Month: November 2023

On 22 November 1920, the ship bringing the last British PoWs back from Russia docked in Harwich at 6 am. Two officers remained in the port to organise quarantine for their pet mascot, Teddy, while the other thirteen took the train to Liverpool Street Station. Arriving in London, they were met by a gaggle of reporters who took a photograph of them which was published in several newspapers the next day.

The soldiers were very cautious about what they revealed because they knew a Victoria Cross winner had been court martialled recently for communicating with the media without permission after returning from North Russia. However, they did say a few words that contradicted the narrative of recent official visitors who had been Lenin’s guests and added “the people in England have no idea of the dreadful state of things that exist in Russia”.

Reporting to the War Office, the soldiers were put on three months long leave and ordered not to speak about their experiences in the Moscow prisons. As they scattered around the globe, to Australia, Brazil, Canada, India and Ireland, the Prime minister, David Lloyd George, signed a trade deal with the Bolshevik government and covered up the soldiers’ story without awarding any military honours to their leader despite his outstanding work in helping British citizens to escape from the Red Terror. Their incredible adventure is now available to be read in Churchill’s Abandoned Prisoners: The British Soldiers Deceived in the Russian Civil War.

For my 12th birthday, I was allowed to invite a group of school friends to the award winning film, Waterloo. I had already climbed the Lion Mound and visited La Haye Sainte on a battlefield tour and was captivated by the leading characters played brilliantly by Rod Steiger and Christopher Plummer. I still have the 28-page booklet, which candidly reveals the secrets of the filming in the Ukraine and inspired me to study the different approaches to soldiering used by the two protagonists, Napoleon and Wellington.

Both these famous generals bridged the military-political divide. Whereas, Wellington was content to serve his King and Country as Prime Minister, which he was invited to do on two occasions, Napoleon’s megalomania drove his attempt to rule the world. It is for this reason that the Corsican holds a greater fascination to the media, but it is intriguing that despite 10,000 books being written about him, no one before Sir Ridley Scott has produced an epic film biography of the Corsican and that Stanley Kubrick cancelled his attempt after the commercial failure of Waterloo in the 1970s.

In the past decade, there has been a continuous stream of major films about 20th century warfare, including: War Horse, Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge, 1917, They Shall Not Grow Old and All Quiet on the Western Front. I wonder whether Ridley Scott’s film will start a new trend for 19th century war films and the Crimean War will come back into focus, given the situation in Ukraine today?

In its coverage of Remembrance Sunday, the BBC has emphasised the parade of veterans marching past the Cenotaph. This is all very well, but it does slightly play to the perceived stereotype that this day is irrelevant for young people. My experience around the country is very different as I have seen hundreds of teenagers selling poppies and marching past war memorials in towns and cities. Most of these are Sea, Army and Air Cadets, but there are also Scouts and Guides and other youth organisations who come to line the route today.

I believe it is really important to emphasise that this is not just about the past, but also the future. John McCrae’s iconic poem hits the nail on the head in the final verse: “Take up our quarrel with the foe, To you from falling hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.”

During the past 30 years, organisers have widened the commemoration to include those who are affected directly or indirectly by armed conflict, or have lost loved ones in acts of terror. This is entirely appropriate, but we also need our young people to understand Remembrance and encourage them to take up “the torch”.

There is a commemoration on 11th November that is almost as significant as the Armistice that ended hostilities on the Western Front in 1918. It is the moment that for many historians marks the turning point of World War II, when Rommel was driven out of Egypt by the “Desert Rats” who he had fought for 18 months.

This Allied victory by 8th Army (which was made up of infantry divisions from Australia, Britain, India, New Zealand and South Africa as well as French and Greek brigades) inspired Winston Churchill to deliver one of his much-repeated wartime quotes during the annual Lord Mayor’s reception in London: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The Prime Minister must have felt a tremendous sense of relief not only because the year had been full of disasters such as the loss of Hong Kong, Singapore and Tobruk, but also because the US landings in French North Africa were about to begin. Recognising this was the turning point of the war, Churchill authorised the ringing of Church bells throughout the United Kingdom; a sound that had not been heard for over two years. Soon afterwards, he visited his alma mater, where he was given a rapturous reception by the schoolboy audience when he said: “Far be it for me to say how long the road will be, or how great the effort will be…I do feel that I can assure you that we are moving forward, stronger every month and that the day will shortly come…when we shall reach a broader and brighter light…”

18 November 1942