Seventy years ago

September 17, 1939 Soviet forces invade Poland without any declaration of war and quickly defeat the retreating army, taking many thousands of prisoners of war. A good many of them were subsequently "executed" in various camps.

A delightful picture full of ironies. General Heinz Guderian, the outstanding German panzer commander shares a joke with the Soviet General Semyon Krivoshein at the joint parade held by the two invaders in Brest on September 22, 1939 (though fighing went on for some time longer). Less than two years later General Guderian led Panzergruppe 2 in Operation Barbarossa, rapidly capturing Smolensk and almost taking Moscow.

General Kriovshein, who was actually Jewish, also fought in the Second World War, though first he fought against Finland. He was one of the commanding officers in the great Kursk tank battle and played a prominent part in the battle for Berlin. The man had a charmed life though, presumably, his Civil War service with Stalin's favourite commander, the less than talented Semyon Budyonny, stood him in good stead. Krivoshein survived the great purge of the army in 1938 completely unscathed and was not caught up in the second, largely anti-Semitic purge either.

One wonders in what circumstances the two generals met again.

David Low's cartoon sums up the situation.

One of the greatest Tories

Today is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Dr Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist, critic, journalist, biographer, lexicographer and, above all, one of the greatest Tories. This is a preliminary posting, to remind readers of the event. There will be more. Tory Historian cannot let an anniversary like this pass by without writing a good deal on the subject.

Sixty years ago

October 1, 1949 Tiananment Square, Beijing (or as it was known then, Peking)

After a long and ferocious civil war during which Mao frequently turned on his own followers if their support for him was not quite fervid enough, the Communists had won. Mao Zedong proclaims the founding of the People's Republic of China, arguably the most destructive, oppressive and murderous of the twentieth century's appalling regimes. The Daily Telegraph gives a timeline and mentions a few of the horrors associated with Mao's name. Tory Historian strongly recommends that readers turn to Jung Chang's books. For those who find the Mao biography a little daunting (that is almost all of us) there are the superb and harrowing Inspector Chen novels by Qui Xiaolong.

Lepanto

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, fought on October 7, 1571. The Holy League that somehow managed to come to an agreement had a fleet of 206 galleys and 6 galleasses, commanded by Don Juan of Austria, illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V and half-brother of Philip II.

The Ottoman galleys were manned by 13,000 sailors and 34,000 soldiers. Ali Pasha (Turkish: "Kaptan-ı Derya Ali Paşa"), supported by the corsairs Chulouk Bey of Alexandria and Uluj Ali (Ulich Ali), commanded an Ottoman force of 222 war galleys, 56 galliots, and some smaller vessels. The Turks had skilled and experienced crews of sailors, but were somewhat deficient in their elite corps of Janissaries.

Not only that, but they were less well armed and less experienced.

The Ottomans had not lost a naval battle since the fifteenth century and was mourned throughout the empire as an act of Divine Will (not the best way of learning from experience). In Europe, particularly its Catholic part, this was seen as a hopeful sign: the Ottomans could be defeated and their retreat from Christian countries could now be envisaged. In actual fact, there was still some time to go.

Tory Historian's first acquaintance with the battle came through the very fine poem, written by a man who may have considered himself to be a radical but was, in reality, a Tory in the truest and most old-fashioned sense of the word, G. K. Chesterton.

There are many quotable lines in that poem of heroism and contempt for rulers but the last verse may be the best:

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Alfred Tennyson 1809 - 1892

As today is the anniversary of the great Victorian poet's death, Tory Historian decided to post a quotation or two. Naturally enough, there will be no references to valleys of death or canons on various sides, as that poem is a little too well known even by people who have no idea of what it is really about. (Incidentally, the same battle saw the charge of the Heavy Brigade, which achieved its aim with the participants coming back more or less intact. No poems were written about that.)

Here are a few gems, randomly chosen:

He makes no friends who never made a foe.

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.

We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Far it be from Tory Historian to suggest that these and others of his memorable lines could be studied with some profit by politicians nowadays.

Aficionados of the classic detective story will recall that Patricia Wentworth's formidable heroine, Miss Silver, was inordinately fond of quoting Lord Tennyson's apposite phrases.

1066 And All That

The Battle of Hastings, which changed English history, was fought on October 14, 1066 with the Normans (who were not actually French but Norsemen) winning a decisive victory. King Harold II killed as the piece of the Bayeux Tapestry above shows.

Here and here are some serious accounts of the battle, its causes and outcomes. Incidentally, it was not the last successful invasion of England. Henry Tudor invaded with a French army and some disaffected nobles to overthrow King Richard III in 1485.

Tory Historian thinks that the most appropriate account is at the beginning of Chapter II, William I: A Conquering King, in that historical masterpiece by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That:

In the year 1066 occurred the other memorable date in English History, viz. William the Conquerer, Ten Sixty-Six. This is also called the Battle of Hastings, and when William I (1066) conquered England at the Battle of Senlac (Ten Sixty-six).

When William the Conqueror landed he lay down on the beach and swallowed two mouthfuls of sand. This was his first conquering action and was in the South; later he ravaged the North as well.

The Norman Conquest was a Good Thing, as from this time onwards England stopped being conquered and thus was able to become top nation.

How can one better that?

Battle of Trafalgar

October 21, 1805, Battle of Trafalgar

A decisive victory for the Royal Navy that confirmed British supremacy at sea, not to be challenged again in the nineteenth century. Soon after it, at the Guildhall dinner, the Lord Mayor toasted William Pitt, the Prime Minister, as the "saviour of Europe". Pitt's response has gone down in history as one of the finest sentences uttered by a British politician:

I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example.

Sadly for Pitt, the war on land was not going well enough for him to witness a victory. He died the following year.

Twenty five years ago (missed this one)

Brighton, early hours of October 12, 1984

The IRA's bomb killed 5 people and injured many more. Its intent was to assassinate the Prime Minister and murder as many of the Cabinet as possible.

Twenty-five years on the perpetrators are all out of prison and at least one (unrepentant) perpetrator was recently welcomed in the House of Commons, as Stephen Glover indignantly writes.

Twenty years ago

November 9, 1989 Berlin - the Wall is destroyed by the People

Ninety years ago

December 1, 1919 saw the introduction of the first woman MP to the House of Commons. Needless to say, she was a Conservative. Nancy Astor was not the first woman to be elected to the House - that had happened in 1918, when Constance Markiewicz was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for one of the Dublin constituencies but, in line with party policy, refused to take the oath and was not allowed to sit in the House of Commons. [Both Wiki links need to be read with great care as there are inaccuracies and omissions but the outline of the two stories are useful.]

That was the first election, held in December 1918, after the Representation of People Act, passed in March 1918 that widened the franchise to all men over 21 and women over 30 as long as they were "either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register". Women had been allowed the vote in various local elections since the late 1880s.

Nancy Astor's candidacy and election was not, in the first place, an achievement for feminists though, obviously, it could not have happened without years of campaigning by both suffragettes (whose contribution was often counter-productive) and the suffragists, many of whom had been Conservatives. It was all a deal put together by the local Conservative Association but something of a political risk, nevertheless.

Early in October 1919 the first Viscount Astor (by birth American but a long-time resident of Britain where the entire Astor family assimilated very quickly) died of a heart attack. This made his son, Waldorf, until then MP for Plymouth Sutton, the second Viscount and he had to resign from the Commons. The Association then had the brilliant idea of putting up his wife who had been closely involved in his political career. The assumption was that there would soon be legislation that would allow those who inherit a title to reject it through various legal methods. In fact, the Peerage Act was not passed till 1963 and Nancy Astor remained an MP till 1945.

The picture above is the proclamation of her victory. Naturally, there are no pictures of her being introduced into the House by David Lloyd George and A. J. Balfour.