Foyle’s War
History buff-ery can lead you to unexpected places. Recently it's led My Own True Love and I to our living room in front of the television, where we are totally absorbed in the BBC television series Foyle's War.* It's a police procedural set during World War II in the town of Hastings** on the southeast coast of England. The main character, detective chief inspector Christopher Foyle, would rather be in the armed services doing his part but his superiors feel he will do more good maintaining order along the coast.
The care with historical detail in the series is impressive,*** but the choice of period is more than set-dressing. The first season is overshadowed by the fear of German invasion. Subsequent seasons follow the course of the war. The murders in each episode derive directly from wartime conditions in Britain.
Even more interesting, from my perspective, is the representation of wartime British society. Patriots and heroes are shown side by side with Nazi sympathizers, rabid anti-Semites, draft dodgers, profiteers, hoarders, and soldiers irreparably damaged by their experience at the front. Innocent German refugees suffer at the hands of Britons whose patriotism has hardened into intolerance and hatred. Soldiers treat women badly. Men in important positions assume their value to the war effort exempts them from the rule of law. The government tries to cover up failures. The memory of World War I is never far away--something we often forget. This is not a simple picture of gallant little England standing alone against the Nazis. In many ways, it makes the instances of bravery, generosity and justice that appear in each episode more impressive.
We just finished season 5, which centers on the announcement of the German surrender. It will be interesting to see if the historical interest of the series holds as Foyle and his team move into the Cold War.
Don't touch that dial.
* We are not cutting edge television viewers. The first season of Foyle's War aired in 2002; season 9 is now in production.
** As in the Battle of Hastings--a subtle reminder that the threat of invasion from continental Europe is a pervasive element of British history, from the Romans onwards. No island is an island.
*** The only note that they don't quite hit is the issue of scarcity. Characters talk about coupons and rations. In one episode, members of the police force drool over food being held as evidence in a profiteering case. In another, the detective team enjoys the bounty available at an agricultural worker's boarding house. But you never get the feeling that people are never really warm, that clothing is patched and remade to make it last, or that they are hungry. If you want to get a good since of how pinched the average Briton was during the war, I suggest you read letters or popular fiction written during or just after the war. Off the top of my head, I would suggest Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, Angell Thirkell's novels set during the war (pure fluff but very clear on the scarcity), or Agatha Christie.
How Paris Became Paris
Nineteenth century civic planner Baron Haussman is often given credit for transforming Paris into a modern city: a rebuilding massive project of bridges, wide boulevards and public spaces.
In How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, historian Joan DeJean (The Age of Comfort) argues that the real transformation occurred two centuries earlier, when Henri IV set out to rebuild a city that had been ravaged by Catholic and Protestant alike during the thirty-six years of the Wars of Religion. In 1597, wolves roamed freely in the French capital; by 1700, Paris was synonymous with culture, glamour and fashion.
Beginning with the building of the Pont Neuf (literally, the New Bridge), DeJean tells the story of a hundred years of royal vision, private funding, innovative real estate development and public planning. She also looks at how physical changes to the city created new behaviors, new institutions, and new problems. Many of the things that we think of as typically urban first appeared at this time: from public transportation and sidewalks to traffic jams and tourists. (Not the same thing as pilgrims.) Other changes are less familiar: new public spaces in which to promenade led to the new crime of cloak-snatching.
DeJean is also concerned with more than just seventeenth century urban renewal. Using a range of sources including contemporary guidebooks, plays and travel accounts, she explores how the city’s image was reinvented –creating a fantasy of Paris as what Claude Monet would later describe as “that dizzying place.”
The Black Hole of Calcutta
In mid-eighteenth century India, power was up for grabs. The Mughal dynasty was in decay. Smaller regional powers flourished. European trading companies, which held their trading privileges at the discretion of Indian rulers, were constantly looking for a way to get an edge. The British and French East India Companies, in particular, maintained private armies with which to defend themselves--usually against each other.
In 1756, the British East India Company became involved in a dispute with the new Nawab of Bengal, twenty-six-year-old Siraj-ud-duala. The young Nawab looked on the growth of the British settlement at Calcutta with both greed and suspicion. When he learned that the British merchants, in anticipation of war with France, had begun to expand their fortifications without his permission, he marched on Calcutta with 30,000 foot, 20,000 horse, 400 trained elephants and 80 cannon. The city was defended by a small, badly trained, force of soldiers and militia. Siraj-ud-daula attacked early on June 20.Anyone who could escaped down river by boat in a disorganized retreat. Those who had been unable to escape surrendered by mid-day and spent the night in the the Black Hole, a cell in which the British locked up drunken soldiers. The next day, the survivors were forced to leave Calcutta and made their way downriver to Fulta, where the rest of the Calcutta merchants had taken shelter.
The incident was made infamous by the account of one of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell. Published in 1758, Howell's pamphlet, titled A Genuine Narration of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole, was popular reading in the eighteenth century and frequently reprinted. Holwell reported that 146 English, including one woman, were held in an 18 square foot cell with one small barred window; only 21 survived the night. Referring to his experience as "a night of horrors I will not attempt to describe, as they bar all description," he went on to describe the event in horrific detail. The story became part of the mythology of empire when Thomas Babington Macaulay borrowed heavily from Holwell for his own lurid account of the incident in his 1840 essay on Lord Clive.
There is no doubt that the men who attempted to defend Calcutta against Siraj-ud-daula, led by Howell himself, were incarcerated in the fort's punishment cell, which was called the Black Hole by British soldiers. (The name continued to be used in army garrisons as late as 1863). Details of the story have since been disputed. Holwell's numbers appear to have been exaggerated. More importantly, his claims of malice on the part of Siraj ud duala have been rejected. While it is clear is that the British prisoners were held overnight in a small, badly ventilated cell on the longest day of the year and that a substantial proportion of them did not survive, there is no evidence that the Nawab ordered the imprisonment or was even aware of it. British atrocities against Indian residents of Calcutta in the days before Siraj-ud-daula's attack add balance to the story.
From the British point of view, retribution was rapid and thorough. Siraj ud duala's attack on Calcutta was the first step in the events that would lead to the Battle of Plassey and the rise of the British Raj.