war had been a constant feature throughout the 20th century.

Ferenc Miszlivetz thus underlined the importance of the effects of the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975 by the USSR and thirty-two other European states, as well as Canada and the United Sates, in an attempt to improve the relations between the communist bloc and the West.

What is the state of research on the topic today? What is the legacy of the events twenty years ago? Is communism really dead?

According to Professor Timothy Garton Ash, there remains considerable research to be done. To date research has focused on high politics and the picture therefore tends to be skewed towards high politics. However, ‘in key places and at key times’, those on the ground also exerted considerable influence on the outcome of events and there lacks a comprehensive study of the role of revolutionary crowds.

Last month, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) published a series of archived documents on German reunification as part of the Documents on British Policy Overseas (DBPO). The documents provide an insight into official British reactions to the collapse of Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall. FCO in-house historians held a seminar, today, October 16th, to mark the event. However, the documents are restricted, once again, to the realm of high politics.

Finally, what is left of the European communism today, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Although communism as a structure and economy is dead, Ferenc Miszlivetz argued that in contemporary Eastern Europe communism survived as ‘a way of thinking’. He issued the following final words of warning: ‘Be careful when you suggest that something is over; it is over and it is not’.

In many ways the ghost of Soviet Communism still haunts Eastern Europe today. In our latest September and October issues we featured a short series exploring the impact on history and memory of the collapse of Soviet Communism entitled 'After the Cold War'.
In Haunted by Stalin Catherine Merridale examines competing versions of Russia's troubled past in the light of present politics.
In After the Cold War: The Private Side of German Reunification considers the consequences of the collapse of Soviet Communism in Germany.
In After the Cold War: Finland & the Soviets Ed Dutton looks at how the experience of Finland during the period 1945 to 1989 has led to a historical identity crisis for the nation that remains unresolved.

Japanese surnames and drinking in the navy: 16th October: today's top history news

‘How do you do, my name is Saito Ichiro Sama-no-kami Minamoto-no-Ason Tadayoshi.’
Michael Hoffmann, in the Japan Times, offers thanks to Meiji reformers for cutting Japanese surnames down to size. The second part of the article is here.

A History of Holidays
Mary Beard shares some of the secrets of the Thomas Cook archives.

The Royal Navy: a history of drinking.
On the website of The Times Ben Macintyre explores the ‘wobbly tradition of drunken British sailing’.

Writing and Erasing Russian history
In The Guardian Luke Harding reports on the arrest of the Russian historian Mikhail Suprun who was researching Russia’s Arctic Gulags during the Second World War.

The life of Walt Disney (1901-1966) at the new Walt Disney Family Museum.
Showcasing drawings Disney made in his youth, early drawings of Mickey Mouse, personal letters, Disney family home movies and ground breaking technologies, the museum charts the life and achievements of the creator of Mickey Mouse.

East German Jokes and Early Irish Maps: 15th October: Today's Top History News

by Kathryn Hadley

‘Did East Germans originate from apes? Impossible. Apes could never have survived on just two bananas a year.’
Following the recent release of the files kept by West Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) on East Germany, an article published in Spiegel Online International provides an insight into some of the most popular East German jokes during the communist era.


Collection of early Irish maps (c.1558- c.1610) from the ‘State Papers Ireland’ now available online.
The digitised collection was launched yesterday, October 14th, by The National Archives and includes over 70 maps, some of which are the earliest cartographic representations of Ireland depicting plantations, fortifications and townships during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Further information is available on the website of The National Archives.


Nayland Rock promenade shelter in Margate, Kent, where TS Eliot is believed to have written some of his most famous poetry, listed at grade II by the Secretary of State for Culture.
TS Eliot (1888-1965) stayed in Margate for three weeks during the autumn of 1921 as part of a rest cure following a mental breakdown and is believed to have composed part of his poem The Waste Land in the seaside shelter.
In a letter to the novelist Sydney Schiff dated November 4th, 1921, he wrote:

‘I have done a rough draft of part III [of The Waste Land], but do not know
whether it will do, and must wait for Vivien’s opinion as to whether it is
printable. I have done this while sitting in a shelter on the front – as I am
out all day except when taking rest.’

The poem was published in October 1922. In 1948, TS Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Statue of Sir Keith Park to be unveiled on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square on November 4th.
The statue will remain on the fourth plinth until May 2010. A permanent statue of Park will thereafter be unveiled on September 15th, 2010, in Waterloo Place to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park led the Royal Air Force forces over London and the South East of England throughout the Battle of Britain.
In the words of Lord Mayor Boris Johnson:

‘London owes an enormous debt to Sir Keith Park for his courage and leadership,
which helped to win the Battle of Britain. Having a temporary memorial to this
great hero in Trafalgar Square in time for the 70th anniversary of a historic
turning point is our way of showing gratitude for the bravery and commitment he
showed to London and the world.’

Further information is available on the website of the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign.

First Impressions: ‘Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed’

by Kathryn Hadley

‘Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed’ opens tomorrow at the National Portrait Gallery to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the 60s, next year. Showcasing over 150 portraits of the leading pop personalities of the 1960s and a range of memorabilia including record covers and magazines, the exhibition explores the pop scene of ‘Swinging London’. The display is divided into ten sections covering each year of the decade and includes classic images of bands such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, as well as previously unseen images.

The evolution of the art scene over the decade is striking: the style and techniques of photography changed, as well as, and almost in parallel with, pop music and culture. Most fascinating is the interaction between photography and the pop scene. To what extent did they evolve independently; how far did the two influence one another?

Photography evolved from static black and white portraits to dynamic and colourful photographs taken ‘on the spot’ and depicting artists in action, such as Fiona Adams’ iconic photograph of The Beatles jumping on a wall taken in 1963. The pop scene also became increasingly diverse in terms of style, culture and ethnicity, reflecting the cultural and social developments of the decade. Pure pop was replaced with progressive music and psychedelia and became influenced by new music styles as musicians such as Jemi Hendrix from the United States moved to England.

The exhibition is set against a background of music from the early and late sixties, which can be heard in two different areas of the display and illustrates this stylistic evolution over the course of the decade. A video in the section devoted to the late 1960s also brings some of these icons of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ to life.

The icons of the 1960s pop scene live on in the imagination of generations who were too young to see them perform live and in the memory of those who grew up at the time. The striking portraits on display in ‘Beatles to Bowie’ are a tribute to their influence on the British cultural scene. Despite the music playing in the background, the artists remain, however, surprisingly silent and the exhibition is slightly too static. My request to the disc jockey would be: turn the volume up and let the music play!

Beatles to Bowie: The 60s Exposed
Until January 24th
National Portrait Gallery
St Martin’s Place
London WC2H 0HE
Telephone: 020 7306 0055
http://www.npg.org.uk/

For further information on the history of music, here is a selection of some of our best articles:
20th century:
In ‘You Say You Want a Revolution’ Mikhail Safonov argues that the Beatles did more for the break up of totalitarianism in the USSR than Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.
Rock 'n' Roll and Social Change Richard Welch charts the explosion of Rock n’ Roll in American music and argues for its impact on society as a whole.
In December 1970 Elvis Presley requested a meeting with President Richard Nixon. In Elvis: Rock‘n’Roll’s Reluctant Rebel Glen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen look at how the King of Rock’n’Roll managed his rule during the cultural shifts of the 1960s.
Django, Jazz and the Nazis in Paris John D. Pelzer charts the development of jazz in France and considers how it became a symbol of resistance to the Nazi regime during the German occupation.
19th century:
In Changing the Tune - Popular Music in the 1890s Ian Bradley considers what qualified as family favourites in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In Political Heroes of the Victorian Music Hall Michael Diamond discusses what popular songs and singers had to say about Britain's politicians in the 1880s and 1890s.

Images:
- The Beatles, 1963 by Fiona Adams (© Fiona Adams)
- Pink Floyd, 1967 by Vic Singh (© Vic Singh)

Mussolini, Milk and the Cafe de Paris: 14th October: today's top history news

Mussolini was paid by MI5 during the First World War to ensure that Italy continued to fight alongside the allies. Tom Kington reports on an interview with Cambridge historian Peter Martland on the website of The Guardian.

Michael Hirst, the creator of the television series The Tudors, has signed up to write the screenplay for a new film about the battle of Agincourt. The Times considers how the British film is likely to cause cross-channel disputes about the battle.

Schwarzenegger has signed a bill proclaiming May 22nd, Harvey Milk’s birthday, as a day of significance in California. The decision is reported on the website of CNN.

George Mason University’s excellent History News Network (HNN) website reports on how a dramatic lifesaving effort during a press conference quelled the last great Nobel Prize scandal, in 1985.

The Prince of Wales, murders and the introduction of the Charleston to London by a 17-year-old: it can only be the incredible story of the Café de Paris on Coventry Street, as illustrated by Another Nickel In The Machine blog.

The English-language The St Petersburg Times relays news of the destruction of a 19th-century historic house in Moscow, as well as the wider threats posed to the architectural heritage of Russia’s capital by ruthless property developers.

The website of the New Straits Times features a fascinating video of the first part of a series about the fight in Malaya against the terrorism of the Communist party and the Malayan Peoples’ Anti-Japanese Army in the aftermath of the Second World War.

A North Channel Tunnel and Hitler's obituary: 13th October: today's top history news

A sea tunnel linking Ulster with Scotland was proposed a century before the Channel Tunnel.
Joe Joyce reports in an article on the website of The Irish Times.

Hitler’s obituary as published in a Hamburg newspaper on May 2nd 1945.
The obituary written by the editor of the Hamburger Zeitung, Hermann Okraß, is translated on the website of the German Propaganda Archive.

An Olympic torch, allegedly from the 1948 London Games, for sale on eBay.
Read the article on the BBC website.

New Leonardo da Vinci portrait discovered?
An article was published, yesterday on the website of the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The way that history, especially national history, is told and taught is a political issue, argues David Cesarani on the website of The Guardian.

Jeremy Black, in reviewing Andrew Roberts in Standpoint, argues that historians abdicate their responsibilities if they do not attack difficult moral discussions.

35 Years of the World's Best Microscope Photography
Stunning images on the Wired Science website.

Images of 25 abandoned castles in Wales, built between 1000 and 1400 AD, but which became obsolete with the advent of gunpowder and cannons, on the Internet Pop Culture website.

12th October: today's top history news

by Kathryn Hadley

The Brighton Bombing 25 years on
25 years ago today, the IRA mounted a terrorist attack against the British Cabinet during the Conservative Party conference. Five people died and 34 were injured.
Pat Magee was released in 1999 under the Good Friday agreement after serving just 14 years. He will speak in the House of Commons tomorrow with Jo Berry, the daughter of the MP Anthony Berry who was killed in the attack. Marina Cantacuzino is the founder of The Forgiveness Project and has helped to organise tomorrow’s speech. She reports on her interview with Magee in an article published on the website of The Times.
The journalist Robert Orchard, who was reporting on the conference at the time, recalls the night of the bombing in an article on the BBC website.
Michael Dobbs was a senior adviser to Margaret Thatcher at the time and was present at the bombings. He will reflect on the events in a programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm this evening.

Generalleutnant Günther Rall was one of the few German fighter leaders to survive the Second World War. He died on October 4th, aged 91. His obituary is on the website of The Telegraph.

The mystery of the murder of Joseph Goebbels’ six children: in the 1950s, a doctor confessed to having been an accomplice, but he was left unpunished. Newly discovered records may reveal what really happened. Read the full report on Der Spiegel online.

‘The Foods That Made Britain Great’: a new book entitled Battenburg Britain explores the history behind typically British foods and brands such as Angel Delight, Arctic Roll and Heinz sandwich spread. Read the full report on the website of the Daily Express.

Suffragette centenary
On Saturday, October 11th, a march was organised in Edinburgh to mark the 100th anniversary of the Women's Suffrage Movement procession along Princes Street in 1909. Read the full report on the website of The Herald.

‘Iron lung’ used for the first time 81 years ago today. Read the full report.

Ten US Presidents who began their careers as teachers. Read the full report.

Today's Top History News

French tourism company, Voyageurs du Monde, buys Gandhi’s house in South Africa
Gandhi is believed to have lived in the house in Johannesburg for three years from 1907. The house was put up for sale at the end of July. At the beginning of August, it was reported that the Indian coal ministry intended to buy the house and turn it into a memorial.

Read the Full Report

Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Gideon Rachmann, in The Financial Times, catalogues the history of the prize, its origins and some of its more morally dubious recipients.

Read the Full Report

Only surviving union jack from the Battle of Trafalgar to be sold at auction
The flag is expected to fetch between £10,000 and £15,000. It will be sold by Charles Miller Ltd. in London on Trafalgar Day, October 21st.

Read the Full Report

Artworks from China’s Palace Museum on display in Taiwan in the first joint exhibition between the two countries

‘Harmony and Integrity: The Yongzheng Emperor and His Times’ opened at Taipei’s National Palace Museum on October 7th and will run until January 10th, 2010. China agreed to lend some of its national treasures to Taiwan in February, following the first ever formal visit by a delegation from Taipei’s National Palace Museum to its counterpart from Beijing’s Palace Museum.

Read the Full Report

The Stock Exchange Fraud
Justin Pollard tells the quirky tale of how premature reports of Napoleon’s death sent government stocks in London into a soon-to-burst bubble. Unsurprisingly, the whole affair was a calculated hoax.

Read the Full Report

Historical Novels in Fashion
With Wolf Hall’s win at the Booker this week, historical novels are very high on the news agenda. In The Times, Antonia Senior plumps for historical novels to go on, and re-invigorate, the British national curriculum.

Read the Full Report

Roger Moorhouse in conversation with Tom Carver

by Roger Moorhouse

Earlier this week, I had the honour of interviewing Tom Carver, former BBC correspondent in Washington and elsewhere and the step-grandson of Field Marshal Montgomery. His book Where the Hell Have You Been? was published in the UK last week.

I began by asking him what the book was about and what had prompted him to write it:

Tom Carver: It is a story about fathers and sons, about my relationship with my father and my father’s relationship with his (step)father who was Field Marshal Montgomery. Because Monty’s fame loomed so large in my childhood, my father never talked about his own wartime experiences. It wasn’t until much later that I discovered he had been captured at El Alamein after being sent on a suicidal mission by his stepfather, and that he had escaped from a prison camp and walked 400 miles down Italy and had lived for some time in a cave hidden by a very brave Italian family.

So at its heart, it is a surprising adventure story. But I also wanted to try to understand that Second World War generation who did such extraordinary things but rarely talked about them afterwards.

Roger Moorhouse: How did you come to uncover your father's story?

TC: When I was 11 years old, my father took us on a family holiday to Italy. It was the first time I had ever been abroad. We did the usual sightseeing but then suddenly he drove us up to an imposing looking building and announced that this had been his prison camp. It was the first time I was aware that he had been a prisoner and that day he told me a couple of extraordinary stories, including the account of how 600 prisoners managed to escape from the camp without a single one of them being caught.
After that whenever I asked him about the war, he would tend to dismiss the conversation, saying what he did “wasn’t much”. He was acutely aware – as many of the survivors of the war were – that so many others had suffered much more than he. It wasn’t until many years later, long after he had retired, that he began to open up. One day as I was sorting out his papers, I came across a battered looking tin in his study which contained a tiny compass made out of a safety pin and a metal coat button. He told me how he had built it in POW camp and used it to navigate his way down Italy back to the Allied lines.

RM: What do you recall of Monty when you were a child?

TC: I have very clear childhood memories of Monty – I was 15 when he died and formed part of the honour guide at his funeral at St George’s chapel as part of my school cadet force. When I was 9 and 10 I used to be taken by my parents to visit him. I remember one lunch being told to play in the garden and coming across the two caravans that Monty had used as his command posts throughout the war. I lay down on his bunk and stared at the portrait of Rommel that Monty kept on the wall throughout the desert campaign. There was also a large map of North Africa which I could see still had his battle-lines on it from the battle of El Alamein. Once I confess I took a chinagraph and added a couple of lines of my own going out into the Mediterranean! Fifty years later when I and my father went to visit the caravans in the Imperial War Museum, I noticed that the lines were still visible!

RM: What was your father's experience growing up with Monty as a stepfather?

TC: My father’s true father was killed at Gallipoli right out of Cambridge and until the age of 11 my father was brought up by his mother Betty. Then in 1926, Betty met a colonel by the name of Bernard Montgomery. At that stage of course he was just another officer in the British imperial army. They were married for 10 years very happily – I think it was probably the happiest period of Monty’s life – but in 1938 Betty died very suddenly from an insect bite which she got on a beach in Devon. Monty had a huge amount of energy and would always join in on any activity that my father and his brothers were doing, and Monty had a great deal of affection for my father – the fact that he wanted him nearby during his great test as Eighth Army commander was an indication of this. But Monty also had a very dominating personality and I think my father would probably not have stayed in the army after the war if Monty had not been so insistent.

RM: How did he manage to escape from the POW camp?

TC: On September 7th 1943, Italy pulled out of the Second World War. At that moment there were 80,000 Allied POWs in Italian camps. MI9, a branch of military intelligence, had sent a coded message to these camps telling the prisoners to stay put, which had disastrous consequences for the camps which obeyed the order – 50,000 troops were needlessly rounded up by the Germans and shipped by train to Germany when they could have escaped.
Fortunately in my father’s camp PG49, the Senior British Officer decided to ignore the order. The camp was also lucky to have a compassionate commandant who had fought alongside the British in the First World War. Two hours before the Germans arrived to take over the camp, he cut the wire to give the prisoners a head start. The instinct was to run as fast as possible but a number of the senior officers, including my father, decided instead to hide the prisoners right next to the camp where the Germans would least expect to find them. And for two days and nights, 600 men hid in a huge drainage ditch while the Germans drove around and around wondering where they all gone! It was a very risky thing to do but it worked!

RM: What was it like going back to find the family who looked after him in the war?

TC: It was an extraordinary moment. After my father died I decided to track them down; the only thing I knew was their name – the de Gregorios – so I trawled through the Italian phone directory calling every de Gregorio I could find, asking them if they remembered sheltering a British prisoner in the war called Richard Carver. Eventually one man said yes – he turned out to be Alfonso, who had been a boy of 14 at the time and had actually been the member of the family who found my father. He had been intending to ambush and shoot a group of Germans who had stolen the family’s only pig when he tripped over my father hiding in a bush! He was now in his 70s but still living in the same village in the Abruzzi. He laid on a huge celebration lunch for me and my family and we walked up into the woods where he showed us the cave where my father had lived for several weeks.
At one stage I toasted Alfonso, saying “thank you for saving my father’s life”. “No,” he replied, “you don’t understand. He saved ours. Had I actually shot the German patrol, the Germans would have destroyed my family’s home and executed my family.” This caught me completely by surprise but it was because the Germans in Italy used the old Roman system of suppressing the local population – kill ten of them for every one soldier killed by civilians. “Stumbling across your father” he said, “turned out to be an intervention from God.” It was a very humbling moment.

RM: What do you think drove the de Gregorio family to protect him?

TC: The contadini (peasant farmers) of the Abruzzi have always displayed a fierce sense of independence throughout Italian history, so I think it was partly that they liked anyone who was bucking the system or on the run. Had the tables been turned and Germans were fleeing from a British occupation, I suspect they may well have assisted the German POWs. In addition to that, they were motivated by a curious symmetry: several times my father was stopped by people and told that they had a son who was a POW in England and they hoped that if they looked after my father then somehow their son would be well looked after in the UK. Finally, the elderly in particular retained some affection for the British army, having fought alongside Britain against Germany in the First World War. In fact, the commandant of my father’s POW camp (PG49, the same one that Eric Newby was in) had fought in the First World War.

RM: What new aspects do your book, and your father's experience, tell us about Monty?

TC: I think it reveals a compassion in Monty that does not come through in the history books. After El Alamein when he became a household name Monty allowed his ego to run away with him which made him insufferable in many ways. But before the war, when he was raising a family and was an unknown officer, my father remembered him as a fun-loving and engaged parent. He was very much in love with Betty (my grandmother) and when she died suddenly, in 1937, he was heart-broken. I found in my father’s papers a very moving letter written by Monty to my father on the day of her death in which he talks about breaking down and being unable to go on. You see a very different man there than the common image of Monty.

RM: The title of the book Where the Hell Have You Been? is the first words that Monty said to your father when he returned from captivity. Could it also be seen as your own question to a father who was largely peripheral in your life?

TC: Yes. It could indeed. After being captured at El Alamein, my father escaped from the POW camp and walked 400 miles down Italy towards Monty who was advancing slowly up from Sicily. In December 1943, more than a year after he had disappeared, he finally stumbled back into Monty’s HQ and Monty’s first words to him were “Where the hell have you been?” which was his rather curious way of showing affection for his stepson! But the phrase does also refer to my father who was not very present in my childhood. He struggled with life after the war was over; I think he was rather overwhelmed by having to look after six children and couldn’t find a career he enjoyed. He also never talked about the war, conscious of the huge shadow cast by his stepfather. It wasn’t until late in his life when he was retired that I became close to him and he started to open up.

RM: It strikes me from reading your book that perhaps your father was most at home – and perversely at his happiest – whilst on his Italian odyssey. Do you think that is a fair assessment?

TC: Well, he never said it like that – on the surface he saw it as strictly duty, the need to return to one’s own lines as fast as possible and get back into combat – but for much of the way he travelled with another prisoner who was a wonderful epicurean figure and who loved the experience of being in this beautiful countryside and meeting amazing figures. And I think he helped my father to appreciate the moment and the uniqueness of the experience. And in later years I think those weeks of being on the run took on a sort of dreamlike quality for him – the consequence I suppose of being in disguise and living a life utterly different from the norm.

RM: Tom Carver, thank you very much.

Where the Hell Have You Been? is published by Short Books.

2010 World Monuments Watch: the 93 most endangered heritage sites in the world

by Kathryn Hadley

The 2010 World Monuments Watch was announced this morning, October 7th, in London by World Monuments Fund Britain. The Watch is a list of endangered heritage sites worldwide which is compiled every two years. Sites can be nominated by anyone from individual citizens to conservation professionals. Nominations are then considered by a panel of experts who decide on the final list. Since the programme’s inception, more than 630 sites in 125 countries and territories have been included on the eight Watches.

The 2010 Watch includes 93 sites worldwide, from Afghanistan, to Uganda, Bhutan, Bolivia, the United States, Belgium and Ireland. The oldest monument on the list is 10,000 BC art in a Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa; the most recent is the Atlanta-Fulton Central Public Library in Atlanta, Georgia, built in the 1970s. Six sites from the British Isles also feature on the 2010 Watch list.

British sites include a group of five graveyards in Edinburgh - Greyfriars Kirkyard, Canongate Kirkyard, St. Cuthberts Kirkyard, Old Calton Burial Ground and New Calton Burial Ground – where Adam Smith and David Hume are notably buried. Dr Jonathan Foyle, Chief Executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, described the sites, this morning, as a ‘repository of the Scottish Enlightenment’, which risks being lost forever if the headstones are left to rot.

Second on the list is Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church in Belfast designed in the Gothic Revival style by the architect W. H. Lynn and completed in 1875, when it was home to one of the largest Methodist congregations in Belfast. The four other sites include the Tecton buildings at Dudley Zoo constructed between 1935 and 1937; St John the Evangelist Parish Church in Shobdon, Herefordshire, an example of the mid 18th-century Rococo Gothic style; Russborough in County Wicklow in Ireland, a demesne designed for the First Earl of Milltown in the 1740s; and Sheerness Dockyard on the Isle of Sheppey. The dockyard, as it exists today, was built in 1815; however, its history dates back to Roman times and it continues to be used as a commercial port today.

As each of the sites worldwide on the 2010 Watch, the story of the Sheerness Dockyard is truly fascinating and deserves to be preserved.

In a 1998 article, Paul Wilkinson uncovers some fascinating links between the North Kent coast and a literary epic in Beowulf: New Light on the Dark Ages

Picture:
Sheerness Dockyard

More pictures of some of the other sites worldwide are available on the website of the BBC.

What if Arthur Prince of Wales had been king?

by Kathryn Hadley

In the light of this year’s widespread commemorations of the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, the publication at the end of last month of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales edited by Steven Gunn and Linda Monckton about the life, death and memory of his younger brother may have been somewhat overlooked. Nonetheless, to a large extent, Henry VIII’s reign cannot be dissociated from, and was arguably shaped by, the death of his brother. I interviewed Steven Gunn to uncover the main aims and arguments of the book.

Arthur Prince of Wales died, aged 15, in April, 1502, at Ludlow shortly after his marriage to Katherine of Aragon in November 1501. Dying at such a young age he appears quite an insignificant figure, so why was the book written and what are the main arguments of its contributing authors?

According to Steven Gunn, Arthur was largely forgotten by his contemporaries and became increasingly forgotten as time moved on. Two aspects related to the commemoration, or rather to this lack of commemoration, of Arthur Tudor in the aftermath of his death are particularly interesting.

First of all, the fact that Arthur Prince of Wales was so quickly forgotten stands in marked contrast to the celebration of the young prince during his lifetime. Arthur Tudor was celebrated, from the day of his birth, as the first heir to the throne and ‘the visible token of a new age’, which marked the end of decades of intermittent civil war between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, and numerous poems were notably written in his honour. His marriage to Katherine of Aragon was a further cause for celebration. The marriage had been arranged when Arthur was two years old with the signature of the Treaty of Medina del Campo in March 1489. When the day finally came twelve years later, lavish celebrations were organised in London and many books were printed commemorating the event. Arthur also left a significant imprint on art and architecture with many churches carved with the emblems of the newly-wed couple. The importance of his heraldry is highlighted in the introduction of the book:

‘[it] summed up what mattered most about him, his Tudor and Yorkist blood, his
marriage to the well-connected Katherine and his link to the great princes of
Wales of earlier generations’.

In the aftermath of his death, however, Arthur appears to have been almost deliberately forgotten. The reasons why he was forgotten by contemporaries provide valuable insights into Henry VIII’s rule. Arthur’s death, shortly after that of his younger brother Edmund Tudor, threatened the dynastic position of the Tudors. Indeed, why had two of Henry VII’s sons died if it was the destiny of the Tudors to govern? According to the book, the desire to push aside this threat to the Tudor dynasty may have been one of the reasons why Arthur was buried at Worcester rather than at Westminster.

Moreover, Arthur’s death was significant in terms of the effects that it had on the reign of Henry VIII. Steven Gunn argued that his brother’s death may explain the overconfidence of Henry VIII forged by a strong view of divine providence. The idea of Henry VIII’s divine right to rule was reiterated by the propagandist Sir Richard Morison in his Remedy for Sedition in 1536. He is quoted in the introduction of Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales:

'God took away Prince Arthur and would Henry VIII to be our head and governor. Will we be wiser than God? ... Let us content ourselves, that he rule whom God made our king, whom God preferred in taking away Prince Arthur, his Grace's elder brother.'

Henry's overconfidence may have been a direct consequence of his brother's death. In what other ways may Arthur Tudor's death have directly impacted English rule at the time and changed the course of English history?

Gunn argued that the specificities of Henry VIII’s rule were twofold. Firstly, Henry VIII directly shaped the relations between the English crown and the papacy. Although the English Reformation might have happened anyway, it would have been different under Arthur Tudor, bearing greater resemblance to the Dutch or French reformations which were more driven from below. Arthur would also have been less confrontational and may thus not have launched the same large-scale money-raising enterprises, which included the dissolution of the monasteries and debasing the coinage in the 1540s.

However, just how useful is this ‘what if’ counterfactual writing of history? According to Steven Gunn, counterfactual history is useful because it forces historians to identify the important factors in shaping the reign of Henry VIII and those that could be directly attributed to Henry’s personality. How much was Henry’s reign about his own personality and how much was about the dynastic situation at the time? Steven Gunn ended, however, with a word of warning: it is key to carefully define the questions posed in order to avoid attributing too much importance to certain factors.

For further information about the reign of Arthur’s father Henry VII, read our article Henry VII: Miracle King

From the Sultan to Ataturk: ethnic tensions in Turkey today

by Pinar Sevinclidir

It was an ordinary football match in Turkey between Bursaspor, from the northwest of Turkey, and Diyabakirspor, from Diyabakir in the southeast, a city home to over a million Kurds. Tension rose during the game when supporters from the host team Bursaspor brandished Turkish flags and banners calling supporters from the opposite team PKK militants. The match ended with 4 goals and 20 casualties.

This is a current picture of the tension between Turks and Kurds, at a time when the Turkish government intends to restore better ties with its ethnic minorities. Ever since the birth of the new Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkey has been criticised by the international community for the way it has treated its minorities. The most recent and historically relevant criticism is whether a more humanitarian approach could have been adopted towards Ottoman subjects on the way up to the building of new Turkish nation.

Andrew Mango, author of various books on Ataturk and Turkey, seeks to take part in this current debate in his latest book From the Sultan to Ataturk: Turkey. He describes the state of the Ottoman Empire during the negotiations of the Paris Peace Treaties and the ensuing three-year war with Greece. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, Allied Forces gathered in Paris to divide the territory that was known at the time as the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. Anatolia was occupied by Greece and Istanbul was under Allied administration. In 1919, Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey, and his friends started the Turkish War of Independence in an attempt to revoke the terms of the Treaty of Sevres. The war ended in July 1923 with the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne.

Mango describes in great detail the fate of the ethnic minorities in Turkey during the war years. The Greek Orthodox population notably fell from 2.5 million in 1914 to 5,000 today. After the last battle in Smyrna (western Turkey) in 1922, 213,000 Greeks, Armenians and other Ottoman subjects were evacuated and replaced with returning Muslim refugees from the Balkans.

According to Andrew Mango’s research, just before the collapse of the Empire, Ottoman officials sought to conclude an armistice with the Allied Forces by using two intermediaries from ethnic minorities. One was the Armenian notable Boghos Nubar Pasha; the other was the secretary to the Greek Patriarchate. However, at the end of the negotiations the Ottomans were left disillusioned as both men pressed for separate states to be carved out of Ottoman territories.

In a speech at his book launch, Mango sought to explain the reasoning behind the decisions taken by Mustafa Kemal and his commanders to extricate Greek and Armenian minorities from Ottoman society.

Mustafa Kemal was clear sighted enough to see that in the division of
spoils the Turks had to fight for their rights. But he was clear sighted enough
also to see that separation did not imply perpetual enmity, that once the Turks
and their erstwhile partners in Ottoman society had regrouped in their separate
national homes, they could and should establish friendly relations across the
new frontiers.

In Mango’s words there is also a lesson to be learnt from this episode of Turkish history.

The break up of mixed societies is continuing, bringing with it the tragedy of
ethnic cleansing. The history of the late Ottoman Empire and of modern Turkey
suggests that the best way to avoid the tragedy is to shore up mixed societies
before they break up. The nationally mixed societies of Bosnia could perhaps
have been preserved before hostilities started. Now the best that can be hoped
for is that the national communities having regrouped in their own areas should
learn to live peacefully side by side. Efforts to mixed them up together in the
old pattern are doomed to failure.

Andrew Mango’s book From the Sultan to Ataturk: Turkey is published by Haus Publishing in the Maker’s of the Modern World series.

In Catastrophe at Smyrna , Matthew Stewart traces the roots of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921-22, and the consequent refugee crisis, to the postwar settlements of 1919-20.
For further information on the impact of Kemal Ataturk, read our article Turkey's Fundamental Dilemma

The only existing film footage of Anne Frank

by Kathryn Hadley

On Wednesday (September 30th) the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam launched the official Anne Frank Channel on YouTube. The channel features the only existing film footage of Anne Frank made during her neighbour’s wedding in Amsterdam. It dates back to July 22nd, 1941, and shows Anne Frank leaning out of a window to watch the bride and groom.

Other videos include an interview with Miep Gies, who handed Anne’s father, Otto Frank, her diaries and was with him when he heard the news of his daughter’s death in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The channel also contains a video of Nelson Mandela describing the strength he derived from Anne Frank’s diary during his imprisonment on Robben Island.

The house, which was turned into a museum in 1960, was the hiding place of the Frank family between July 1942 and August 1944 and where Anne wrote her diary. The Anne Frank Foundation was established in 1957 to raise funds for the preservation of the house and its transformation into a museum. For further information, read our article Anne Frank, Forty Years On

Anne Frank House
Amsterdam
Telephone: 00 31 20 5567100
http://www.annefrank.org/