My second (and last) day in Edinburgh was unfortunately pretty much overcast the whole day, so my pictures are a bit dull. But as I spent most of the time indoors, this didn’t matter too much. (Above, Edinburgh Castle from the Princes Street Gardens.)


I first walked to the late-18th century New Town, which has a completely different feel to the Royal Mile: it’s all elegant squares and buildings, rather than closes randomly leading hither and yon. That’s because it was planned from the outset. It’s a stellar example of town planning, beautifully executed. Yay for the Scottish Enlightenment!

The photo is of the Georgian House, Charlotte Square, which at the time belonged to a wealthy merchant. It’s been restored to give visitors an idea of (literally) upstairs-downstairs life.

Not the most exciting photo, I admit! It’s Gladstone’s Land, back on the Royal Mile: another merchant’s house, but built originally in the mid-16th century and extended (upwards!) in the early 17th. And condemned in the early 20th century, but luckily it was bought by the National Trust of Scotland. The restorers uncovered a wonderful painted ceiling in the master bedroom, which I could show you if not for the fact that, as in the Georgian House, no photos are allowed :(

I spent most of the day exploring the Royal Museum and the Museum of Scotland, which are right next to each other — in fact each connected to the other. Together they form the National Museum of Scotland. The Museum of Scotland contains artifacts from Scottish history, whereas the Royal Museum is more about science and technology. But there’s still often a local connection.

This is a Weir W-2 autogyro in the Royal Museum. James Weir was a Scottish industrialist who built and developed Cierva autogyros in the 1920s and 1930s. (His brother, William Weir, was Britain’s second Air Minister, in the closing stages of the First World War.) See also: the Avro-built Cierva at Hendon.

A windtunnel model of the (Scottish) Beardmore W.B. 26 2-seat fighter (first flight 1925). Beardmore were mainly a shipbuilding company, and had mixed success in aviation. They built some very good airships, including R34 (a copy of a Zeppelin) which flew across the Atlantic in 1919, and a huge prototype transport monoplane, the Inflexible, in 1928 (which was underpowered). The RAF never flew the W.B. 26, and apparently even Latvia rejected it. Still, it’s a bit harsh for the placard to say that it was a ‘poorly-streamlined design’. What wasn’t, in 1925? The fact that Beardmore were performing windtunnel tests at all was probably progressive enough.

This one can’t be claimed for Scotland, I’m afraid. It’s a TTV-2 (Towed Test Vehicle), used to test the feasibility of bringing a Gemini spacecraft from orbit onto the ground, slung underneath a parawing, rather than splashing into the ocean as with Mercury. NASA ended up doing it the old-fashioned way. I suspect the 12 little triangle symbols under the hatch represent 12 successful tests.

A few years ago, all the technology pundits could talk about was ‘convergence’ — the idea that one device would sit in your living room and perform all the functions of a TV, computer, DVD player, games console, videophone, pianola, etc. Well, here’s what convergence looked like in 1938 — a combined television and radio. (Clearly, convergence can be followed by deconvergence!) I love the radio tuner. The writing isn’t legible in the small version I’ve got here, but as well as frequencies, it’s marked with the names of cities — presumably the locations of the stations broadcasting on those frequencies: Paris, Warsaw, Moscow, Boston. How evocative would it have been to sweep the dial across the world …

(Oh yes, television, John Logie Baird, Scotsman, inspiration for an annual Australian celebration of mediocrity and all that.)

Another product of Scotland: Dolly, the most famous sheep ever.

The following photos are from the Museum of Scotland.

This is pretty amazing: the Ballachulish figure, which has been dated to between 730 and 520 BC. It was found in a peat bog near where Loch Leven meets the sea, and presumably represents a goddess. It warped and split when it dried after being found, so it wouldn’t have looked quite like this originally. But even so, I think it still would have looked weird.

This fragment of a relief was found on the probable site of an ancient monastery in Ross-shire, ca. 700-900. So it was then Pictland, and not yet Scotland. It is thought to show Daniel in the lion’s den.

A Roman cavalry helmet, found at the fort at Newstead (Roman Trimontium, which was only briefly occupied around 80 and then again during the period of the Antonine Wall, 140-80). It wouldn’t have been used in warfare, but in tournaments or displays.

Another piece of Pictish art, 10th century from Bullion. The caption suggests that it’s a caricature of a drunken lord; the catalogue description just says that he’s drinking. Is the catalogue too conservative or the caption too imaginative?

Hmm, not sure about this one (I forgot to snap the caption). It’s from a gallery about the medieval church, presumably from a tomb. It looks like a deathbed scene, anyway.

Here’s a cast of the graveslab of Donald MacGill’easbuig, a 16th-century mercenary leader from Islay in the Inner Hebrides.

The Maiden, used to execute about a hundred people between 1564 and 1710.

Napier’s Box, a refinement of Napier’s Bones. It’s essentially a simple mechanical calculator which can do multiplication and division, invented by the Scottish mathematician John Napier in the early 17th century.

Despite its superficial resemblance to the Maiden, this is a completely different sort of machine, a Newcomen steam engine. I should point out that while the Scot James Watt made huge improvements to the Newcomen-type engines, and gave the world the steam engines that would power the Industrial Revolution, still, Newcomen was from Devon and his first engines were in Cornwall. The Scottish connection here is that this engine was used at a colliery in Ayrshire until 1901.

A 6-pounder carronade. So cute! I didn’t know that carronades were from Scotland — the name comes from the Carron company which made them for the Royal Navy from 1778. They had a short range and a low muzzle velocity — great for blasting the enemy at short range and shredding them with wooden splinters.

A silk banner for the Mid Lothian Brotherly Society (constituted in the year 1798). I wonder how they’re doing these days.

The Jacquard punchcards from a 19th century handloom from Lanarkshire.

After leaving the museums, I decided to walk up Calton Hill, which has an unusual collection of structures on its top, including the lighthouse-shaped one seen here. (The obelisk on the left is in a cemetery in the foreground; at the bottom of the photo is Waverly Station.)

Nelson’s Monument, built to commemorate Trafalgar. It’s in the shape of a mariner’s spyglass, which is certainly more imaginative than some Nelson monuments I could name. More useful too: the mast on top was used to provide a visual time signal to ships, since the sound from Edinburgh Castle’s one o’clock gun took a couple of seconds to get out there, a potentially serious error when computing longitudes.

I was surprised to find some real telescopes on Calton Hill, or at least the observatory domes which house them. This is the City Observatory, which dates back to 1812 (the dome on the left) and 1896 (the dome on the right). Another building, Observatory House, is the oldest and was built in 1776. I wondered if the observatory had anything to do with the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and it turns out that it does, or did — it was the site for ROE between 1822 (when it became royal) and 1896, when it moved to its present location south of Edinburgh. Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and pyramidologist extraordinaire, would have worked here. Slight personal connection: long time ago, I was a summer vacation scholar at the UK Schmidt Telescope Unit (in Australia, despite the name) which was originally operated by ROE. There were still a lot of links with ROE when I was there, with staff coming from and going to there, and the results of observing runs being sent off to their plate library. Today, the City Observatory is run by the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh, which holds observing nights there every month.

Edinburgh’s Disgrace, AKA the National Monument. Monument to what? Well, apparently to the Scotsmen who served in the Napoleonic Wars, though I can’t find it in the UKNIWM (though the Nelson Monument is). It was begun in 1826, intended to be a replica of the Parthenon. But money ran out in 1829, and the 12 columns above are all that were ever completed. Somebody seems to have suggested that it was always intended to be only a partial replica, based on the existence of plans showing exactly what we see today. But an article by Marc Fehlmann in Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide makes it pretty clear that this is not so: there are other drawings showing the full temple, and a quote from one of the architects lamenting the fact that their money has run out and their ‘Parthenon’ will never be finished. Whatever: I think it looks better this way!

On the other hand, my melancholic pleasure at the contemplation of (fake) ancient ruins in the gathering gloom of a northern dusk was not enhanced by some guy belting out arias from all your favourite Italian comic operas. Very strange indeed.

This is from Calton Hill looking back past a memorial to Dugald Stewart, a philosopher who died in 1828, back over the city towards the Castle, which is just visible on the horizon.

Farewell Edinburgh: farewell Scotland: farewell Britain.

I’ve finally gotten around to adding Montagu of Beaulieu (pronounced ‘Bewley’, apparently) to my irregular series of biographies of airpower propagandists. He’s an important, but somewhat neglected figure, some of whose papers I’ve examined (those held at King’s College London). He helped found the Air League of the British Empire in 1909, and devised the influential ‘nerve centre’ theory, which argued that the destruction of critical infrastructure would be one of the chief dangers of aerial bombardment in the next war:

an attempt would certainly be made to paralyse the heart of the nation by attacking certain nerve centres in London, the destruction of which would impede or entirely destroy the means of communication by telephone, telegraph, rail, and road.¹

Later, in 1916, he stumped across the country giving speeches criticising the government for its failure to expand aircraft production sufficiently, and to call for the formation of an independent air force, the Imperial Air Service. He was a Conservative MP, then a Conservative peer, and all the time very wealthy (if you call 10,000 acres wealthy, anyway).

But today I’m going to talk about Montagu’s personal life, and the way it impinged on his public one. The photo above shows the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’, the mascot adorning the bonnet of every Rolls-Royce — every one since Montagu put an early version on his Silver Ghost in 1911, that is, for he was a huge motoring enthusiast, and had his friend, the sculptor Charles Sykes, design it for him. Supposedly, the model Sykes used was Montagu’s own secretary and mistress, Eleanor Thornton. (Though there’s an alternate, and possibly more convincing, theory minimising the role of Thornton and Montagu.)

Now, Thornton and Montagu’s romance seems to have been a bit, well, romanticised, by a few of the webpages about the Spirit of Ecstasy. Wikipedia, for example, says that claims that their affair was secret because of Thornton’s lowly social status, and that Montagu was forced by family pressure to marry a bit higher up the social scale (the daughter of a baron, as it happened). But I doubt this. I haven’t been able to find out when they met, but everything points to the 1900s. (The earliest date I have seen mentioned in this connection is that Thornton became Montagu’s secretary in 1902.) And the fact is that Montagu, born in 1866, married Cecil (yes, really) in 1889. Their two daughters were probably already born by the time he and Thornton met. So, enough of the star-crossed lovers/upstairs-downstairs/doomed romance cliches — for his part, he was a rich, powerful man who could afford both a wife and family, and a mistress, and was never forced to choose between them. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the thought even crossed his mind.²

But he did love her, and in the end, perhaps even felt ashamed of the choices she had been forced to make. On 30 December 1915, Montagu and Thornton were on board the S.S. Persia, sailing across the Mediterranean towards Port Said in Egypt, where he was due to leave her on his way to India. But the Persia was sunk off Crete by a German U-boat. He survived, but she did not. In Montagu’s papers are some pretty clear, if restrained, expressions of grief at her loss. For example, in a letter to H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister, written in May 1916, he seems to be apologising for an overly emotional declaration of his desire to help the government on aviation matters, and at the end says that the Persia incident was the sort of thing that ended selfish aspirations.³ This could admittedly just mean his own personal brush with death, but there’s more.

In Montagu’s speeches around the country, he often mentioned the need to mobilise women for the war effort. In others, he referred to their role as mothers or lovers, such as one speech for the Navy League in April 1916. Here, he spoke of the sacrifices they made, meaning the men they had loved and lost. Then he says that he too has sacrificed, that this is driving him on his campaign for national aviation, for if he can rouse the country then his sacrifice and his deliverance won’t have been for nothing. I think it’s pretty clear that Montagu is referring to Thornton’s death, and his own guilt at surviving.

Finally, in June 1916, Montagu gave a speech to the British Women’s Patriotic League. Here he again spoke on the problem of airpower, and praised women workers, who have proven their right to a greater (but unspecified) part in government. But he’s also worried about the falling birthrate. He pleads for a change in attitudes towards unmarried mothers, arguing that the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock is erased by the glory of bearing a child. When I first read this, I thought it just an interesting argument along eugenic lines (though Montagu was not talking about the upper classes being outbred by their social inferiors, but women workers). Now that I’ve read a bit more of the story of Eleanor and John, the real reason for this proposal has become clear. As my astute readers will no doubt have guessed, they had an illegitimate child together, a daughter named Joan. Whether or not the British Women’s Patriotic League realised it, I think Montagu was attempting to make amends in some way for his part in his love’s life and death. I don’t think he ever publicly admitted his relationship with her; their daughter was placed with a foster family, although he did stay in her life as an ‘uncle’. Montagu’s wife, Cecil, died in 1919; he remarried the following year.⁴

I wonder if he could ever bear to drive a Rolls again.

Image source: anataman.

1. Montagu of Beaulieu, Aerial Machines and War (London: Hugh Rees, 1910), 2.
2. Divorce was out of the question, given the laws of the day, unless it could be proved that his wife was also committing adultery. Though he could have abandoned her, and then she could have eventually divorced him.
3. I’d quote the letter directly, but I’d need the permission of King’s first … The passages I’m paraphrasing are from the Douglas-Scott-Montagu papers, 5/13, 6/10 and 6/21, King’s College London.
4. Incidentally, Montagu’s son’s sex life was even more historically significant: he was convicted of ‘consensual homosexual offences’ in a high-profile trial in 1954, which led to the Wolfenden Commission and the eventual decriminalisation of homosexual acts.

Carl von Clausewitz. On War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989 [1832]. Probably something anybody with pretensions to being a military historian should have to hand, even if other strategists have been more influential in different contexts, places and times. (I recently came across Trenchard speaking of Edward Hamley in the same breath as Clausewitz and Mahan — I must confess I had to look him up!) This is the version edited/translated/introduced/commented on by Michael Howard/Peter Paret/Bernard Brodie.

The 11th Military History Carnival has been posted at Battlefield Biker. My pick this month is Siberian Light’s post on the Battle of Khalkin-Gol (better known, to me at least, as the Nomonhan Incident), a big tank battle fought between the USSR and Japan in August 1939. I didn’t know that it actually began as skirmishing between Mongolia and Manchukuo, puppet states of the Soviets and Japanese respectively. Though, of course, it needn’t have: a 2nd Russo-Japanese War wouldn’t have surprised many people in the 1930s, particularly given Japanese expansionism and anti-communism. Plenty did predict it, often leftists such as Tom Wintringham, who suggested in The Coming World War (1935) that a conflict between Japan and the USSR would probably spread into the next world war. It didn’t … but almost immediately, the German invasion of Poland did. Siberian Light notes that Khalkin Gol/Nomonhan did influence the course of the Second World War, as Japan’s heavy defeat there was one factor in its decision to go south in December 1941 instead of north. Probably one of the more important forgotten battles of world history, then.

After wandering around Edinburgh Castle, I thought: castles are really cool! I wanted to see more, and since I probably should be a confident user of the British transport system by now, I decided that I’d do a day trip out somewhere to see one. A bit of googling led me to Stirling Castle, a mostly-15th/16th century edifice less than an hour away by train. (I see now that I overlooked Craigmillar Castle, which was closer and looks even more castley. But aside from the castle it seems there wouldn’t have been so much to see there.) So I hopped on a little inter-urban train and headed for Stirling, getting a glimpse along the way of the Forth Bridge and the Falkirk Wheel.

Another attraction of Stirling — particularly since I’d never been to a battlefield before — was that the Battle of Bannockburn was fought near here, in 1314. So, when I arrived in Stirling, I went to the bus terminal to find out which one I needed to catch, which was when I encountered the first language difficulties of my entire trip.¹ Inside the terminal, I asked the nice lady behind the information desk what bus I needed to catch for Bannockburn. She probably heard me say something like this: ‘G’day, scunge jumbuck bonza larrikin galah yakka, nahyeah?’ Whereas I heard her say something like: ‘Och aye, scunge tartan scone auld trews. Hoots mon!’ I thought I got a bus route number out of that, somehow, and headed out to the bus shelters. Then, when the bus came, I asked the driver if this was the one for Bannockburn. He looked a bit confused, and indicated no, so I grumpily headed back to the information desk to try again. But then one of the passengers got off the bus and called me back to tell me that it WAS in fact the right bus. He even told me when we reached the right stop. So, thank you, anonymous Scotsman!

Oh yeah, and that’s a statue of Robert the Bruce, who thrashed the English at Bannockburn.

There’s not a whole lot to see at the battlefield itself, unfortunately, which probably isn’t the battlefield anyway. (And I’m not sure what I was expecting to see, for that matter!) But there’s a small museum/visitor’s centre which was really very good, with dioramas and other displays explaining the whys and wherefores of all the battles fought around Stirling over the centuries (the other famous one being the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, where William Wallace thrashed the English — bit of a theme developing there). The reason why there have been so many is because if you hold Stirling, you hold Scotland: partly because of its position athwart a major crossing of the Forth and between the Lowlands and the Highlands, and partly because of Stirling Castle itself, seen in the photo above. (Not that I actually realised that this was the castle when I took it!)

Right, so, this is back in Stirling proper, walking up the hill towards the castle. It’s the facade of a 16th-century townhouse built for the Earl of Mar, known as Mar’s Wark (’wark’ being Scots for building).

Right next to Mar’s Wark is the Church of the Holy Rude (rude = cross — cf. Holyrood), the oldest parts of which were built in the early 15th century.

It’s where, in 1567, the infant James VI was crowned — by John Knox, no less. This makes it the only British church, still in use, which has been used for a coronation. If, the next time around, Westminster Abbey has been already been booked for another function, I’m sure the Church of the Holy Rude stands ready to take up the slack.

Lots of old headstones in the churchyard outside. Though this one is undated, I guess this is early 17th century or before, just based on the evolution of the styles — I don’t have much experience in reading early modern funerary iconography! The skull and crossbones, and the hourglass are pretty straightforward, but what about the symbol at the top? Looks vaguely astrological or alchemical, but I can’t match it up with anything. Or maybe it’s meant to represent 4-X-M — perhaps a clue to the identity of whoever is buried here, since otherwise there’s no name.

Also adding to the mystical feel: the Star Pyramid, which overlooks the church.

It was built in 1863 by William Drummond as a memorial to civil and religious martyrs … according to the internet. The inscriptions on it don’t have a very secular feel, however, which isn’t surprising since the Drummond family founded the Stirling Tract Enterprise, which provided religious literature to benighted heathens around the world.

Enough dilly-dallying, on to the castle! Now this is what a real gatehouse looks like (take note, Edinburgh Castle). It was built during the reign of James IV, early in the 16th century.

Another view of the gatehouse, from the 17th century bowling green. Like Edinburgh Castle, this was a royal palace as well a military fortress.

Still on the bowling green, but looking the other way, hinting at the magnificent vistas on the south side of the castle. More on those in a bit.

This is the palace begun by James V for his French wife, Mary de Guise, but finished by her after his death in 1542. The interior is being restored to how it would have looked in the 16th century — at the moment it’s pretty bare, but there are panels explaining the work of the archaeologists and restorers.

One of the stone figures guarding the palace, dirk in hand.

The Chapel Royal, built in 1594 — though in modern times it was a canteen for the soldiers stationed here! The decorations are reconstructed, not original.

The Great Hall (there’s always a Great Hall! though this is a big one, bigger than the one at Edinburgh Castle) dating from the start of the 16th century.

A little mermaid, part of a decoration over one of the Great Hall’s windows. (There’s a griffin as well.)

Inside the hall, with a German school group, I think they were. Check out the hammerbeam roof. The Army used the hall as barracks from the Napoleonic Wars up until 1964. The Navy was here too, in 1594 — well, not really, but to celebrate the christening of Prince Henry in the new Chapel Royal, a seafood was brought in on a wooden ship, complete with masts 40 feet high, armed with 36 brass cannon.

This tranquil garden was where the body of the 8th Earl of Douglas was dumped on 22 February 1452, after being murdered by James II and his courtiers, despite being promised safe conduct.

Of less historical interest, this spot is within a few metres of the closest I’ve ever come to the North Pole.

Let’s look at the defences. This is the Grand Battery on the eastern side. The last time Stirling Castle was besieged, in 1746, the guns here knocked out a Jacobite battery and forced Bonnie Prince Charlie to withdraw.

An array of cannon facing east. I think the battery closest is the Grand Battery.

The Nether Bailey on the northern side of the castle. The buildings on the left are powder magazines built in the 19th century. For some reason I didn’t realise that tourists were allowed down in the bailey, but they are, so it’s a pity I didn’t get to walk along the walls.

That the castle sits on top of a craggy rock helped make it more defensible. A lot more defensible, I’d say, judging from this. The castle was besieged many times, and fell more than once. The most famous siege (and fall) was in 1304, when Edward I brought a number of siege engines to bear upon it, including Warwolf, which was (according to a number of not very convincing websites) the largest trebuchet ever made.

The building in the photo is the King’s Old Building, built at the end of the 15th century, though it has changed a lot since then. It currently houses the regimental museum of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise’s), who were garrisoned here for many decades. Their first battle honour was gained at the Cape of Good Hope in 1806; two hundred years later they were absorbed into the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The other side of the King’s Old Building, looking back towards where the previous photo was taken.

South of the castle, the remains of a formal garden can be seen. The octagonal mound is the King’s Knot, which is about 380 years old (though I’m sure its been landscaped more recently than that, it’s in pretty good nick). It must have been very pretty from up here; I wonder why it hasn’t been restored, Hampton Court-style.

The other advantage to putting castles on top of hills is the view. Back then this would give advance warning of approaching armies. Nowadays it’s picturesque.

Actually, the views from Stirling Castle aren’t so much picturesque as astounding. This is the view to the north-east. The little tower in the lower left is the National Wallace Memorial, built in the 1860s to pre-commemorate Mel Gibson’s fight for Scottish independence. It’s not little at all, as it is 220 feet high. It definitely catches the eye, and I ended up taking a fair few photos with it in frame, such as the previous one (on the left) and the one at the top of the post, probably my favourite of the day.

As should be apparent by now, I can’t go past a war memorial without taking a picture. This one, in the castle car park,² is dedicated to those men of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who were killed in the Boer War.

Walking back down to the station, I passed through the Valley Cemetery, adjacent to but separate from the churchyard (not sure if it’s connected to the cemetery three photos up, on the other side of the castle … seems like a popular place to go when you’re dead). Mostly 19th century graves, if I recall correctly, including this array of Celtic crosses, and the statue of the togate local worthy in the background.

The ‘Back Walk’ into town runs alongside the remains of the city walls, which go back at least to the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. They successfully defended the town on more than one occasion, though they didn’t stop Monck in 1651 or the Young Pretender in 1746. Very atmospheric in the late afternoon.

So, although it meant seeing less of Edinburgh, I was glad I made the effort to go to Stirling. One day I’ll come back and venture into the Highlands proper.

Coming up: my last full day in the UK …

1. In Hexham, I overheard a conversation between two men, and I swear only every second word was comprehensible. But then I didn’t need to understand them.
2. They call it ‘the Esplanade’, but that’s what it is …

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

The Honourable Kevin Rudd, MP, Prime Minister of Australia, apologises to the Stolen Generations, House of Representatives, Canberra, 13 February 2008:

Therefore, for our nation, the course of action is clear, and therefore, for our people, the course of action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia’s history. In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate. In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul. This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth — facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it. Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people. It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification. We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments. In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation—from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory, to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia.

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the government and the parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally. Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that. Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing. I ask those non-Indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you. I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive. My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia. And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.

Sometimes, history doesn’t need to be sought out. Sometimes it comes to you.

Sources: Parliament of Australia (text), trimba (image).

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Not a phrase I ever expected to come across, but here it is, in David Omissi’s Air Power and Colonial Control, the context being the introduction of one the most successful aircraft of the interwar period, the Hawker Hart:

The Hart was soon found to be suitable for India; fifty-seven aircraft were accordingly fitted with desert equipment, large tyres and extra fuel; they flew with three Indian squadrons until 1939. Their high performance was particularly values on the Frontier as they were the only aircraft which could meet the Afghan air menace on equal terms, especially after 1937 when the Afghans began to employ the Hind, itself a high-speed derivative of the Hart. Others served in Egypt and Palestine.¹

Afghanistan established an independent air force as early as 1924, though it was easy enough for the British to dismiss as the only Afghan who could fly an aeroplane was made its Chief of Air Staff! But though small in European terms, with mainly Soviet assistance and aircraft the Afghan Air Force became quite efficient within a few years, and was used in several air control operations of its own, against rebellious tribes in outlying areas. Britain eventually felt it had to edge the Soviets out in order to gain some influence over it, hence the supply of Hinds (8 in 1937, another 20 ordered in 1939).

Although Omissi’s subject — air control, the use of airpower in Imperial policing, or in other words, the British air menace — is ostensibly quite some distance from strategic bombing, I found that reading his book illuminated aspects of my own work (and sadly, this means I’ve broken my New Year’s resolution already). Partly this is because he has chosen less jarring terms than I have (’mitigation’? what was I thinking?) but it’s more because he provides a typology of indigenous responses (in practice) to being bombed which transfers pretty well to ideas being worked out, at the same time, in Britain (in theory) about how it would or should respond to being bombing. Although Omissi doesn’t describe it as such, it’s almost a spectrum of responses, varying with the capacity of the society under attack to resist, which in turn is going to depend largely on the resources available, but also on other factors such geography and climate. (That doesn’t quite work, though, because the responses aren’t mutually exclusive.)

So, one of Omissi’s categories is resistance, which Omissi defines as:

all violent retaliation intended to inflict loss, damage or injury to [enemy] air force personnel and property²

The creation of the Afghan Air Force was, in part, intended to increase Afghanistan’s ability to resist British airpower, of which it had very recent experience. When Afghanistan invaded India in 1919, the RAF supported the Army on the ground to good effect. More importantly — if you believe later claims by airpower writers, which I suspect are exaggerated — the war ended with (probably) the first, (perhaps) the only and (almost certainly) the smallest knock-out blow in history. On 24 May, Kabul was bombed by a solitary Handley Page V/1500, a four-engined bomber which had been designed to bomb another capital city, Berlin. Several of its bombs hit the King’s palace, which seems to have caused some panic, and rather less material damage, but most of all showed that the terrain and the soldiers which had caused more than one bloody defeat for the British were no longer to be relied upon. A few days later, Afghanistan sued for peace.

Therefore Afghanistan strove to acquire an air force of its own. It was a relatively centralised society, close enough to what Europeans would recognise as a state. It didn’t have much in the way of industry or infrastructure, and depended on a foreign power for aircraft, spares, training and technicians, but this was enough to make it a menace to the RAF in India, with only 6 or so squadrons. However, not many societies threatened by British airpower could hope to compete with it on this level. The Imam of Yemen acquired several aircraft in the late 1920s but it seems they were not of much use. (Abyssinia, broadly comparable to Afghanistan many ways, developed a small air force also, which however was no match for the Regia Aeronautica in 1935-6.) But there were other forms of resistance: the acquisition of anti-aircraft guns (Yemen bought eight for its forts, though they lacked effective sights), ground attacks on advanced British aerodromes, rifle fire from soldiers (which could be surprisingly dangerous) or even, at the far end of capacity (or desperation) throwing rocks at low-flying aircraft.

Omissi’s second category is adaptation. He defines this as:

all non-violent means of reducing the impact of aerial action, including both psychological and religious adjustment to air raids and those tactics adopted to diminish their material effects.³

Examples of adaptation include concealment (especially using the cover of darkness to carry out essential work like harvesting crops, as bombers were far less effective at night), dispersal (Omissi means in a tactical context but it could equally apply to evacuating villages of people and livestock), protection (caves, dugouts and even, effectively, air raid shelters — towers and forts of stone in the Yemen turned out to be very resistant to the small bombs used by RAF policing aircraft), early warning (as developed on the North-West Frontier, this involved lookouts lighting bonfires when aircraft approached, allowing villages to be evacuated before they arrived), and deception (e.g., using the British system of ground signals to aircraft to give them false orders, as the Zeidi did in 1928). By psychological adjustment, Omissi basically means familiarity breeding contempt. Religious adjustment is more unusual: for example, he discusses at length the Nuer of Sudan, who built an earthen pyramid, 60 feet high, as a site for animal sacrifice intended (in part) to ward off British air attacks. As the raids would eventually cease, this process could be claimed a success; in any event, if religious beliefs helped sustain morale under air attack then this is a form of psychological adaptation.

The third and last category is the most simple and immediate: terror, generally leading to a sudden, panicked flight from the scene. This was often the first response of indigenous societies, but it did not last, because they quickly learned how to adapt and how to resist. It seems that this was a surprise to the RAF, which had to do some adapting of its own in response. In 1922, Air Vice-Marshal John Salmond had argued that after terror would come indifference, and after that would come weariness and a desire to end the fighting, at which point the tribal leaders would have to sue for peace. This is pretty much what was thought would happen when European societies were bombed too (Salmond said as much), and the same underestimation of powers of adaptation and resistance applied there also. Omissi points out that Salmond’s theory of responses was quite for the RAF, because it meant that if bombing a tribe failed to produce results, all it meant was that they hadn’t been bombed enough yet. As Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard suggested to the Air Conference in 1920, in reference to ’small wars’:

The capacity of the Air Service to deal a swift and unexpected blow may indeed succeed in stifling an outbreak in its early stages, but it is in the power to continue offensive action day by day, and, if necessary, week by week, that the assurance of ultimate success lies.⁴

Almost an article of faith in Trenchard’s RAF, but if this was true in air control operations (and it was, much of the time), it was misleading when it came to wars between European powers.

As I said earlier, Omissi’s typology can be applied to the ideas of British airpower writers between the Wars (and to actual behaviours in wartime) about how to respond to strategic bombing, though it needs to be extended. I won’t go into detail, but I’d propose something like the following, with my suggested additions in italics:

1. Terror
2. Adaptation
• psychological
• concealment
• dispersal
• protection
• early warning
• deception
3. Resistance
• ground fire
• ground attack
• anti-aircraft
• air defence
• counter-offensive
4. Internationalism
• pacifism and disarmament
• collective security
• international air force

The responses I’ve added weren’t, by and large, available to colonised peoples. For example, by counter-offensive I mean bombing the enemy (aerodromes, cities, or other targets), which by definition moves this out of the realm of Imperial policing and into war between rough equals. Afghanistan almost had this ability, I suppose, though the ‘Afghan air menace’ Omissi talks about is more the ability to interfere with RAF operations rather than attacks on Indian cities. (I could be wrong about that, he doesn’t spell out what the menace consisted of.) Under the heading of internationalism (or ‘co-operation’, perhaps?), collective security and an international air force similarly required the ability to project force, and, in addition, the ability to work closely with other societies in diplomatic and military operations. I suppose pacifism and disarmament were, in theory, available to all of Britain’s opponents, but I doubt they were ever considered except as part of surrender to British wishes. Still, it’s interesting to ponder what might have happened if Gandhian non-violent tactics had been adopted — villagers lying down in the streets when the RAF bombers came over, say, offering their own bodies as human shields. It might have been a second Amritsar, in terms of adverse publicity back in Britain.

So, very broadly speaking, terror and adaptation are responses available to practically all societies, though the latter involves considerable organisation for its more complex forms (e.g. early warning). Resistance requires more organisation and resources than adaptation, and eventually industrialisation (for counter-offensives). Internationalism requires all of that and more — more of what I’m not sure: it gets vague here. But then again, they were never actually successfully carried out by anybody.

A final thought that occurs to me is that while I’ve ordered these responses in a rough order of the resources and organisations needed to carry them out, thinking that these would generally increase over time, it also works in reverse. That is, as the more complex and sophisticated responses are negated (e.g. the RAF starts using wireless for communication with ground forces, ending the use of deception), only the more basic responses remain, until at last, terror returns. In other words, when all else fails, run like hell — exactly the desired result from the RAF’s point of view. I’m starting to think like an interwar air vice-marshal, which probably isn’t a good thing!

Update: a couple of books later, I’ve come across the exact same phrase! John Robert Ferris, Men, Money and Diplomacy: The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919-26 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 169, says that in 1925 Trenchard cynically attempted to exploit fears in India about the ‘Afghan Air Menace’, presumably to win more funding for the RAF, in much the same fashion as he had done a few years earlier with regards to the French air menace. Only this time he got little out of it.

1. David E. Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919-1939 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1990), 142; emphasis added.
2. Ibid., 122.
3. Ibid., 113.
4. H. M. Trenchard, “Aspects of service aviation”, Army Quarterly 2 (April 1921), 21.

Weddings Parties Anything, “A Tale They Won’t Believe”:

I have previously explained the relationship of this song to aviation history (well, it’s pretty slender, to be honest), here.

Though the Weddoes split up a decade back, they’re embarking on a reunion tour around Australia, which is very exciting news — particularly since I’ll be seeing them at the good old Corner Hotel in April! They’re also playing, oddly enough, one show in London, on 25 April. They’re sensational live, so why not mark Anzac Day in true Aussie style (i.e., rocking your socks off and, optionally, getting simultaneously smashed)? All the details are here.

Chonk on!

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

A historic building which once played a key role in saving the free world is about to be lost to posterity, with barely a whimper of protest.

The story is of course more complex than that. When I say ‘lost to posterity’, that’s what I might say if I was writing an eye-catching lede for a newspaper article. The building itself is not in danger. It’s currently owned by the Ministry of Defence, but is being sold to private developers. The current plan is that it will be turned into luxury flats. Even this, in itself, is not what has attracted criticism. Rather it’s the failure of the current plan to acknowledge the building’s history and its role in Britain’s past.

The building is Bentley Priory, north-west of London, on a site which has been continuously occupied since about 1170. It is architecturally significant in its own right, as it was extensively renovated in the late 18th century by the architect Sir John Soane, who was also largely responsible for the Bank of England. It’s been used as a stately home, a girls’ school and a hotel. It’s also surrounded by gardens and a large park. But it is Bentley Priory’s military history which most marks it out for preservation. The Royal Air Force purchased the site in 1926, and it was the headquarters of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, and also of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force (AEAF) prior to D-Day.

In the summer of 1940, Bentley Priory was at the centre of the most advanced air defence system in the world — which was just as well, as Britain was about to be hit by the greatest aerial assault ever launched. Here, information about incoming German raids arrived from ground observers and top secret radar stations. The raw data was swiftly processed in the Priory’s filter room, compared and analysed to come up with estimates of raid size, height and direction. This information was then immediately sent to the subordinate Groups, which in turn made decisions about how many fighter squadrons to send up and where they should try to intercept the raiders. So Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the head of Fighter Command, did not directly control his forces during the Battle itself. His real contribution (apart from keeping the whole system running, which included keeping his commanders from tearing each other apart) was the sophisticated command, control, communications and intelligence system he moulded in the late 1930s (though, to be sure, drawing on the First World War legacy of LADA, the London Air Defence Area). Without it, the brave young men of the frontline squadrons would have been fighting blind, the Battle might have been lost, and with it the war.

The Priory’s role in D-Day was almost as crucial. Now the tables were turned, and it was time for the Allies to return to the Continent. Their air superiority over the Luftwaffe was one of their key advantages, and so it was crucial to employ it correctly. Bentley Priory became the headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force in 1943, under the command of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (incidentally, one of Dowding’s fractious commanders in 1940). Here, AEAF staff planned the air strikes on and behind the beaches, and the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force and the USAAF’s 8th Air Force carried them out on and after D-Day. Without effective close air support, British, American and Canadian losses in the invasion would have been much higher, conceivably leading to its failure and a second Allied ejection from Europe.¹

So, Bentley Priory would seem to me to be an ideal place for a museum dedicated to explaining how the sophistication of British and Allied air forces helped them to win the Second World War. It’s easy enough to impress visitors with collections of powerful aircraft, and to humble them with exhibits portraying valour and sacrifice. And that’s a very important and necessary part of the story. But it’s not all of it. The Allies won in the air, in part, by building a more professional organisation than the Luftwaffe. At Bentley Priory is still preserved Dowding’s office (desk and all); the filter and operations rooms are also still there, though I think turned to other uses. These are ideal sites of memory for this facet of the war.

Well — what of all that? Does every last historic site need to be preserved? It would be very easy to say yes. But — I live in a vast, sparsely populated and young (in terms of European settlement) country. Britain is small, densely populated and stuffed full of historic sites. I don’t feel I have the right to tell the British that they must choose heritage over housing, especially if it might mean building on scarce greenfield sites instead. It’s up to them (even if that means choosing houses only the very well-off can afford). Whether a deal between the Ministry of Defence and VSM Estates to develop and sell off the property truly represents the will of the people may be doubtful, but by default, if nobody protests the plan then I suppose it may as well be. At the moment, interest (of the non-commercial kind) seems to be confined to the Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust, an article in the Sunday Telegraph, and a few scattered internet forums and blogs.

There has been some movement on the issue. The borough in which the Priory is located, Harrow Council, does seem genuinely concerned about its fate, and as the local planning authority presumably has the power of veto over its development. VSM Estates, which is managing the sale of the property (along with a number of others, and also the accompanying expansion of RAF Northolt) on behalf of the Ministry, is now willing to leave the Soane Rotunda and Dowding’s office out of its plans, which leaves open the possibility of a museum or other heritage site in those areas. VSM Estates’ main concern appears to be the noise and disturbances that would come with members of the public tramping through the building and gardens: those who can afford to pay £5 million for a luxury flat presumably don’t do so in order to rub shoulders with the masses. (On the other hand, since previously VSM Estates proposed to turn the Rotunda into an exhibition space, presumably they planned on some level of traffic.) So, currently there’s an impasse.

But even if an acceptable heritage plan can be worked out, setting up and running a museum costs a lot of money (especially if it’s done right!) and somebody has to pay for it all. Money spent on yet another museum is money that can’t be spent on something else, possibly even more worthwhile. Also, if VSM Estates lower their expectations for the sale of the property, that means less money for the Ministry of Defence — which, after all, is not in the business of managing Britain’s heritage but its armed forces. Some of the more reactionary commenters (apparently it’s all the fault of political correctness) at the Telegraph site and elsewhere might do well to ask themselves whether it’s more important to remember the sacrifices made by the young warriors of 1940, or to make sure that the young warriors of today have the best equipment, organisation and resources behind them. I’d like to think that’s a false dichotomy, but given finite resources there’s a chance it’s not.

So as much as I, as an aviation historian and a potential visitor, would love for the redevelopment of Bentley Priory to incorporate a museum, I’d also understand if those making the decisions on this matter decided that their priorities lay elsewhere.

Thanks to Martin Waligorski of Spitfire Site for bringing this to my attention: see his post for more information and another view.

Image: Bentley Priory on 19 July 2007, being farewelled by Battle of Britain veterans. Source: Ministry of Defence.

1. Many websites, including Bentley Priory’s own, say that on D-Day George VI, Churchill and Eisenhower monitored the progress of the landings from here. I haven’t been able to confirm this, and as far as I can tell, Eisenhower spent 6 June 1944 at Portsmouth and at SHAEF at Bushy Park — which does seem like a more logical place to get an overall view of the situation. On the other hand, Bentley Priory was until recently the home of the RAF’s historical unit, Air Historical Branch, and they should know …

I’m now covering my last few days in the UK, which I mostly spent in Edinburgh. It’s a lovely city, but I’m sorry to say that I didn’t warm to it as much as I thought I would. That may have had something to do with inflated expectations (everybody I know who’s been there raves about the place), and it may have had something to do with the fact that my summer wardrobe was no longer adequate in this more northerly clime, in early autumn. But I think it was mostly because, having come direct from Hadrian’s Wall, I was now really impatient to get to Rome and see it for myself. Once I managed to put Edinburgh’s position in my itinerary to one side, I did really enjoy it for itself.

Above: the Scottish National War Memorial (see below). Yet again I go for the easy silhouette effect.

My first objective after hitting town (after finding my hotel and dumping my bags) was Edinburgh Castle. The gatehouse, seen above, dates all the way back to 1888!

Well, I didn’t come here to see some Victorian fantasy castle. Luckily, it gets better inside. Beyond the gatehouse is this sheer cliff face and wall, surmounted by the 16th-century Half-Moon Battery, lined with gun-ports.

Wait … gun-ports? For cannon? In a castle? Not arrow loops for archers and crossbowmen? Well, yes. I honestly was a bit surprised to see so many cannon about. But, of course, castles that were in use up in the gunpowder era had to have up-to-date weapons.

This road along the base of the Half-Moon Battery, leading into the 16th-century portcullis beyond, looks quite defensible. And it is. The longest siege endured by the castle lasted over a year, in 1571-3: the Lang Siege. Forces loyal to Mary, Queen of Scots held the castle against Regent Morton’s army, and were only defeated when the latter rather unsportingly called in heavy siege cannon from the English. These destroyed the huge David’s Tower, which stood where the Half-Moon battery is today. In fact, much of the castle’s architecture dates to the rebuilding after the Lang Siege or later.

Looking northish over the battlements, towards the port of Leith, on the Firth of Forth. As you can see, the castle has a (I suppose, literally) commanding view of the city: a cannonball fired from up here would land in amongst all those houses.

Unlike all the others, this cannon is in working condition; in fact, it’s used every day. It only fires blanks though — it’s the One O’clock Gun. I’m not sure where I was at 1pm on the days I was in Edinburgh, but I never did get to hear it.

This bit looks particularly castlelike, though it’s apparently just a water cistern. (It’s in the Crown Court, on the left is the bookshop, on the right is Foog’s Gate.)

The little building on the left is St Margaret’s Chapel, the oldest building in the castle. It was built early in the 12th century, probably by the future David I.

One of the chapel’s tiny stained glass windows (from a relatively recent restoration). What they saved on stained glass they probably lost on candles, summed over the centuries.

From the other side, inside the chapel. From the 16th century, it was used as a gunpowder store — it’s lucky to have survived!

Now this is a cannon: Mons Meg, 6 tons of spitting iron. With a caliber is 22 inches, it fired 180 kg of shot at a time over a distance of two miles (at least, from up here it would). Meg’s early history is a bit obscure but it was made in the mid-15th century in Hainaut, then part of the Duke of Burgundy’s lands. Whether it was ever actually used in battle or siege doesn’t seem very clear. The last time it was fired, in 1681, the barrel burst and it was unceremoniously dumped outside Foog’s Gate, where it lay for a seventy years until somebody took it away to the Tower of London.

I’m not a dog person, but I found this very touching: a 19th-century cemetery for soldiers’ dogs.

The ceiling of the bedchamber in the Royal Palace where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James VI and I (actually, I think he was born in a tiny room to one side). Note the thistles, and the inscriptions MR and IR (Maria Regina and Iacobus Rex, I assume). The view of the city from here is stunning. The palace also contains, among other things, the Stone of Destiny, which sounds like something out of a cheap Tolkien knock-off but is actually a rather important historical object; and a fascinating exhibition about the prisoners kept here over the centuries. I had no idea that American sailors captured during the War of Independence were brought here, for example.

I have noted here before that the Imperial War Museum didn’t really impress me as a war memorial — not as much as the Shrine of Remembrance or the Australian War Memorial. For that matter, I don’t think at any of the major memorials I saw in London (the Cenotaph, for example) were as impressive as the ones back home. (Which is not at all to say they weren’t moving, but I’m a peasant, I suppose — I think big things are cool.) But the Scottish National War Memorial is much more like it. It’s imposing and sombre, and sits at the top of Castle Rock in the heart of the castle and of the city. It commemorates 206,284 Scots who fell in the wars of the twentieth century.

Like the IWM, it’s adapted from an existing building, in this case an 18th century barracks. Which I didn’t actually realise when I was there. But the whole thing works for me. (Plus it has gargoyles!)

The National War Museum also resides within the castle (along with a couple of regimental museums), and is definitely worth a visit. Here’s a gas mask for a baby from 1939: note the bellows at the side, for pumping air in so the baby can breathe; compare with the one shown here. (Also note the Protect and Survive pamphlet.)

Descending from the mount through the Old Town, along the famous Royal Mile. (Though, now that I think about it, I don’t think I actually walked the whole mile. I’ll have to go back.)

When is a police box not a TARDIS? When it’s in Edinburgh.

The Lothian Chambers, on George IV Bridge. Not of any great historical significance, but I like the way it gleams in the sun.

St Giles’ Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh. (The Tron Kirk has a way cooler name, though.) The statue is of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, who was the grandfather of the 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, one of the earliest British airpower theorists and whose archives I looked at in London.

Where York has its snickelways, Edinburgh has closes, which run down the steep sides of the mount, with high tenements on either side. This is Advocate’s Close.

I don’t know how safe Edinburgh is at night (though the area I was staying in did get a bit lively), but you wouldn’t catch me walking down there after dark …

I’ll end with two more war memorials. Here’s the Stone of Remembrance in front of the City Chambers. (The statue behind is Alexander taming Bucephalus. Why, I have no idea.) Oddly, it doesn’t seem to be listed in the UK National Inventory of War Memorials, or if it is, it’s well hidden.

This, on the South Bridge, is the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Memorial. Unlike the Scottish National War Memorial and the Stone of Remembrance, which are from the post-First World War period, this was unveiled in 1906 and commemorates the KOSB’s sacrifices in campaigns from Afghanistan to South Africa.