Perceptions of the Great WarOn Ugglesby Head Day 1951, Patrick Scullion gave a famous speech on the quarterdeck of the reconstructed HMS Badger in which he put great stress on the need for Arransia to look forward to the future in a positive spirit rather than dwelling on the disappointments of the past. This very much set the tone for Arransia’s attitude to the Great War during the 1950s. It wasn’t exactly swept under the carpet, but there was a general lack of either celebration or recrimination. Some in Brunswick felt that Arransia should show a degree of contrition for the war, but the Arransians tended to feel that their soldiers, sailors and airmen had fought in a determined and honourable – and at times very courageous – manner and at the individual level had nothing to be ashamed of. This was recognised by Hector Wolfenden when he addressed the nation for the first time as Chancellor after the Armistice, even though he had been a principled and consistent opponent of the conflict from its outset. As Admiral Henderson, who had little influence on top-level policy during the conflict, had said to one of his Brunswickian counterparts when asked to show a touch of remorse, “I, and my country, have had to swallow a large and unpalatable slice of humble pie, and I have no intention of endlessly regurgitating it for your benefit.” Few senior military commanders wrote memoirs, and the most prominent of those who did, Admiral David Baxter, who had been dismissed as Admiral of the Fleet in early 1947 for advocating that the Arransians should take over some Mayonnaise warships as they would make better use of them, was felt to have been highly self-serving. By 1954 Baxter had been rehabilitated and appeared on the famous photograph of senior naval officers on the flight deck of the Queen Margaret when she was handed over to the Arransian Navy. From the perspective of 2011 it is difficult to argue that Baxter did not have a good point, although he might have put it across in a more diplomatic manner. As the 1950s progressed, the government felt it would be desirable to have a formal record of the conflict, and commissioned Captain Stephen Piper (1899-1986), who had been a well-respected staff officer during the war and later became a university lecturer, to compile an official history of naval operations. This 750-page tome was completed in 1958, and the following year he produced an abridged version of 290 pages with a more populist tone, called The Royal Navy at War: 1942-19491, which became a best-seller and indeed, with minor revisions for factual errors, is still in print. Although Piper had been a protégé of Baxter’s, and after his fall had been relegated from planning to more mundane duties organising fuel supplies, the book steered clear of controversy and did its best to be fair to all concerned. It is notable for a somewhat resigned and elegiac tone, with numerous descriptions of actions along the lines of “although a determined and valiant resistance was put up by the ship’s company, the volume of enemy fire ultimate proved overwhelming, and at 1530 hours, when all the main armament had been put out of action, Captain McGrath, to avoid further unnecessary loss of life, regrettably had to issue the order to strike his colours and abandon ship.” The book covered aerial reconnaissance and anti-submarine operations by the RNAS, but not the strategic bombing campaign. A similar official history was produced covering domestic anti-aircraft defence operations, in which the Arransians, aided by Mayonnaise fighter squadrons, had been conspicuously successful, although this was perceived as a somewhat dry subject and never led to a popular abridgement. An attempt to produce an official history of the Army during the war was begun, but eventually abandoned once it became clear it would be impossible to resolve certain controversial issues. Nothing similar was ever produced covering the strategic bombing campaign, but in 1971, when he was commander of the RNAS, Admiral Cunningham sponsored a semi-official volume which adopts a notably more jingoistic tone than Piper’s book. The much-maligned Army Air Corps, who always had to put up with the dregs of Mayonnaise aircraft production and never received clear direction, still lacks any kind of official historian. The general mood of questioning authority in the 1960s led a further diminution of interest in the war, and very often it was only brought up to ridicule the whole thing. Many veterans felt that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the conflict, they had laid their lives on the line and resented being made the butt of ridicule. Patrick Scullion was known to fulminate on the subject, and, in late 1967 was rendered absolutely incandescent with rage by a stage musical that opened in Danby portraying (amongst other things) the battle of the Badger and Marblehead as a play-fight of toy boats. However, the 1960s eventually produced something that would forever change perceptions of the war in both Arransia and Brunswick in the form of the TV series Secret War. This was based on the humorous memoirs of Major Andrew Jodrell, a retired Arransian army officer, who had described his cavalry troop on border patrol happily fraternising with their Brunswickian counterparts, sharing a smoke and a coffee, and exchanging whisky and cider for cigarettes and drums of petrol. The book had originally been published in 1955 but had attracted little attention then, and indeed Scullion, who knew Jodrell, considered him to be an amiable twerp. However, it was rediscovered in the 1960s and seemed more in tune with the spirit of the times. It was made into two series of seven hour-long episodes that were first screened in 1970 and 1971. It should be stressed that this was a comedy-drama without a laughter track, not a situation comedy like Dad’s Army. While deflating much of the pomposity surrounding the war, it portrayed its leading characters in a sympathetic light and made the point that they were ordinary human beings with all their foibles caught up in the sweep of wider events. Jodrell was lightly fictionialised as Major Tony Grenfell, and arguably his Brunswickian opposite number, a “townie” who had been keen to fight on the front but had been condemned to border patrol duties by some unspecified medical complaint, was the most likeable character of all. On the other hand, the Brunswickian second-in-command was a distinctly mercenary type who was always keen to rub in Brunswick’s material and technological superiority. The Arransians had little answer to this, but one of Grenfell’s associates, who fancied himself as an (excruciatingly bad) poet, always came up with some non-material quality that Arransia still had, and in a sense got the last word. Grenfell’s second-in-command was a pompous retired regular cavalry officer with a fondness for horse-racing (and whisky) who would lay bets on all kinds of trivial things, which he almost always lost, and would also go on at length about past Arransian triumphs in obscure military skirmishes. It was also played with the Arransian characters having Northern Arransian rather than Marchwood accents, which was thought would be confusing to Brunswickian viewers, although by this time they were well used to the sound of Patrick Scullion’s voice. This proved extremely popular in Arransia, with some seeing it as just making fun of the Brunswickians, while others recognised that it worked on a deeper level as a story of human companionship and the ultimate futility of war. It received a lot of criticism in Brunswick from the more stiff and pompous end of the spectrum, including many retired army officers, but the general public saw it for what it was and it proved the most successful Arransian-made show up to that time on Brunswickian television. It is still often repeated and has proved a best-seller on video and DVD, but it must be said that, as living memory turns into myth and history, it is something that could not be made now, as neither nation would be happy to see its dignity punctured to such an extent. In the early 1970s, a distinguished Arransian economic historian published an analysis of the Arransian war economy, which drew the conclusion that, at least until the end of 1947, Arransia achieved a considerably greater increase in production than any of the other countries involved in the conflict. The Arransians had also been extremely inventive and resourceful in developing new technologies, which had stood them in good stead for the post-war era. This upsurge was only stemmed by increasing transport difficulties caused by Brunswickian bombing and naval action. This economic performance had not been widely appreciated – and indeed, given the bad news and general austerity, had not been obvious at the time – and gave a fillip to Arransian national morale during a period of international turmoil. With the unsuccessful naval foray to the Middle East, and the controversy over the replacement and then modernisation of the Queen Margaret, the 1970s were a time of renewed interest in military affairs. The appointment of John McAndrew as Admiral of the Fleet in 1978 contributed to this, as he had been the only Arransian submarine commander during the war to sink a major Brunswickian warship. What really rekindled interest in the Great War, however, was the constant trickle of obituaries of military officers that started to appear from this time onwards. These were not generals and admirals, but the Majors and Commanders who had led tank attacks, tried to sink submarines and done their best to bomb Brunswickian factories. This led to the realisation that, whatever the wider politics of the war, many brave men had laid their lives on the line for Arransia. Admiral Alan Cunningham (1918-2009) had retired a year early as commander of the RNAS in 1977, and came to be regarded as the examplar of Arransian heroism during the war. He had participated in – and survived – a number of strategic bombing operations, including the mass raid on Aubourg in February 1947 and the partially successful raid on the Brunswickian nuclear facility in March 1948. He had commanded the disastrous repeat raid on the nuclear facility in January 1949, from which only 11 of 28 aircraft returned, for which he was awarded the Margaret Cross. He had then commanded the famous Elko raid in May 1949 where the terrain-following radar had been successfully employed for the first and only time, and which had effectively destroyed the entire petrochemical complex for the loss of relatively few civilian lives. On this raid, 34 out of 38 aircraft survived. There is a strong argument that this was the greatest feat of Arransian arms of all time. Cunningham said that, had the Armistice not intervened, he would have willingly had another go at the nuclear facility using the TFR. He was a self-evidently brave, thoughtful and honourable man, although as a top-level commander he had come off second best in political wranglings with the Rostron government in the 1970s. The same fate, of course, had befallen his superior, Admiral of the Fleet Theodore McLeod. He was replaced as commander of the RNAS by the more wily and politically astute Aristide Vauclain (b 1927), who eventually succeeded McAndrew as Commander-in-Chief and is fortunately (2011) still very much with us. Cunningham died in the Autumn of 2009 at the age of 91 and received something little short of a state funeral at Torrisholme in Stainland. Significantly, the Brunswickian Air Force volunteered to provide a flypast of B-39s without being asked, which was a profound gesture of respect. The famous HMS Badger was scrapped in 1975 after having been laid up in reserve for six years. Patrick Scullion did not oppose this, arguing that he would not wish to see the ship as a lifeless museum exhibit, and in any case she had received a major reconstruction in 1950-51, with new superstructure and anti-aircraft armament, and so was no longer the ship that had fought the famous battle. It is doubtful whether the same decision would have been taken in 1995 if the ship had survived twenty years longer. Two significant warships are preserved at Skerne, the large destroyer HMS Halcyon and the submarine HMS Scimitar, the latter of which is famous for the 18-month cruise to the Far East in 1947-49 under the command of Lieutenant-Commander James Guthrie. This has become something of a legend in Arransia, but in fact Guthrie, while undoubtedly a brave and resourceful submariner, never posed any significant thread to sea trade between Thirland and Brunswick. The Scimitar is not entirely the original vessel either, as after the war she was re-equipped with a Brunswickian diesel engine that was more efficient and reliable than the original. The cruiser Le Tonnant, which is similar in general proportions to the Badger, although very different in profile, is preserved in Mayenne. The general Arransian view was that history in schools finished fifty years ago, so the Great War did not as yet form part of the official curriculum, although it was taught to some extent in some independent schools. However, the wave of 50th anniversaries from 1992 onwards brought it very much back into the public eye. First of these, of course, was the famous fight of the Badger and Marblehead. Patrick Scullion, although a very old man of 94, was still alive and had all his wits about him, and gave a very cogent extended interview setting out his view of the battle, although his recollection was questioned by some of the surviving Brunswickian veterans. One point that had often been made was that the Badger had only won because of her superior armour protection, but Scullion replied that that was a tribute to the Arransian naval architects and shipyards. The reality, of course, was that both had been well-built ships with experienced crews that in effect were crack vessels of their respective navies. The Marblehead had a two-knot speed advantage, which would have allowed Harry Paxton to avoid battle, but he chose to press home the attack. While Scullion had “won”, the Badger was able to play no more part in the war, so in a sense Paxton had the last laugh. At the time, Brunswick had 29 modern cruisers, Arransia five, so four more such “victories” would have wiped out the Arransian cruiser force. Paxton was criticised in Brunswick and relegated to desk duties until his retirement, but his contribution was later fully recognised and one of the current force of nuclear ballistic missile submarines bears his name. One of the most significant anniversaries was that of the Battle of Val de Jérica in March 1997. As it was not on the school curriculum, many Arransians were unaware of this, and were taken aback to be presented with “An élite Arransian armoured division, equipped with the finest tanks in the world, with engineering backup that has delivered unprecedented levels of reliability, supported by intensive air attacks and artillery bombardment, achieve a decisive breakthrough and advance ninety miles in ten days. The stuff of fiction? No, it really happened in March 1947.” Which it did, although lack of follow-up and fuel shortages stopped it being the decisive victory that was hoped for, and the head of the advance was eventually pinched off by the Brunswickians. A notable interviewee was Lieutenant-Colonel John Wolstencroft (1922-2001) of the Teviot Dragoon Guards, who had been in the forefront of the attack, but had eventually been taken prisoner. The Mayonnaise made up nine-tenths of the soldiers involved, but the Arransian tank force had undoubtedly been used as a very effective spearhead. However, Val de Jérica brought up the thorniest issue of the war – the fact that over half the Arransian soldiers in Mayenne at the Armistice, including most of the best units, continued to fight on after the peace agreement, until the final Mayonnaise surrender. From the perspective of fifty years on, it was hard to see why they did this, but the fact is that they did, believing that the change of government was some form of coup and they didn’t see why their allies one day should become their enemies the next day. In fact, the Mayonnaise shot a few dozen of those who decided to cease fighting, but most were interned and not notably mistreated. In any case, self-preservation was not the main motivation. Arguably, this behaviour was treason, but the post-war Arransian government sensibly took the view that to prosecute anyone would be extremely divisive. They adopted the policy that any fully-commissioned officers who had continued to fight would be dismissed and deprived of their pension rights, but enlisted men, non-commissioned officers and those of the junior Cornet rank who had not yet been promoted to Lieutenant would be allowed to continue in service, if they wished, subject to going through a re-education course. In fact, a court case in 1954 restored the pension rights of those officers who had been dismissed. This was a pragmatic policy designed to smooth over the cracks, although there were many in Brunswick who were resentful that no Arransian military officer was ever prosecuted for any kind of general crimes during the war. The “refuseniks” had included most of the best soldiers in the Arransian Army, and over 3,000 enlisted men and NCOs were allowed to continue in service with the Royal Marine Corps, together with 17 who had held Cornet rank at the Armistice. In fact, a handful of fully commissioned officers, mostly in technical roles in the Engineers, Signals and Artillery, were later quietly re-enlisted. Of those 17, four eventually reached General rank, most famously George Acton (b 1930), who became Lieutenant-General in command of armoured forces, and possibly had it not been for his actions in 1949 would have become commander of the entire Marine Corps. One of the enduring images of the 1968 disturbances is of the tank squadron being unloaded from the train on the outskirts of Danby, and the tall, handsome, bemedalled Lieutenant-Colonel in charge, with his beret at a jaunty angle and his distinctive Marchwood gentry drawl, saying that he knew where his duty lay and would do his best to restore order. That, of course, was George Acton, a man some might regard as a traitor, but others as the beau ideal of a patriotic Royal Marine Corps officer. His elder brother, Peter Acton (1924-2007), was a Captain at Val de Jérica, had advanced to full Colonel by the Armistice and afterwards received a temporary promotion to Brigadier-General, but of course ended up being cashiered. He accepted his life as a gentleman farmer, and later became a Master of Foxhounds and a long-serving Independent member of Marchwood County Council. In fact, in 1954 he was invited to re-enlist but declined. His son Paul (b 1961) is currently a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding one of the three battalions of No. 3 Armoured Regiment, so in a sense he has obtained closure from the episode. In 1999, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Armistice, Peter Acton was interviewed for television and said quite clearly that, with the benefit of hindsight, he accepted he had made a wrong decision, but it did not seem so at the time. But, although plenty of current and former Royal Marine officers were present, no military uniforms were on display at his funeral. In recent years, there has been some attempt to really get to the bottom of the 1949 “refuseniks”, but of course most of those involved are now dead, and George Acton has refused to say anything beyond what his brother said. While it is easy to say that some had “extreme right-wing views”, it is impossible to demonstrate that in this respect they differed from the rest of the generality of the armed services. 1999 saw the 50th anniversary of the Armistice and the nettle firmly grasped with a magisterial 13-part television series on the Arransian experience of the war. This made extensive use of original film and newsreel footage and of interviews with surviving veterans and those now dead. While obviously Arransian-centred, it was scrupulously fair and gained a wide audience in Brunswick while being almost compulsory viewing in the home country. The now-famous newsreel of Marty, the ship’s cat of the ill-fated destroyer HMS Curlew, got its first airing for 53 years, and the issues of the mutiny of the Stainland Light Infantry and the post-Armistice refuseniks were not shirked. The mutineers were adamant that their action had not been driven by cowardice but by a reluctance to be used as cannon-fodder in a losing cause, although a couple of former officers expressed the view that soldiers had no choice where they should serve and in practice no Arransian infantry regiments had been used by the Mayonnaise as anything remotely resembling cannon-fodder. From 1999-2000, the Great War up to the Armistice was added to the official secondary school history curriculum. Although it was not a “book of the series”, it prompted respected Arransian historian Paul Mowat (1934-2001), Professor of Modern History at the University of Hebburn, to produce a single-volume, popular history of the war, Too Late, Too Few: Arransia in the Great War 1942-1949, which was published in February 2001. It was lauded in the Arransian press, and although some in Brunswick felt it was biased, it was pointed out that similar Brunswickian histories were far more biased. Mowat stated in his foreword that he was an Arransian who had lived through the war as a schoolboy, and said that, while there was no deliberate bias, he acknowledged that it was written from an Arransian perspective. Sadly, Mowat died of cancer a few months after the publication of the book, which in a sense has served to add to its reputation. This has now become effectively a set text in schools. The scrutiny of the 2000s exposed some less savoury aspects of the Arransian war effort. All participants in the war officially adhered to the principle that they would not deliberately target civilian populations in bombing operations. There were two significant incidents – at Ormsby and Lemingore – where the Brunswickians did end up killing substantial civilian populations, and which were condemned by the Arransians as atrocities, but both resulted from poor targeting in operations intended to damage port facilities. Indeed, the Lemingore raid killed almost 400 civilians, which is not far short of what the Germans did to Coventry, in a much smaller town. However, the archives show that the Arransians did contemplate the deliberate destruction of civilian areas as a means of revenge. Indeed, in October 1947 they carried out a raid on one town with that specific objective, but despite employing 65 bombers the results were so ineffectual that it was far from obvious what the aim was. Lack of means seems to have been the main factor holding the Arransians back. Ironically, Cunningham’s father Edward, as Minister of War Production, unashamedly exploited the Brunswickian scruples by mixing industrial facilities in with residential areas. The Arransians maintained prisoner-of-war camps which mainly contained captured Brunswickian airmen, with a scattering of soldiers. In general they did this in accordance with the accepted rules of war, although often distinctly grudgingly. In December 1948, after the severing of the main Petersburgh-Stainton railway line by Brunswickian bombing, the Commandant of the biggest PoW camp declined to provide any rations apart from water for four days on the grounds that the prisoners had brought it on themselves. Although the Mayonnaise and Arransians were decisively defeated in the “Battle of Affenthwaite” in the Autumn of 1948, they did take about 1,500 Brunswickian prisoners. They might have expected to be confined in Arransia, but instead were shipped across the Sleeve and ended up in prison camps in the far reaches of Waldenberg close to the Rolvian border. On the journey they were treated very abusively by Arransian soldiers, and on the sea crossing of the Sleeve were told that there were no life rafts for them, and if their countrymen decided to torpedo the ship, they would deserve their fate. Due to the confused situation after the end of the war, many of them did not return home until the middle of 1950, and a few died of starvation. Understandably, this episode does not endear the Arransians to the Brunswickians. While the general principle is that government archives are made public 50 years after the event, there are still substantial portions of the Arransian war archives still kept as secret 62 years after the Armistice. To be fair, the same is true of Brunswick. The Mayonnaise famously burned the majority of their defence and foreign ministry archives between the atomic bomb and their surrender. It remains unclear how much the Arransians knew about the Brunswickian atomic weapon project. Cunningham and others have said they were aiming to prevent the Brunswickians developing atomic bombs, but it is not certain whether that is a post-event rationalisation. There is no mention of atomic weapons in the archives that have been released, and those relating to the bombing missions simply refer to “special weapon facilities”. One area of military activity in which the Arransians have never excelled is espionage, and it is a long-standing joke that “Arransian military intelligence” is a contradiction in terms. During the war, the Mayonnaise were very critical of the Arransians for having failed to do anything to establish agents in the Brunswickian high command, despite the two nations sharing a language and cultural heritage. The Arransian command structure was penetrated by the Rolvians (which was of no use to Brunswick) but ironically the leading agent was compulsorily retired in 1949 as one of those who had been involved in planning the ill-fated invasion of Brunswick. In the 2000s, a popular television comedy-drama has depicted the activities of a bungling Arransian spy in Aubourg during the war, who never succeeds in getting his hands on any worthwhile intelligence (or any pretty women), but at the same time more through luck than judgment always avoids capture and seems to get more than his fair share of drink and lavish meals. Another popular television depiction of the war has been a detective series along the lines of Foyle’s War, to a large extent based on real-life cases, which reflects many of the key events of the period and shows the principled and conscientious detective having to battle the indifference of those in higher authority who often thought that “ordinary” crimes were not worth bothering about. Political/military “thrillers” have always been popular reading in Arransia, but in the post-war era most tended to reflect Cold War themes rather than looking back over the painful events of the Great War. Any fiction about the war tended to concentrate on the Home Front and the experiences of individual soldiers. However, the fiftieth anniversary of the Armistice seemed to break a log-jam and since then there has been a large number of fictional accounts of military actions, of varying degrees of credibility. One well-known author best known for stories of the days of sailing warships produced a well-regarded trilogy describing the exploits of the Arransian cruiser HMS Porcupine, a fictional sister ship to the Dolphin and Porpoise, undertaking a lengthy cruise in the latter stages of the war that blended elements of the activities of Le Tonnant and the Scimitar. This was realistic and believable, although the episode where the Porcupine sank a larger Brunswickian cruiser by creeping up on it unawares slightly strained credulity. However, some of these novels became distinctly far-fetched, which eventually opened them up to ridicule. Arransia was never really in a position during the war to launch raids comparable with those on the Lofoten Islands and St Nazaire (or Skorzeny’s rescue of Mussolini) and to describe fictional equivalents is verging on fantasy. It has also proved difficult to construct a credible scenario in which Mayenne and Arransia actually “won” the war. Of course their political and military leaders made mistakes, and there are many decisions they could have taken that might have mitigated the outcome. However, the Brunswickians, especially in the first few years of the conflict, made their fair share of mistakes too, and it is unrealistic to show one side playing its hand perfectly and the other repeatedly bungling. The unpleasant reality of war is that it is to a large extent a fog of error and confusion. Arransian secondary school children are now taught all about the Badger and the Marblehead, the last fight of the Revenge, the Battle of Val de Jérica and the Elko Raid2, and will no doubt form the impression that, while their country was eventually overwhelmed by weight of numbers and materiél, they gave at least as good they got and, at the level of the individual soldier or worker, have nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of. The military actions against Lower Mumba and the pirates will only have served to reinforce the view that the Arransians, while they don’t go out seeking a quarrel, are people that, if you provoke them, you really do not want to get on the wrong side of. The Brunswickian services have a healthy respect for their military abilities and take the view that it is infinitely preferable to have them inside the tent pissing out. Footnote: An Arransian soldier, sailor or airman looking over the history of our Second World War would find many points with which he would identify, although undoubtedly would be utterly appalled by the overall level of savagery and slaughter, and the evils of the Nazi Holocaust and Stalin’s tyranny and mass murder. However, there can be little doubt that the episode, above everything else, that most struck a chord would be the Dunkirk evacuation. You can also imagine Admiral Alan Hewitt, the famously flinty and now retired commander of the RNAS, strongly identifying with Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris. Hewitt was named after Alan Cunningham, his father had been the navigator of the pathfinder plane on the Elko raid, and on the day of the raid he had been a baby in the womb. He might have grudgingly conceded that, given resources beyond the wildest dreams of the Arransians, Harris had ultimately gone a bit too far at Hamburg and Dresden, but no doubt he would say “well, if you sow the wind, you can’t predict what the whirlwind will bring in return.”
1 The Arransians, of course, always refer to their own fleet simply as “The Royal Navy”, which many of their foreign counterparts feel is a little presumptious.
2 To a far greater extent than would happen in this country. While it is often said that present-day British children between 11 and 16 are taught about the Third Reich to an excessive degree, I very much doubt that they learn in detail about the Battle of Britain, El Alamein and D-Day, which are far more worthy of celebration than the Arransian achievements, which were at best brave but fruitless lunges against the incoming tide.
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