Another Year of History Ahead of Us
It’s a new year, which for history buffs means not only the chance to make changes moving forward but also the chance to look toward the past with a different focus. A new period. A new theme. A new set of questions. Or at least a bunch of new books about old stuff to read.
I start every year with a set of topics that I plan to explore. Every year some piece of the past sticks out its foot and trips me. So with caveat that an unexpected historical figure/period/event/theme will probably ambush me, here are some of the topics that I know I’m going to be thinking about in 2015:
I’m not quite sure when I became a military historian of sorts, but war is a constant in my historical universe. There are a few anniversaries in 2015 that will be hard to ignore: the ongoing centennial of World War I, the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War, the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo. I’m already in the first stages of a project related to Gettysburg and plotting a visit to the World War I exhibition at the Getty Museum.
Vikings and medieval sagas, with a nod to Nancy Marie Brown
Tough broads, whether armed with swords or only with their wits (Do not underestimate a smart woman with a metaphorical axe to grind)
Romantic nationalism, or how an interest in linguistics and poetry turned ugly
What historical topics do you see in your immediate future?
A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III
King George III in Coronation Robes
Quick, name two things you know about King George III of England.
If you're an American, I'm pretty sure I know what you said:
He held the throne during the American Revolution. If you're a history buff (and I assume you are), you may have added that on July 4, 1776 he wrote "Nothing of importance happened today" in his diary.*
He slipped into madness--a condition summarized by his addressing Parliament as "my lords and peacocks".
In A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III, Janice Hadlow presents a richer portrait of the king, showing him as son, husband, and father as well as ruler.
The Hanoverian kings of England were notorious for hating their heirs. They displayed that hatred in a public and often vicious fashion. Their heirs retaliated with equally public acts of political defiance. When George III inherited the throne from his grandfather at the age of 22 he was determined to build a family life different from the one he experienced as a child.
Hadlow begins with the three generations of Hanoverian royalty who preceded George III, describing dysfunctional family relationships that make soap opera plots look tame by comparison: loveless marriages, obsessive marriages, parents separated from their children against their will, a wife imprisoned for adultery (or at least considering adultery), a mother who refused to see her son on her deathbed. With that context in place, the heart of the book explores King George's efforts to be the moral compass of his nation and to reconcile the values of domesticity with the demands of kingship--a noble experiment with mixed results and long-term consequences for the modern idea of monarchy.
A Royal Experiment will appeal to lovers of biography, Georgian England or royal scandal
* This quotation turns out to be another of the emotionally satisfying historical myths that shape our understanding of the past. King George didn't keep a diary and the quotation should be attributed to Louis XVI on the day the Parisian mob stormed the Bastille. See the details here.
The guts of this review first appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
100 Years Later: The Christmas Truce of 1914
I've run this post before, but I don't think there is any historical Christmas story more appropriate to tell this year. A hundred years ago, men on the Western Front stopped fighting and celebrated the holiday together.
German and British soldiers photographed together in No Man's Land on the Western Front.
For most of us, the most vivid images of World War I are the trenches on the Western front. Men dug into positions on either side of a no-man's land of craters and burned out buildings. Barbed wire and sandbags provided little protection from enemy shelling or snipers; they provided no protection from rats, lice, flooding, or the dreaded "trench foot". The battlefields were noxious with the smell of rotting corpses, overflowing latrines and poison gas fumes.
Trench warfare was hell. It also made possible one of the most extraordinary events of the war: the unofficial Christmas armistice of 1914. The truce began when some German troops decorated their trenches with candles and Christmas trees and sang carols. British troops responded with carols of their own. On Christmas Day, some groups ventured into "no-man's land" to share food, sing carols, hold joint services for their dead and play soccer matches.
One German soldier, Josef Wenzel, described the scene in a letter to his parents:
One Englishman was playing on the harmonica of a German lad, some were dancing, while others were proud as peacocks to wear German helmets on their heads. The British burst into a song with a carol, to which we replied with "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht. It was a very moving moment--hated and embittered enemies were singing carols around the Christmas tree. All my life I will never forget that sight.
It is estimated that 100,000 men took part in the Christmas truce. In some places, the truce lasted only through Christmas day. In others, it lasted until New Year's Day. In some sectors, the war continued unabated.
The Christmas truce did not recur in 1915. Both the British and the German high commands were appalled at the blatant fraternization with the enemy and gave strict orders against future incidents. After all, how do you fight a war if the men at the front decide not to fight?
Peace on earth, good will to men.
ADDENDUM:
My friend Nancy Friesen brought this lovely version of the story to my attention:
Thanks, Nancy.
Photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.