Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
The first ‘catastrophic’ Dunkirk: why the British Army fled to the sea in a deadly 19th-century retreat
During the harsh winter of 1808, a small force of British soldiers found itself strategically outflanked by a French army commanded by none other than Emperor Napoleon. Under the leadership of Sir John Moore, they embarked on a desperate retreat across the snow-laden and icy landscapes of northern Spain, seeking safety and survival. Matthew Doherty tells their story…
On Christmas Eve 1808, a British army in Spain was marked for annihilation. For the past week, around 25,000 British soldiers had been skirmishing against elements of the French Grande Armée, and had got the better of their opponents during the series of small engagements. But now their commander, General Sir John Moore, ordered them to run away. It was a tough pill to swallow for the proud British. The grumbling began almost immediately. “Why won’t Moore let us fight them?” was the cry heard by many a British officer from his men. But Moore had the full picture and knew that even his tough little army could never hope to take on the masses of French troops storming towards him. Worse still, the dreaded Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was at their head, eager to destroy the hated British. A relentless pursuit For Napoleon, Spain was a backwater – a minor player in modern European politics. Yet it could not simply be ignored. Sharing a border with France made it an ideal staging post for British military expeditions aimed at bringing down his imperial rule, and so in the winter of 1808, Napoleon attempted to conquer Spain and eject the British army from the continent. Napoleon knew that making a terrible example of Moore’s force would further isolate his Spanish adversaries and bring their uncooperative junta government to heel. What was the Peninsular War? The Peninsular War (1808-1814), a key part of the Napoleonic Wars, saw British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces fight against the invading First French Empire in the Iberian Peninsula, ultimately contributing to Napoleon's downfall. Sir John Moore was a veteran of several hard-fought campaigns in the Caribbean and Ireland. He had a deep love for the British army. Indeed, it is Moore’s humanity that shines through much of his personal correspondence. Historian Arthur Bryant described him as a man who held true to the belief that “the British soldier could be made perfect by evoking all that is finest in man – physical, mental and spiritual.” Now as commander of His Majesty’s forces in Spain, Moore had just taken an almighty risk. By marching towards Madrid, he had brought the Grand Armée down upon him. As he had said before ordering the advance: “I mean to proceed bridle in hand, for if the bubble bursts, and Madrid falls, we shall have a run for it.” But on Christmas Eve 1808, the bubble had well and truly burst. Now the army that Moore loved so much would flee. In Spain, an old saying goes: large armies starve, and small ones get beaten. Napoleon, for all his might, could not afford to dally with his Grand Armée – especially in winter. Marshalling his forces in Madrid, he was convinced that Moore and his men were falling back on Lisbon. To that end, he directed his Imperial Guard and most of his other forces west towards the Portuguese border. Only at the last minute did intelligence reach him that the British were north of the Spanish capital. Read more | What was the global impact of the Napoleonic Wars? Despite the failure of his normally excellent reconnaissance system, Bonaparte reacted with characteristic speed and ruthlessness, issuing new orders for the army to concentrate on Moore’s last reported position in a bid to overwhelm the comparatively puny British force. Desperate measures As the British fell back, they began to suffer. Their supplies had not reached them, and they began to starve. Worse still, the relentless pace of the retreat caused many men to fall behind with exhaustion – making them easy prey for French cavalry. A retreating army is rarely a happy one, and a soldier was overheard grumbling that Moore wanted to “march [us] to death first and to fight after.” The army marched at a frantic pace to Astorga and reached it on 29 December. Moore expected to find 25,000 Spanish regulars there. Instead, he found 9,000 Spaniards looking “more the appearance of a large body of peasants, driven from their homes, famished, and in want of every thing, than a regular army”. Worse still, fever was raging in the Spanish ranks, and most of the soldiers were already half-starved, making them appear like “spectres issuing from a hospital.” Read more | Napoleonic Wars timeline: the key dates you need to know Plans for defence were drawn up by the Spanish general in command, La Romana. Moore diplomatically looked them over, even though one British officer called them “wilder than the dreams of Don Quixote!” Over the next hours, all thoughts of making a joint stand at Astorga evaporated. As at Dunkirk the following century, the British commanders realised they would have to cut and run to the sea, abandoning their allies to their fate. The army would make headlong for the Galician port of La Corunna, where the Royal Navy could evacuate them by sea. All manner of equipment previously built up at Astorga had to be abandoned. This included food, weapons, and fresh shoes (despite a quarter of the men marching barefoot). The British army that left Astorga did so in extremely low spirits. In no mood to distinguish friend from foe, undisciplined bodies of redcoats began plundering the surrounding Spanish villages and before long, most of the battalions marched with an advanced guard of marauders bent on personal profit. Read more | 9 things you (probably) didn’t know about Dunkirk On their route north west, at Bembibre, there was widespread looting. British soldiers broke into the houses of locals in search of food, warm clothes, and alcohol. General Paget, riding through the town with the French hot on his heels, described the place as resembling the aftermath of a battle, with prostrate redcoats passed out in the streets. Attempts were made to force these men on but with little effect. French dragoons arrived almost as soon as the British cavalry rear-guard had left and began slashing into the drunken men, many of whom were incapable of defending themselves. New Year’s Day saw most of the disintegrating British army reach Villafranca, where 14 days’ worth of stores and 100 barrels of rum were stockpiled. With no wagons to carry the supplies, Moore ordered the whole lot burnt. But some battalions in the army refused to obey, the men instead choosing to destroy the liquor by imbibing it. Disorder in the town became so great that Moore (a man who detested even flogging) called the conduct “infamous beyond belief” and ordered one soldier to be shot in the town square. However, this did little to help matters. Captain Gordon of the cavalry remembered, “parties of drunken soldiers were committing all kinds of enormities, several houses were in flames. The gutters were overflowing with rum… and a promiscuous rabble were drinking and filling bottles in the street.” By the time the British left, according to Blakeney of the 28th, “the whole town seemed on fire.” Elsewhere, events in the French empire diverted attention. Rumours of an anti-Bonapartist plot in Paris and the need to mobilise against Austria caused Napoleon to leave the pursuit of Moore to one of his most capable commanders – Marshal Soult. But the British did not yet have intelligence of this development that could mean salvation. Plunkett’s shot On 3 January, the oncoming French caught up with the rearguard at the bridge of Cacabelos. Half the 95th Rifles were placed forward of the bridge, while the remaining men held the British side of the river. About one o’clock in the afternoon, the French cavalry vanguard appeared, led by the dashing young Brigadier Auguste François-Marie de Colbert-Chabanais. One of France’s rising military stars, Colbert was tipped for great things. Getting the drop on the British, his horsemen rode down two companies of the 95th, taking 40 prisoners and cutting others to pieces. It was then that Colbert made a fatal mistake. Flushed with success, he ordered his men to gallop for the bridge, intending to charge the infantry on the other side. Tom Plunkett was an Irish soldier fighting in the ranks of the 95th. As such, he carried a Baker rifle – a weapon which was accurate to 200 yards, far beyond the range of the muskets most soldiers carried. Described as “bold, fit, [and] athletic” Plunkett was a superb soldier save for his one Achilles’ heel – drink. One sergeant commented that he was “a noted pickle”. Nevertheless, in a failed expedition to South America in 1807, Plunkett had used his rifle to deadly effect in a skirmish against the Spanish (who were at the time allied with France). Standing up and taking careful aim, Plunkett “literally shot down every Spaniard who ventured to show himself”. Read more | The top 10 military blunders in history Now, at the Bridge of Cacabelos, Plunkett had just witnessed many of his comrades butchered. When he spotted the French general, he raced forward and threw himself down, placing the muzzle of his rifle across his legs and arching his head to aim. Colbert was still riding forward, attempting to marshal his men at the bridge. No doubt, he believed he was out of range of any British bullets. Plunkett’s first shot hit Colbert in the chest, cartwheeling him off his mount. Colbert’s Trumpet Major bravely came up. In the meantime, Plunkett had reloaded at record speed. Just as the man knelt to render assistance to his commander, he too was hit. The general and his aide lay dead in the snow. Various figures are given for the range of Plunkett’s sharpshooting. Estimates of 300-400 yards are not uncommon. Some popular literature even fixes it at an unbelievable 800 yards. But whatever the true range, Plunkett’s two shots were made against distant targets by a man whose hands must have been numb with cold, and all without the benefit of modern telescopic sights. A "consummate scene of horrors" For all Plunkett’s achievements, in the days that followed, the situation of the army went from bad to catastrophic. As the lines of grumbling redcoats ascended the long climb to the plains of Lugo, the sky ominously darkened. Then it began to snow. One eyewitness called the 15-mile ascent up Monte del Cebrero a “consummate scene of horrors”. There was no shelter and wounded soldiers were left in carts to perish. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/GettyImages-804449278-82a6795.jpg" width="1024" height="668" alt="Death of Sir John Moore, La Coruna, Spain. Moore commanded the British forces at the battle of Corunna (La Coruna) during the Peninsular War. Retreating from a much larger French army commanded by Marshal Soult, the British were able to hold the French off long enough to be evacuated by sea. Moore was mortally wounded in the battle, and was buried at midnight in La Coruna Citadel. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="Death of Sir John Moore, La Coruna, Spain. Moore commanded the British forces at the battle of Corunna (La Coruna) during the Peninsular War. Retreating from a much larger French army commanded by Marshal Soult, the British were able to hold the French off long enough to be evacuated by sea. Moore was mortally wounded in the battle, and was buried at midnight in La Coruna Citadel. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Everywhere were “wretched people who lay on all sides expiring, from fatigue and the severity of the cold... their bodies reddened in spots the white surface of the ground.” The horses too were dying in huge numbers. Heavy rains caused many of the carcasses to swell and burst, leading one man on the retreat to complain that “the infected air hovers so rancorously about our heads, that it is almost impossible to pass in any direction without feeling violent convulsions of stomach”. And still the retreat would continue at an even more frantic pace. On 5 January, Moore ordered the entire army to execute a 36-hour continuous forced march – news that put the fear of God into every man. As they slogged along, even soldiers who had kept their discipline to this point suffered. Steady old veterans on starvation rations could not keep up with the gruelling pace and began to straggle. Physician Adam Neale called these hours “this time of horrors”. Yet more sick and wounded men were simply left to freeze. One officer, with perfect British understatement, called it “that unpleasant march”. Read more | Operation Hannibal 1945: the Germany evacuation that dwarfed the 'miracle of Dunkirk' Under such strain, the army that reached Lugo was something of a mob. Moore felt it necessary to issue a proclamation, appealing “to the honour and feelings of the army.” Read out to those in the ranks who were still alive and had bothered to turn up for parade, the speech was described by one British officer as “formidable yet pathetic”. It took another few days to make Corunna. When the exhausted British army staggered into the city on the night of the 11th, their horrific ordeal was far from over. From the hills overlooking the port, they quickly realised that the transports they all longed for were nowhere in sight. In front was the open water of the Atlantic and a 500-mile swim back to England. Behind was Soult. Corunna’s citizens were shocked at the appearance of the redcoats. Sick, emaciated, their clothes in rags, they cannot have been an encouraging sight. Some even made the sign of the cross as the wrecked men filed past. In all, three weeks of hard marching had reduced Moore's army to a shadow of its former self. He realised he had too few men to hold all the ridges south of town, so was forced to choose an imperfect position with an exposed right flank overlooked by higher ground. Soult quickly occupied that higher ground and dragged cannons up there. But then the British caught a break – Soult felt he was too weak to mount an attack. The two armies eyeballed each other until the Royal Navy transports finally came into view late on 14 January. But it would take time to embark the whole British expeditionary force. Read more | Britain’s war on the slave ships: how the Royal Navy policed the Atlantic in the 19th century Moore now faced every commander’s worst nightmare – attempting a staged amphibious withdrawal in the face of a determined enemy. Soult, forced into action, pressed home an attack on the 15th, but it proved indecisive. With part of his force already embarked, the remnants of Moore’s army faced the main French assault the following day. On 16 January, the French threw a mass of soldiers against the British right flank, attempting to turn it and cut the rest of the army off from the ships. Moore ordered two battalions of Foot Guards into the melee. As the Guards advanced, the badly mauled Black Watch began to withdraw. Seeing this, Moore rode forward, personally rallying them. But on horseback in his bright scarlet full-dress uniform, he proved a highly conspicuous figure. While leading the Scots forward, a French roundshot struck Moore in the shoulder, throwing him from his horse. Soldiers rushed to where he lay and were greeted with a grim sight. The ball had almost severed Moore’s left arm and torn his chest wide open, breaking his ribs and lacerating part of his lungs. Nevertheless, he was conscious and composed, appointing General Hope to command the army. A final duty Confused fighting followed on the ridges, with the British managing to hold on until the French assaults died away in the early evening. The remaining redcoats embarked the following day, but not before performing a final duty to Moore. As the last troops were leaving the town, Moore’s body – wrapped in a military coat and blanket – was solemnly lowered into a newly dug grave at the bastion of the citadel amid the roar of a French bombardment. The army that arrived back in England was shattered. One soldier commented that their appearance was “squalid and miserable in the extreme. There was scarcely a man amongst them, who had not lost some of his appointments, and many, owing to the horrors of that celebrated retreat, were even without rifles. Their clothing too was in tatters, and in such an absolute state of filth as to swarm with vermin.” One soldier, Green of the 95th, simply stated that “Such a lot of rag-a-muffins never landed at Portsmouth before”. Read more | Winston Churchill: is he still the greatest Briton in history? The newspapers were quick to turn against the army, with the Times calling the whole campaign “a shameful disaster”. Returns for the sick certainly bore out this claim. The mortality rate for those who landed back in England was a terrifying 17 per cent, caused mostly by fever and the lingering effects of dysentery. So what, if anything, did this deadly retreat achieve? It was Winston Churchill who said that wars are not won by evacuations. Yet if Moore had not made his initial move against the Grand Armée, Napoleon might have had the time and resources to crush the “Spanish Ulcer” before it became terminal for his empire. The cost was about 4,000 irreplaceable British soldiers, including Sir John Moore. Wellington, perhaps Britain's greatest general and a man who never issued praise lightly said after the war that “we’d not have won, I think, without him.” Matthew Doherty is a military historian, writer and teacher
The Spanish Inquisition: everything you wanted to know
Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
Giles Tremlett answers listener questions about the Spanish Inquisition, to uncover the real history behind the sinister and bloodthirsty 'Black Legend' of Spain
The era of the Spanish Inquisition is most commonly remembered as a period of widespread fear and paranoia, where communities turned on each other and torture was rife. But how true is this popular perception? Speaking to Emily Briffett, Giles Tremlett answers listener questions on the Spanish Inquisition, from the real history behind the sinister and bloodthirsty 'Black Legend' of Spain, to whether there was there any hope of survival for people singled out by the inquisitors...
The history of Madrid: from the Moors to modernity
History's greatest cities podcast series
The Spanish capital is a city of water and war, marked by conflict but glorying in culture. Jules Stewart guides us through the story of Madrid.
The earliest recorded history of the place now called Madrid dates from the ninth century. At that time, it was the site of a Moorish fortress called Magerit – in old Arabic, “place of water”. The abundance of water would prove key in the development of the settlement that became the capital of a united Spain. Long before the Moors, came the Romans. They invaded the Iberian peninsula from the late third century BC, but paid little attention to this little backwater; they were after much bigger prizes such as Cádiz. The Visigoths, arriving in the sixth century AD, integrated it into their kingdom of Toledo, but even so it remained an insignificant outpost for many years. Madrid’s shifting religions In AD 711, a force of Arabs and Berbers crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from north Africa, launching a wave of conquest that created the vast, Muslim-ruled kingdom of Al-Andalus, spanning most of the Iberian peninsula. The following century, Moorish emir Muhammad I ordered the construction of a fortified citadel at the place dubbed Magerit, on a site now occupied by Madrid’s Royal Palace. Little evidence of the Moorish occupation remains today, though you can find some sections of their wall near the palace and La Almudena Cathedral, in Emir Mohamed I Park. History's Greatest Cities: A HistoryExtra podcast series This companion piece accompanies our podcast miniseries History's Greatest Cities. Listen to the full episode on Florence with Jules Stewart and Paul Bloomfield, then explore the entire series History’s Greatest Cities: Madrid All History's Greatest Cities episodes The settlement gained prominence when Alfonso VI of León and Castile took Magerit from the Moors in 1085 during the so-called Reconquista (Reconquest) of Spain by Christian forces. One traditional tale recounts an incident involving the soldier who became known as El Gato – ‘the cat’. On reaching Magerit’s defences – so the story goes – he jumped off his horse, scampered up the wall, ripped down the Moorish banner and put up the Christian flag. One of his fellow Christians said: look, he climbs like a cat. Today Gato is a nickname for a Madrileño (resident of Madrid) – though it can be claimed only by a resident of the third generation or older. Madrid as a medieval metropolis For a long time, Madrid remained a small, obscure agricultural settlement. A few notable monuments from that period remain, including the medieval Torre e Casa de los Lujanes (Tower and House of the Lujanes), just off the Calle Mayor, near the San Miguel market and the Casa de la Villa (old town hall). Built in the late 15th century for the prominent Lujan family, it's a remarkable example of late Mudejar-style architecture. During the Middle Ages, Madrid’s population was quite diverse. Moors, Jews and Christians managed to get on; indeed, as far as the Iberian Jews were concerned, they owed allegiance to whoever happened to be in charge, and were allowed to get on with their lives largely without persecution until 1492, when they were expelled from Spain. Today, only plaques mark the locations of their ghettos. The big change for Madrid came in 1561, when the Habsburg king Philip II decided to up sticks and move his court there from Toledo. There are many reasons why he may have chosen to do this: one persuasive idea is Philip wanted to get on with ruling the Spanish empire, so tried to put some distance between himself and the influence of the Catholic church, which was based in Toledo. Another strong argument is that it was a response to the need for a reliable and substantial supply of water. Toledo was growing rapidly, but its only source of water was the Tagus River, in a deep gorge far below the city; it became increasingly difficult to provide enough drinking water for the population. Madrid, on the other hand, had much better access to water, from the Manzanares River. It was also geographically the centre of the Iberian trade routes, and had a much more benign climate – to begin with, at least. When Philip arrived, he had in tow perhaps 7,000 people, all of whom needed housing and firewood. Madrid was surrounded by forests, which were plundered for wood. Certainly, enough of the trees protecting Madrid from the fierce winds of the Guadarrama mountains to the north disappeared that the climate changed radically. There’s a saying describing the weather in Madrid: Nueve meses de invierno y tres mese de infierno – nine months of winter and three of hell. Philip – who had a tough act to follow as the son of the powerful Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – wanted to make his mark on his new capital and the surrounding area. Shortly after arriving in Madrid, he ordered the foundation of a royal monastery in the hills some 25 miles to the north-west: the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, or simply El Escorial. This vast complex – the world’s largest Renaissance structure – incorporates numerous elements, including a basilica, library, university and palace. Even today it’s a spectacular place to visit on a day trip from the city. Madrid after the Habsburgs Philip’s successors didn’t even live up to his own standards, much less the reputation of Charles V, but the last Habsburg king – Charles II – was a particularly sad case. Suffering from near-constant ill health and physical disabilities – including the notorious ‘Habsburg jaw’ – his reign was defined by political crises and his inability to produce heirs. Hs death in 1700 ended Habsburg rule in Spain and precipitated a dynastic conflict that would become know as the War of the Spanish Succession, in which various factions fought for control of not only the kingdom but also its extensive empire. In 1714, the victorious house of Bourbon moved in, and it still occupies the Spanish throne to this day. And they did a lot for Madrid. They centralised the system of government, enhancing Madrid's power as the capital of the Spanish empire. They launched a period of architectural glory., building the current Royal Palace, Europe's largest, to replace the Alcázar, which had stood on the site since the ninth century but which was destroyed by fire in 1734. They built the Puerta de Alcalá, Europe’s first modern post-Roman triumphal arch, completed in 1778, and the Conde Duque Barracks – now a heritage site and a magnificent cultural centre – designed by the architect Pedro de Ribera. He also built the Baroque Royal Hospice of San Fernando, which now houses the Museum of History of Madrid on Calle de Fuencarral. Madrid during the Napoleonic wars Madrid was occupied by French forces in March 1808, during Napoleon’s peninsular campaign. This sparked one of the most important events in the city’s history: the Dos de Mayo (Second of May) Uprising, when some 2,000 Madrileños attempted to drive out the invaders. Although crushed and resulting in harsh punitive measures, it inspired further revolts in Spain and was depicted by Goya. His work ‘The Third of May, 1808’, showing resistance fighters being executed by French troops, is on display at the Prado Museum. The uprising is remembered and commemorated around Madrid, and 2 May is a public holiday. Some of the people involved have become heroes, such as Manuela Malasaña, a teenage seamstress who joined the fighting armed only with her scissors – and who was summarily executed. The district in which she lived is now named in her honour, with the Plaza de Dos de Mayo at its heart. After the French forces were turfed out in 1813, and the king installed by Napoleon – his brother Joseph, derisively dubbed Pepe Botella (meaning Joe Bottle) by his unwilling Spanish subjects – was ousted, the Bourbons returned to the throne. But they could not stop Spain gradually losing its influence over its global empire. This culminated in 1898 with the Spanish-American War, which resulted in the loss of its last imperial possessions, including Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Madrid, no longer the capital of an empire, declined accordingly as Spain entered a period of political instability. The First Spanish Republic came and went, lasting less than two years (1873–74) before a coup; Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship (1923–30) also failed to last. The people of Madrid became used to political chaos, and just got on with life. Madrid in the Spanish Civil War Events took a much darker turn after Alfonso XIII went into exile in 1931. The Second Spanish Republic, founded after Alfonso was deposed, lasted only a few years. The government, composed largely of socialist, communists and a number of anarchists, frightened certain elements within society, particularly in the military and the Catholic Church. A coup in 1936 brought about the Spanish Civil War and the rise of General Francisco Franco. In the process, Madrid became a besieged city, its people living in the most horrendous conditions. Franco brought the Foreign Legion and other north African troops and marched on Madrid. But there he was stopped. For nearly three years he was unable to enter the city, which suffered constant aerial bombardments and shelling. The Telefónica building – Europe’s tallest skyscraper when it opened in 1930 – was a frequent target as Republican forces used it as a lookout point. It’s still a striking building today. In March 1939, Franco’s Nationalist forces took the capital, marking the end of the bloody civil war. The city was extremely badly damaged, and a period of reconstruction began. Thousands of people from villages around Spain flooded in; to agricultural workers, the opportunity to earn a salary on a scaffold seemed preferable to herding goats. This fact lends Madrid its diverse character: very few people who live here are actually from the city. Madrid after Franco Though officially neutral during the Second World War, Spain maintained close ties to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. As a result, after the conflict ended, the country – still led by Franco – became an international pariah. Spain was not in the United Nations, the Common Market, the International Monetary Fund or any of the other organisations that rebuilt Europe. Slowly, though, from the 1950s it emerged from that period of moribund economy. By the time of Franco’s death in November 1975, the country had been transformed. The transition to democracy was largely peaceful, though the first couple of years were worrisome as there were still many right-wing supporters on the streets, and the fascist youth organisation Fuerza Nueva committed some atrocities. But this period also saw the emergence of La Movida Madrileña, a countercultural movement that pushed for political and economic change. It also witnessed an artistic flourishing, not least in music, with a growing punk and synth-pop scene. Today, Madrid is a thriving, cosmopolitan city that offers a good life – if you've got the stamina for it. Put it this way: don’t think about going out before 11pm. As hard-living American writer Ernest Hemingway said – as far back as the 1920s – the worst traffic jams in Madrid start building up around midnight. It truly feels like a city that never sleeps. Jules Stewart was talking to Paul Bloomfield, travel journalist and host of our podcast series History's Greatest Cities What to see: Madrid in five places A Moorish citadel that became an imperial capital, Madrid today is a cosmopolitan city. Jules Stewart picks five unmissable sites that illuminate its history 1. Chapel of San Antonio de la Florida Side by side on the banks of the Manzanares river stand a pair of modest domed chapels. One is the Chapel of San Antonio de la Florida, completed on the orders of Charles IV in 1798. Dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua, each 13 June it draws crowds of young women, hoping to be married. But to really understand the chapel’s importance, look up. The ceiling vaults, spandrels and dome are adorned with astonishing frescoes by Francisco Goya, the great Spanish painter of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, depicting angels and scenes including Saint Anthony raising a man from the dead. Later in life, Goya was much affected by his experiences during the Napoleonic French occupation of Madrid and the popular uprising on 2 May 1808, which inspired many later works. He died in France in 1828, but his remains were returned to Spain decades later, and he now lies in this chapel. In 1928, an identical copy of the chapel was built alongside it, to enable continued worship while preserving the original – hence the unusual twin monuments. 2. Joaquín Sorolla Museum Another Spanish artist of renown in his homeland, but less well-known internationally, was Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863–1923). Born in Valencia, he spent many years in Madrid, where his last home in the central Chamberí neighbourhood is now an immersive museum. As well as his belongings, letters and photographs, it houses more than 1,200 of his paintings and drawings. Sorolla’s portraits, landscapes and other works open a window onto Spanish life around the end of the 19th and early 20th century. These include episodes from Madrid’s history as well as depictions of everyday life: sick children sea-bathing, people at work, and so on. 3. Atocha Station Madrid’s first railway station was inaugurated on 9 February 1851, for the opening of the line linking the capital with the small town of Aranjuez, about 30 miles to the south. That small stop, then called Estación de Mediodía, was rebuilt in 1892 to create Atocha Station, hub of Europe’s biggest high-speed rail network. It’s a magnificent structure, with a vast wrought-iron roof that was designed in collaboration with Gustave Eiffel. In 1992 the building was taken out of service, and its majestic halls now play host to exotic tropical plants and a terrapin pool. Outside stands a moving memorial to the 191 victims of the attack by Islamist suicide bombers on 11 March 2004 – one of the darkest days in Madrid’s history. 4. Museo del Romanticismo In the first half of the 19th century, a cultural movement swelled in Spain, influencing artists, thinkers, even politicians: Romanticism. The museum dedicated to that movement, housed in a gorgeous 1776 palace, not only displays artworks by the likes of Goya and Esquivel, it also recreates rooms of the period to give a sense of how the bourgeoisie involved lived. You can wander among period furniture, pianos, ceramics, even dolls, and roam the lovely Magnolia Garden, which is designed in the 18th-century French style. 5. Plaza del Dos de Mayo On 2 May 1808, some 2,000 Madrileños rose up against the Napoleonic French occupying forces – a revolt that was crushed (the French remained for five more years) but which is still emblematic of the fierce spirit of the capital and its citizens. The Plaza del Dos de Mayo, named to commemorate that episode, is the heart of the still-vibrant Malasaña district. Visit Café Manuela, named after the seamstress Manuela Malasaña, a heroic figurehead of the uprising who was attacked by French troops. When they tried to rape her, she defended herself with a pair of scissors – and was summarily put up against the wall and executed. Both the Plaza del Dos de Mayo and the district are named in her memory. In the late 1970s and 80s the cafe was a focal point of the Movida Madrileña, a countercultural movement that pushed for political and economic change but which also nurtured a flourishing punk and synth-pop scene. Today it evokes a fin de siècle atmosphere, and is a popular spot for playing board games. Jules Stewart is the author of a dozen books, including Madrid: The History (IB Tauris, 2012) and, with Helen Crisp, Madrid: Midnight City (Reaktion, 2020). He was talking to Paul Bloomfield. Listen to the companion podcast on Madrid or explore the entire series
“A dissonant orchestra of ambitions and intentions” | Christopher Clark on the revolutions of 1848
Christopher Clark talks to Matt Elton about the revolutions that swept Europe in the 19th century, revealing how their speed and synchronicity alarmed authorities across the continent
Before we explore the causes of the revolutions of 1848, could you sketch out where and when they took place? In January 1848, revolution broke out in Palermo and Naples, two major cities of what was then called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This happened against a backdrop of demonstrations and protests that had been building across Europe. And then came the really big news: the revolution in Paris in the last week of February, which led to the flight of the king, Louis Philippe I, from the city and the collapse of the French monarchy. Read more | 1848: the year of revolutions After that, the revolutions enter a kind of fusion phase in which there are chain reactions of uprisings: in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest. It just went on and on, cascading across the continent. Rewinding to explore some of the causes, then, how important was poverty as a factor in the lead-up to these revolutions? Poverty was the primary issue, and there was a degree of moral panic around it – although people at the time used the term “pauperisation” rather than poverty. The reason for that distinction was that, although commentators believed poverty had always existed in human societies, they thought that what was happening in the 1830s and 1840s was something new – a kind of systematic impoverishment of large sectors of society which had previously been able to make a living. Those people were now having to work all the hours god sent, but were still unable to make ends meet or feed their children. One of the chief sources of anxiety in cities was that the poor were getting poorer, and it wasn’t clear how far that process could go before it began to eat away at the bonds holding society together. Do terms that we recognise today, such as “liberal” or “radical”, map on to this era, or do we need to shift our understanding of its politics to make sense of the upheaval that was to come? They do in the sense that modern Europe is born out of that world. But the differences are also striking. There were no political parties, for instance, so although there were people we would today call “liberals” or “radicals”, they didn’t often refer to themselves in that way. “Liberals” were a loose constellation of people who wanted neither an autocracy of the Napoleon type nor a terrorist dictatorship of the Jacobean type, but something in between. Similarly, conservatives were not solely supporters of the status quo, either, but something much more complex: a diverse group of people who wanted to reinstate some form of traditional authority, or were worried about the decline of religion, or about the growing atomisation of society. This lack of clearly delineated political groupings is one of the factors that make the political environment before 1848 so interesting – as is the fact that everyone was continually on the move, ideologically speaking. It was very common for people to reason themselves into entirely new political positions. Do we need to throw any other ingredients into this heady brew of social turmoil and political movement? A key concern was the concentration of power. This was, after all, a continent still dominated by the institutions of monarchy. In most cases countries still had no kind of national parliament whatsoever. Where there were parliaments, the franchise was very small: if the right to vote existed at all, it existed only among tiny elites, nanofranchises, who were the only people to have that right. These were societies in which power was very concentrated, but in which sophisticated critical networks had developed which were becoming increasingly alienated from this concentrated power structure – and were starting to pick it apart, find fault with it, and mobilise against it. The situation obviously varied from place to place, but can we identify any key milestones in the path to revolution? We call the 1789 uprising the “French Revolution” for good reason: it didn’t really spark revolutions elsewhere on the European continent. But during the 1820s, a revolution took place in Spain that led to sympathetic revolutions in Naples, in Piedmont in northern Italy, and in Portugal. Read more | What is a revolution? How its meaning changed since the Storming of the Bastille And the revolution of 1830, which broke out in Paris, also had a cascading effect: it leapt across the border into Belgium, where a revolution that broke out in Brussels produced the Belgian nation state that broke away from the Kingdom of the United Netherlands. People had images from these prior tumults flickering in the backs of their heads like old films, and had a kind of remembered script of what to do when a revolution broke out. People knew in 1848, for instance, that the first thing to do was to build barricades. In that way, the historical instances of violence and political protest did inform and prepare the ground for what was to come. What kinds of people took part in these revolutions? We often think of revolutions as events made by revolutionaries, but that’s not how 1848 happened – and may not be how any revolution happens. It seems to me to be much more the case that revolutions make revolutionaries than the other way round, and that’s certainly how it was in 1848. Who did make the revolution is an interesting question. In the weeks immediately beforehand, newspapers ran a lot of liberal critique, sentiments that were widely shared by journalists and other people in the public sphere. But when the outbreak of upheaval finally came, the crowds included people of all classes – and those who wound up building the barricades and clashing with troops were overwhelmingly people who made things with their hands. They weren’t members of the bourgeoisie, they weren’t owners of the means of production: they were more likely to be apprentices, factory workers, people who made locks – or, indeed, people who worked for the people who made locks. Can we trace the first moments of these revolutions? People at the time did feel there was a moment of inception. In Berlin, for example, the trouble began with a confrontation between crowds and troops in the square near the royal palace. The mood hadn’t been negative: crowds had gathered to cheer the king announcing concessions made due to pressure from the growing protest movement in the city. But then people refused to disperse, and a long-standing antipathy between urban crowds and troops came to a head. People started chanting “Truppen raus, Truppen raus” – troops out, troops out. At that point, dragoons were moving into the crowd on horseback when two of their rifles went off by accident. Neither bullet struck anyone, but people thought they were being fired on. From that moment on, the situation was out of control. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/BAL74958-8bcd572.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The Burning of the Chateau d’Eau at the Palais-Royal, 24th February 1848 by Eugene Hagnauer. On this day, violent street-fighting by revolutionaries led to the abdication of King Louis Philippe (Photo by Bridgeman Images)" title="The Burning of the Chateau d’Eau at the Palais-Royal, 24th February 1848 by Eugene Hagnauer. On this day, violent street-fighting by revolutionaries led to the abdication of King Louis Philippe (Photo by Bridgeman Images)" /> A similar thing had happened in Palermo, where a poster signed “the Revolutionary Committee” appeared announcing that there was going to be a revolution in a few days. Nobody knew who had put it there, but plenty of people thought it was interesting. In reality, there was no committee; the poster had been put up as a prank by a young man who thought the Sicilian people were ready to rise up and that it might be enough to spark something. It was indeed enough – at least, enough to bring people into the city curious to find out what would happen. The authorities also responded, of course, tripling the military presence in the city. It resembled what would later happen in Berlin: soldiers, crowds, shots fired, and a situation suddenly out of control. So there was an element of happenstance and a sense of self-combustion in both cases. Alphonse de Lamartine, a French liberal who authored a history of the revolution, wrote that it was almost as if the curiosity of the crowd that came to witness an event engendered that same event. That’s a paradox, of course, but in a sense it’s also true: the event imagined itself into existence simply by the expectation that it would happen. How should we understand the apparent synchronicity of these revolutionary events happening all at the same sort of time? That’s a difficult question. Communications moved slowly: there were a few telegraphic networks in continental Europe, but not many, and in most places information had to move on horse, in a carriage or, in a few places, by train. So the wave of revolutions moved faster in some cases than we can easily explain in terms of the information technology that was available. I think the only way to understand it is to avoid thinking of the revolutions in diffusionist terms. This was not, for instance, a Parisian revolution which diffused across the continent. The correct unit of analysis is Europe: this was a European upheaval. As a result, we shouldn’t marvel over the fact that events took place in different parts of the continent any more than the fact that different parts of Paris were ready to rise up at the same time. In other words, these upheavals were part of the same culture of growing resentment of government authority, a growing willingness to challenge that authority, and growing numbers of eloquent leaders who became causes célèbres and whose names were mentioned everywhere. And, of course, all of this was built on growing large-scale social and economic distress. By the summer of 1848, forces had emerged that slowed and complicated the course of these revolutions. What happened? Initially, the revolutions were bafflingly successful. The revolutionaries were astonished by how quickly the forces of order retreated. But after their initial success, it quickly turned out that they didn’t agree about what to do next. There were differences between liberals and radicals about what “revolution” should mean. Liberals largely saw revolution as an event which should be followed by a period of stabilisation – their message for the masses was: “thank you very much to everybody for what you did on the barricades, now go home and leave it to us to create a constitution and bind the revolution in ropes of law”. For radicals, however, revolution was not an event but a process, and they thought that the revolution had scarcely begun when the liberals started their constitution-making and parliament-electing. They feared being left behind or excluded: that the liberals would get what they wanted, but that their demands for social amelioration and a rebalancing of the relationship between labour and capital would be ignored. So a deep bitterness and distrust emerged at the heart of the revolution, which became a serious impediment to its success. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/gr0066635H-2-599cbd4.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A cartoon published in a German newspaper in 1849 depicts the revolutions’ aftermath, with the leaders of France, Prussia and Austria dispensing with thwarted revolutionaries (Photo by Sarin Images / GRANGER)" title="A cartoon published in a German newspaper in 1849 depicts the revolutions’ aftermath, with the leaders of France, Prussia and Austria dispensing with thwarted revolutionaries (Photo by Sarin Images / GRANGER)" /> And, of course, not everybody was happy with what was happening, and once the shock of the original insurrectionary moment had passed, the old powers started putting their heads together and thinking about how to claw back the ground they had lost. The first place in which this happened was Naples, where the king reimposed authority following a bloody exchange of fire between troops and the insurgents manning the barricades. This is part of the complexity of the events of 1848. It wasn’t simply the case that the revolutionaries secured all of the power for themselves. The revolutions weren’t shaped by the will of the revolutionaries alone, but instead by a complicated, incredibly fractious process of wrestling and negotiation between new and old powers. So it was these twin forces – one within and one without, as it were – that eventually brought the revolutions to a halt? Yes, and the counter-revolution turned out to have many cards up its sleeve. One is that the armed forces, by and large, remained loyal. As we’ve mentioned, the revolutionaries had an impressive capacity to build a transnational network. But as great as this network was, it didn’t have the ability to deploy or focus armed forces – whereas the old hierarchies, the tower-like structures of the old regimes, had clear chains of command and loyal militaries. The other card up the counter-revolutionaries’ sleeve was that they found that they had more support than they could have imagined among the people left out of the process of the revolution – and these were often people in the countryside. One of the shortfalls of the revolution was its failure to make itself understood by a large part of the rural population. As the energies of the revolution were ebbing away in Paris, for instance, people in rural France had no interest in the experimental politics of the radicals or even the liberals. They wanted an authoritarian figure who would impose order, so the votes of four million peasants went to Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. Given the fact that by the summer of 1849 the revolutions were largely over, is it fair to see them as a failure? That question has haunted the whole literature on this subject, but I don’t think that “failure” is a very helpful term. When we hear there’s been a huge snowstorm, we don’t ask, “Was the snowstorm a success or a failure?”. We establish that it happened and measure its effects. Read more | The death of a dream: what happened in Europe's great year of revolution in 1848? Of course, one might point out that revolutions are political rather than natural events. But the problem with that is that whereas individuals may have particular intentions which may or may not be realised, a revolution doesn’t. The 1848 revolutions were a dissonant orchestra of wills and intentions which, in many cases, cancelled each other out or pointed in different directions. So there was no will or intention which failed to be realised but an immense roar of dissonant demands – those people who saw that they had not achieved their objectives naturally also felt that the revolutions had failed. Can we usefully compare this revolution and others in history? Common to nearly all revolutions are situations in which the governed suddenly decide they’re no longer afraid of the government. At the core of all revolutions is the fact that something ceases to be there which was there before – and that thing is fear. That absence can be over very briefly, but it can nevertheless be deeply consequential. People sometimes ask how the events of 1848 compare to the great iconic revolutions – that of 1789, or the Russian revolutions of 1917, for instance. The French Revolution of 1789 and its Napoleonic aftermath had profound geopolitical impacts of a kind that didn’t happen in 1848, which left the political map of the continent looking more or less the same. Similarly, we might say that the revolutions of 1917 were more consequential because they created a new kind of state that evolved into a superpower in the form of Soviet Russia. Read more | Are revolutions doomed to failure? Yet it seems to me that we have to look in slightly different places to see how the events of 1848 changed things. We need to consider instead the emergence of new nation states, the shift in administrative styles, the apprenticeship effects of political mobilisation and the rise of advocacy groups calling for specific reforms, such as the enfranchisement of women. These revolutions broke out in peace, not in war, and so their effects were not magnified by the movement of armies across continents. They were revolutions wearing civilian clothes, travelling in mufti – and that doesn’t mean that their consequences were less important; it just means that they were more subtle. Christopher Clark spoke to Matt Elton on the HistoryExtra podcast. You can listen to the interview here. Christopher Clark is the regius professor of history at the University of Cambridge. His research centres on the history of 19th-century Germany and continental Europe. His latest book is Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849 (Allen Lane, 2023) This article was first published in the May 2023 issue of BBC History Magazine
Kwasi Kwarteng: "Wars are bloody expensive – so the only way nations can buy what they need is by printing their own money"
In this interview from 2014, Kwasi Kwarteng talks to Matt Elton about his book War and Gold, which explores how new wealth fosters war, in turn leading nations to debt and failure – and why this pattern is repeated through history
The book starts with the discovery of the Americas. What impact did this have on Europe’s economy? It was hugely transformational. Silver and gold flooded Europe, pushing up prices. This was a great stimulus to business activity: if you are opening a shop in an environment in which prices are rising, there’s a big incentive to trade. In many ways, the discovery of the New World kickstarted Europe’s economy. You argue, however, that there were also less desirable results of this boom. Spain relied on these endless flows of silver and gold, and its industry and agriculture fell behind as its people became addicted to these imports. The thing about becoming rich is that you are aware of your money, so spend it: the fact that Spain was extracting riches from the Americas, causing prices to rise, meant that they had to spend more money. This influx of wealth coincided with the military revolution, when the hardware of fighting became much more expensive. So while Spain was getting richer the cost of its endeavours ballooned, and it borrowed money to try to meet the shortfall. At this point, politics became involved. Charles V of Spain inherited a vast empire through a series of dynastic alliances made by his grandfather and his parents. The big question in the Europe of the early 16th century – the backdrop to all that’s familiar to us in British history – was how to accommodate this superpower. For his part, Charles had to spend a lot of money to maintain armies in several theatres of war, which put heavy strains on his kingdom. Was it this international rivalry that led Spain to overspend? It was all about strategic dominance of Europe. What drove Spanish spending was its bid for hegemonic mastery, while the other powers in Europe tried to drag it down. In a sense, that’s what British foreign policy of the period was about: an attempt to limit the mighty powers in Europe. This pattern was repeated through the 17th century, with the burgeoning power and military campaigns of Louis XIV and beyond. Read more | King of the world: how Louis XIV turned France into a global power Do you see the whole history of finance as being cyclical in this way? Repetition is a key theme of the book. The model starts with stability, and then – for whatever reason – a country has to fight a war. The problem with wars is that they’re bloody expensive, so the only way nations can buy what they need is by printing their own money – which leads to inflation and instability. So they say “forget all that gold standard stuff – we’re going to borrow as much paper money as we can, and spend it”. Once they’ve financed this course of action, they realise that they’re in a bit of bother, and revert to fiscal orthodoxy – and so on. What was the financial impact on Europe of the First World War? The First World War was probably the big watershed in terms of financial history, because during the 50 years preceding it the gold standard – by which each currency was linked to a fixed quantity of gold – had become established in the western world. Economists sometimes describe this period a one of proto-globalisation: a liberal world in which capital and people could move freely. The war changed all that. Early in the conflict, the UK stopped paying gold – unlike the US where, as a result, a lot of financial muscle went. Britain, which for the century up to 1914 had essentially been running balanced budgets, became debt-financed. It left the gold standard, and borrowed – and, essentially, printed – lots of money with which to buy what it needed to win the war. Read more | Inflation then and now: Britain's century of boom and bust You argue that the 1930s were more important in financial history than the 1929 crash. Why? The 1929 crash captured the public imagination, but the 1930s were important because governments were trying to deal with the aftermath. After the economy juddered to a halt in 1929, the orthodox view was that spending needed to be cut. Later, in 1936, the economist John Maynard Keynes asserted that in fact governments should be spending money. But I’d argue that governments in the 1930s, particularly the Nazis, had already arrived at that conclusion. Hitler and Roosevelt were Keynesian financiers before Keynes’ General Theory: they were spending and borrowing lots of money, and motivating their people to work. Read more | How was Germany able to afford the astronomical cost of rearmament in the 1930s? Did the Second World War shift the balance of economic power to the US? My view is that the US became top dog after the First World War, but no one really admitted it. After the Second World War, it was obvious that the US was the pre-eminent military and financial power. It was a rare and fascinating situation in which one nation had such a vast share of the global economy. Which powers do you see as emerging most strongly on the postwar stage? China is obviously the big story of the past 25 years, and will continue to be. The other big story is the introduction of the euro. It was a long project, not one dreamt up in the 1980s and 90s; whether you love or loathe the EU, you have to admire the strategic vision of the single currency. One of the things I try to tease out in the book is that British politicians don’t really have that strategic view that their European counterparts have. We think they keep coming up with these madcap schemes, but there’s method to the madness. It’s part of a much bigger, much longer story, a larger architecture than we’re conscious of as politicians in Britain. What new view of money would you like readers to leave the book with? The most important thing is that, if you think that an event may have a historical precedent, then it probably has. This is largely a function of human nature, because people and nations tend to employ the same techniques to survive. The story that I tell in this book is a classic case in which the past does inform, and give us an idea of, what’s going to happen in the future: states are greedy, they spend money, they like borrowing money, and they go to war. These demands have shaped the world for centuries, and understanding the dynamic between them is vital in anticipating what the future might bring. Read next The 2008 financial crisis explained The credit crunch: "It's a story of hubris followed by a fall" War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures and Debt by Kwasi Kwarteng (Bloomsbury, 2014) This content first appeared in the July 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine
Giles Tremlett explores the turbulent history of Spain, a country shaped by influences from across the world
Giles Tremlett explores the turbulent history of Spain. Speaking to Elinor Evans, he explores how its position on Europe's south-western corner has exposed it to influences from all over the world, giving it a history unlike any other nation on the continent. Giles Tremlett is the author of España: A Brief History of Spain (Apollo, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones
The bombing of Guernica: who was responsible?
The bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War heralded a terrible new age of warfare. But who was the main culprit – Hitler or Franco? Paul Preston considers the evidence...
From 4.40 to 7.45 in the late afternoon of Monday 26 April 1937, the small Basque town of Guernica was destroyed by sustained bombing attacks by Adolf Hitler’s Condor Legion and Mussolini’s Aviazione Legionaria. The operation was supervised by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, the Condor Legion’s chief of staff, a brilliant and ruthless Prussian aristocrat with a doctorate in engineering. A cousin of the First World War fighter ace ‘the Red Baron’ (Manfred von Richthofen), Wolfram had planned the entire operation as an experiment in terror – as he would later mastermind the Blitzkrieg in Poland and France. His choice of projectiles aimed to cause the greatest possible number of civilian victims. A combination of explosive bombs and incendiaries rained on the residential sector of the town, which was largely made of wood. And to prevent the fires being put out, the municipal water tanks and the fire-station were the first targets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/04/GettyImages-92303411-6767fc2-e1650902167905.jpg" width="1024" height="752" alt="General Franco (centre) pictured in August 1937" title="General Franco (centre) pictured in August 1937. The general’s attempts to deny responsibility for the bombing of Guernica turned into a public-relations disaster for his forces. (Image by Getty Images)" /> Terrified civilians fleeing to the surrounding fields were herded back into Guernica by the machine-gun strafing of German fighter aircraft that circled the town in what Richthofen called “the ring of fire”. Monday was market day in Guernica. Between the townspeople, refugees, peasants bringing goods to the market, and train loads of visitors from Bilbao coming to buy food, there were at least 10,000 people crammed into the town that day. They were attacked by 28 German and three Italian bombers together with 10 Heinkel He 51 and 12 Fiat CR32 biplane fighters and possibly six of the first ever Messerschmitt Bf109s. It was an operation on a scale that could hardly have been organised by the Germans behind the backs of the Spanish staff, with whom there was, in any case, constant liaison. Diabolic forces The horror unleashed that day was captured in the eyewitness account of the Basque priest Father Alberto Onaindía. “The explosion of the bombs, the fires which were beginning to break out and the harassment of the machine-gunning planes forced us to take cover under trees, under house entrances, dropping to the ground in the field when we saw a plane approaching. There was no anti-aircraft defence, no defence of any kind, we were encircled and corralled by diabolic forces in pursuit of defenceless inhabitants. Through the streets wandered the animals brought to market, donkeys, pigs, chickens. In the midst of that conflagration we saw people who fled screaming, praying, or gesticulating against the attackers… I had other bombing experiences later in England during the Second World War. But I never felt so unprotected and so much a defenceless victim as on that April 26th of 1937.” The exact number of victims of the bombing that day will never be known because of the immediate chaos and the fact that forces of General Francisco Franco – one of the leaders of the rebels whose military uprising had triggered the Spanish Civil War the previous summer – occupied the town three days later. Read more | Is it accurate to call Francisco Franco a fascist? No effort was made to clear debris until after the end of the Civil War in 1939. All evidence of the bombing was removed, and no record was kept of bodies recovered. Estimates as to how many people died in Guernica have varied widely. Pro-Franco accounts suggest that the number was below 200. But, based on the testimony of medical personnel in Guernica on the day and in nearby hospitals that received casualties, the Basque government estimated that 1,645 people were killed and a further 889 injured in the attack. (It’s thought that hundreds died asphyxiated in bomb shelters as fires sucked up the available oxygen.) The most recent research suggests that the truth lies near to, or even higher than, the Basque government’s estimate. Whatever the true death toll, as the first near-total destruction of an ‘open’ town in European history, Guernica was burned into the continent’s conscience as Franco’s great crime. On the podcast | Paul Preston responds to listener queries and popular search enquiries about the Spanish Civil War What happened at Guernica was consistent with threats made by General Emilio Mola, the man who masterminded the military coup that aimed to unseat Spain’s Republican government. “It is necessary to spread terror,” he declared on 19 July 1936, just a day after the coup began. “We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.” Rebel forces did precisely that in all of south-west Spain, the conservative areas of Old Castile, and Galicia in the north. Franco’s principal objective was the Republican capital, Madrid, but it held out and, in mid-March 1937, his own troops and those of Italian leader Benito Mussolini were defeated at the battle of Guadalajara (40 miles north-east of the capital). It was now that Franco made a strategic volte-face. With the Republic concentrating its best troops in the centre of Spain and neglecting other fronts, Franco accepted the case for victory by instalments elsewhere. Colonel Juan Vigón, chief of Mola’s general staff, argued for priority to be given to operations in the north to strengthen the rebel war effort by the seizure of the coal, iron and steel reserves and armaments factories of the Basque province of Vizcaya. The commander of the German Condor Legion, General Hugo Sperrle, agreed, promising that Basque resistance would crumble under concerted airborne attacks. Rapid denials By the end of March, Mola had gathered a large army backed by the air support of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria (both countries backed the rebel side in the conflict), all under Richthofen’s command. Mola issued a threat that was both broadcast and printed in a leaflet dropped on the main towns: “If your submission is not immediate, I will raze Vizcaya to the ground, beginning with the industries of war. I have ample means to do so.” He then unleashed a massive four-day artillery and aircraft bombardment of eastern Vizcaya in which the small country town of Durango was destroyed. One hundred and twenty seven civilians were killed and a further 131 died shortly after of their wounds. Franco’s headquarters in Salamanca denied the bombing and attributed the damage to the Basques themselves. Franco was delighted to have the crack Condor Legion as part of his forces. He allowed Sperrle and Richthofen a free hand to liaise directly with Mola and Vigón. This gave the Germans the decisive voice in the campaign. Sperrle wrote in 1939: “All suggestions made by the Condor Legion for the conduct of the war were accepted gratefully and followed.” While the advance was being planned, Richthofen wrote in his diary on 24 March: “We are practically in charge of the entire business without any of the responsibility.” On 28 March he added: “I have established effective ground/air command.” In expecting Vizcaya to fall in three weeks, Franco and Mola had underestimated the determination of the Basques. Steep, wooded hills, poor roads and heavy rain and fog had helped the retreating Gudaris (Basque soldiers) to delay the attacking forces. With Franco and Sperrle frustrated by the slowness of the advance, Richthofen used terror bombing to break the morale of the civilian population and to destroy communications where roads passed through towns. That was the purpose of the destruction of Durango and the intense bombing on 4 April of the Basque town of Otxandio. Sperrle, Richthofen, Mola and Vigón now talked increasingly of reducing Bilbao to “debris and ash”. By 24 April, after merciless air bombardment and artillery pounding, the Basque forces were falling back in disarray. On 25 April, Vigón agreed to Richthofen’s plan to combine the tactical objective of blocking the retreat south of Guernica near Marquina with the broader strategic coup of a devastating blow against the Basques. That night, rebel radio at Salamanca broadcast the following warning to the Basque people: “Franco is about to deliver a mighty blow against which all resistance is useless. Basques! Surrender now and your lives will be spared.” A day later, Guernica would feel the full force of Mola’s threat. Distraught officials On 26 April 1937, four journalists covering the conflict – the Australian Noel Monks of the Daily Express, the Scotsman Christopher Holme of Reuters, the South African George Steer of The Times and the Belgian Mathieu Corman of the Parisian Ce Soir – spent 15 minutes in a bomb crater west of Guernica being strafed by the machine-guns of six Heinkel 51s. Later that night, they were having dinner when a distraught Basque official came in with news that Guernica was burning. They abandoned their table and drove to the town, which was still ablaze when they arrived at 11pm. They watched helplessly as weeping Gudaris frantically tried to dig out the bodies from the ruins. Steer interviewed survivors in the smoking ruins until the early hours of the 27th – “my authority for all that I have written”, as he later noted. He returned to Bilbao, spoke to more survivors and then drove the 15 miles back to Guernica to view the damage in daylight. Steer found three silver tubes of German incendiary devices which accorded with a Richthofen diary entry about the “complete technical success” of his selection of the unusual bombload of explosive ‘splinter’ and incendiary bombs. His innovative thinking was that, while bomb craters in roads could be filled, massive destruction of buildings was a more effective obstacle to retreating troops. Steer’s account of what he witnessed was published on 28 April in The Times and reproduced in the New York Times. Subdued and unsensational in tone, it provoked a world-wide storm of concern and was one of the most important reports filed by a journalist during the Spanish Civil War. More than any other commentator at the time, Steer managed to incorporate into his despatch a vivid sense of the scale of the atrocity. “In the form of its execution and the scale of the destruction it wrought, no less than in the selection of its objective, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military history. Guernica was not a military objective. A factory producing war material lay outside the town and was untouched. So were two barracks some distance from the town. The town lay far behind the lines. The object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralisation of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race. “The whole town of 7,000 inhabitants, plus 3,000 refugees, was slowly and systematically pounded to pieces… In a street leading downhill from the Casa de Juntas I saw a place where 50 people, nearly all women and children, are said to have been trapped in an air raid refuge under a mass of burning wreckage. Many were killed in the fields, and altogether the deaths may run into hundreds.” (George Steer’s name was, incidentally, placed on the Gestapo’s Special Wanted List of 2,820 persons to be detained after a future German occupation of Britain.) Wholesale arson Steer’s perception that this was a new kind of warfare ensured that his despatch would have a deeply disturbing impact on both sides of the Atlantic. The New York Times editorial on the following day condemned “wholesale arson and mass murder, committed by rebel airplanes of German type”. It was reprinted in full on 29 April in the French communist daily L’Humanité, where it was read by Pablo Picasso. At the time, Picasso was working on a commission by the Spanish Republican government to provide a mural for the great Paris exhibition planned for summer 1937. Already affected by Louis Delaprée’s despatches about the bombing of Madrid, he began work on what would become his most famous painting. Read more | Why did Pablo Picasso paint Guernica? Despite, or rather because of, the overwhelming verisimilitude of Steer’s report, the rebels immediately denied that Guernica had happened. The head of their foreign press bureau, Luis Bolín, claimed that Guernica had been dynamited by Basque saboteurs. The Condor Legion sent in a team to remove bomb fins, unexploded bombs and other signs of the bombardment. Franco issued a statement that: “Units of our front line requested the air-force to bomb the crossroads, a request fulfilled by German and Italian aircraft, and because of poor visibility caused by smoke and clouds of dust, bombs hit the town. Therefore it is not possible to permit an investigation. The reds took advantage of the bombing to set fire to town.” What was most striking was the admission that the raid was requested by the Spaniards. That the target could have been the crossroads, or the nearby stone Renteria bridge over the river Mundaca – as Franco also claimed – is contradicted by the weight of bombs dropped, and the preponderance of incendiaries, ineffective on stone. Human catastrophe The Basque army had been retreating along the roads towards Guernica, but it had not yet reached the town. Franco and Bolín clearly did not wonder why the Basques would dynamite the town and do precisely what Richthofen hoped to do – cut off the retreat by placing a massive human catastrophe in their path. Nor did they seem to ask themselves why dynamiters allegedly carrying out a scorched-earth policy left the small arms factory and the crucial bridge intact. Franco’s claims were also contradicted by eyewitnesses, who testified that the conventional bombers used over Guernica flew low enough to have been able to drop bombs with some accuracy but flew too wide apart for concentration on a specific target. In fact, under the Renteria bridge was the safest place to be in Guernica during the bombing. The only controversy still swirling around the atrocity is the question of who should shoulder the greatest blame – Franco’s high command or the Nazi Condor Legion? It is certainly the case that the head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, hoped to show Hitler that terror bombing was the best and the most National-Socialist way of winning a war. Convincing Hitler of the destructive capacity of the Luftwaffe would advance Göring’s ambition of taking control of Germany’s war industries. As such, it seems that he played a key role in the decision to bomb Guernica. The German, Italian and Spanish high commands agreed that the best way to break the stubborn resistance of Bilbao was the annihilation of a Basque town. The date for the attack was dictated by the fact that the Monday market day was when most civilians would be present. It has been suggested that Göring had initially favoured an attack on 19 April, the day before Hitler’s 48th birthday. Because the necessary additional aircraft had not arrived in time, the operation was delayed by one week, as indeed were the celebrations in Berlin of the Führer’s birthday. Franco had, of course, admitted his own involvement. On 18 September 1970, when he presided over the world championships of the Basque sport jai-alai in San Sebastian, Joseba Elosegui, a Basque nationalist, set fire to himself. Elosegui had been in command of the unit of Gudaris present in Guernica on 26 April 1937. By hurling himself in flames in front of the dictator, Elosegui hoped to make him understand what the Basque people had suffered in their flesh during the rebel campaign. Franco remained coldly impassive as the badly burned Elosegui was taken away. His disregard for the fate of the Basques was as harsh in 1970 as it had been in 1937. Paul Preston is Príncipe de Asturias professor of contemporary Spanish history at the London School of Economics. His books include The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge (William Collins, 2016) This article was first published in the May 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
John of Gaunt: The man who would be king
How could a younger son of Edward III make his mark? An international conquest promised to do the trick – if he could pull it off. Helen Carr follows John of Gaunt’s extraordinary mission to capture the throne of Castile in the 1380s
On 25 July 1386, three young men disembarked from a Portuguese galley at the port of Corunna. Landing on the northwest Spanish coast were Ralph Bulmere, just old enough to receive his inheritance at home; Baldwin Saint George from Cambridgeshire; and Thomas Chaucer, son of writer and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer. They had come to win their spurs in one of the most ambitious military campaigns of the late 14th century: the invasion of Castile by John of Gaunt. At that time, Castile was the largest of four Christian kingdoms in the Iberian peninsula. Sandwiched between Portugal to the west and Aragon and Navarre to the east, and with the Muslim emirate of Granada to the south, Castile also encompassed León and coastal Galicia, site of Corunna. And in the 14th century it was embroiled in an interminable tussle for succession between England and France: the Hundred Years’ War. Castile’s involvement had peaked two decades earlier with the pitched battle of Najéra in Navarre on 3 April 1367, in which the army of the Black Prince, heir to English king Edward III, charged across a dusty plain at Castilian and French forces – and emerged victorious. Leading the vanguard was John of Gaunt, the Black Prince’s younger brother. Najéra was his formative experience of battle, and sparked a 20-year-long obsession with Spanish conquest. Cruel twist of fate John was not only a prince but also the most powerful magnate in England, with wealth and influence to rival the crown. His possessions included England’s richest duchy, Lancaster, and he also inherited lands in northern France as well as northern and southern England. An astute politician, John was deeply loyal to his family and his father Edward III’s martial interests, and spent his early career as a diplomat. He saw Castile as the gateway to both personal power and Plantagenet expansion into Europe. An opportunity soon fell into his lap. In 1369, Enrique Trastámara, a French ally and claimant to the crown of Castile, murdered his half brother King Pedro I “The Cruel”, an ally of England. Pedro’s daughters, Constance and Isabella, fled to the Black Prince for protection and in 1371 John of Gaunt, recently widowed, married Constance near Bordeaux. The following year he was formally entitled “King of Castile and León” by right of his wife, and aspired to drive an army into Spain, oust Enrique and rule Castile. Initially, John’s ambitions were thwarted by the demands of domestic politics. The Black Prince’s health deteriorated following a long sickness contracted during that fateful Spanish campaign, and Edward III suffered a series of strokes. When both died, in 1376 and 1377 respectively, John became the effective regent of England in the minority reign of his nephew (the Black Prince’s son King Richard II). Despite these distractions, though, he continued to style himself king of Castile, displaced in England. Then, after years of impasse, in 1385 the army of Portuguese King João I defeated Castile and allies at the battle of Aljubarrota, leaving the Spanish kingdom weakened. With the blessing of Richard II and parliament, John sailed from Plymouth to conquer Castile and rule it as a Plantagenet domain. Before John’s departure, Richard gave his uncle the gift of “a golden crown... and ordered all to call the duke King of Spain, and to accord him royal honours on all occasions”. The English arrival at Corunna was meticulously timed. John’s party landed on the feast day of James the Apostle (Santiago), patron saint of Spain – emblematic of his desire for his kingship to be seen as God-given. Also disembarking were goldsmiths, painters, embroiderers, cooks, minstrels and chaplains, as well as John’s wife and three daughters, Philippa, Elizabeth and Catherine, and their ladies. The contingent, which included young Ralph, Baldwin and Thomas, also counted among its number John’s trusted Castilian chancellor, Juan Gutiérrez, and Richard Burley, marshal of his army, who had fought alongside him at Najéra. Another campaigner was Sir Thomas Percy, keeper of Roxburgh Castle, who invested heavily in John’s claim and brought with him more than 200 men. John had earlier requested that Percy pay his own expenses, and those of his men, in return for profits from the war – such as loot or prisoners to be ransomed – which might amount to a significant sum. John’s first target was the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, sacred heart of Spain. As he had hoped, there was no conflict: terms were quickly agreed, and he was ceremonially handed the keys to the city before crowds of spectators. At the town of Orense, in a manner befitting a king, John established a chancery and had his own coins minted using bullion transported from Plymouth. He clearly intended a perpetual English occupation of Castile – but this would not go unchallenged. The news soon reached Juan Trastámara, Enrique’s son and successor, at his castle in Zamora, south-east of Galicia. Juan, who had anticipated an attack via Portugal, launched a diatribe against the English, branding them unholy “schismatics”. Left with only a skeletal fighting force after defeat at Aljubarrota, Juan sought French aid. Oliver de Clisson, the constable of France, agreed to help; he was stationed in Castile with a small contingent of soldiers, and French king Charles VI promised another 2,000 men at arms. Raising a red flag Juan was advised to adopt the French tactics of evasion and scorched earth. Crops were burned and, as black smoke billowed across the plains, towns and villages were stripped of supplies. An abundance of strongholds littered the plains of Castile, reflected in the kingdom’s arms – golden castles upon a red flag – and many residents of towns and villages were evacuated to fortified garrisons. Bridges were destroyed, livestock was removed from pasture, and personal letters were intercepted to detect evidence of any traitors conspiring with the English. Juan had made Castile as hostile to the enemy as possible in the hope that John’s army would perish in the late summer heat, when the ground was so arid and barren the men could “hardly breathe… their mouths were full of sand”. And indeed the chronicler Jean Froissart wrote that “the days grew hotter and hotter, until no one dared to go out riding after nine o’clock unless he wanted to be scorched by the sun”. The hopeful mood of John’s army as it disembarked at Corunna now evaporated in the blazing sun that blasted the barren Castilian landscape. The situation worsened in August when a sickness swept through the English ranks, claiming many lives; in September it took Lord Walter Fitzwalter, one of John’s most valued men. Shady dealings Trapped in Galicia with a rapidly sickening army, John was left with two options: sue for peace or make a formal alliance with the Portuguese. So in November 1386 he met João I in the village of Ponte de Mouro, on the Castilian-Portuguese border, to discuss the terms of a military pact. In the shade of a canopy, the two men formalised plans for a major Anglo-Portuguese invasion of Castile. João promised to lead 5,000 men himself and, in return, John would extend Portuguese territory by granting land along the border. The pact would be sealed with a marriage between João and Philippa of Lancaster, John’s eldest daughter, who would become queen of Portugal. The campaign was revived. It soon became apparent, though, that John’s influence did not extend beyond his own men. Soon after the Portuguese army moved out of Porto at the end of February 1387, there was an awkward exchange in which John learned that the Portuguese had demoted him. Rather than leading the vanguard, as he had at the battle of Najéra, that role was claimed by Nun’Alvarez, constable of Portugal. João, uncomfortably torn between his commander and his new father-in law, did little to improve the situation for John. This slight showed that control lay with João and his Portuguese army, not with the English. The alliance that had seemed so promising had in fact compromised John’s influence. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/06/GettyImages-578338654-2-f00d739-e1622713896514.jpg" width="1024" height="708" alt="John of Gaunt (far left, in blue, under the arms of England and France) feasts with João I of Portugal" title="John of Gaunt (far left, in blue, under the arms of England and France) feasts with João I of Portugal. Despite this depiction of amity, the Portuguese were deeply suspicious about English intentions on the Iberian peninsula (Photo by Photo 12/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> The agreed objective was the city of León, a tortuous journey that took the army through Portugal and Castile. The route passed a series of garrisons, opportune targets for siege, conquest and plunder. Among the first was Benavente, south of León. Without siege engines, an attack on the largest garrison in Castile was ambitious, and the attackers first made camp away from the town, out of range of the bowmen on the high walls. However, Benavente was also occupied by French soldiers, and English and French began to fraternise here for the first – but not the last – time during the invasion. Many who served John in Spain were seasoned soldiers, having experienced campaigns in France. Some of the French in Benavente recognised English men, calling out to them and, in a display of traditional chivalry, arranging jousts and tilts. The Portuguese looked on in disbelief, and a wave of scepticism – about the loyalty of the English soldiers, and even about John’s intentions in Castile – swept through their ranks. They saw the Englishmen’s actions as an insult to their own loyalty. The animosity already fermenting among their leaders thus infiltrated the rest of the men. Abandoning hope of taking Benavente, the joint army advanced deeper into Castile to the small town of Valderas where, despite the inhabitants’ attempts to thwart pillaging, the ample pickings attracted the attention of hungry soldiers, deepening the rift. As the army entered the town, Portuguese and English began to fight over the potential booty, until it was decreed that the English could plunder for the first half of the day, then the Portuguese for the second. After a few hours, though, agitated Portuguese soldiers stormed the town, leading to further skirmishes until João galloped forward and ordered his soldiers to stand down. By this point, the relationship had completely disintegrated; there was more friction between the English and the Portuguese than there was action against the Castilian enemy. In an attempt to rescue the campaign, they took aim at Villalpando, a garrison south of León controlled by the constable of France, Olivier de Clisson, with the intention of an assault leading to a pitched battle. That hope was again thwarted by the climate. As spring turned to summer, the sun scorched the earth at midday and the horses, weak and parched, mauled the hard, dry ground for want of grass. Thirsty soldiers sucked at grapes and drank heavy Portuguese wine, becoming drunk and dehydrated, many stripping off their clothes in an attempt to cool off. Temperatures plummeted overnight. Then, writes Froissart, “came the morning chill which struck through their whole bodies, giving them sickness and fever and afflicting them with flux [dysentery]”. These fluctuations in temperature, combined with malnourishment and dehydration – from the wine and agonising bouts of dysentery – led to more deaths in the camp and the further spread of disease. This wave of deaths stole many of John’s best men and, with them, his morale. By the end of May he had lost Lord Scales, Lord Poynings, his son-in-law Thomas Morieux, his chamberlain John Marmion and, most painfully, his dearest friend and loyal marshal of his army, Simon Burley. John’s response was to retreat into his own company. “The Duke of Lancaster was at his wits’ end and often weighed down by anxiety,” wrote Froissart. “He saw his men – the best of them – exhausted and ill and taking to their beds, while he himself felt weary that he lay in his bed without moving... yet from time to time he would get up and do his best to seem cheerful, so not to discourage his men.” Disease had shadowed the English campaign through Spain, and the loss of men was immense: more than 800 squires, archers, knights and barons perished at Villalpando alone, and survivors lamented that “our lord of Lancaster has brought us to Spain to die”. One knight, Thomas Quinebery, escaped Spain and met Jean Froissart on his way home to England, enfeebled but grateful for his life. He informed the chronicler that John had lost at least half of his army. And what of Ralph Bulmere, Thomas Chaucer and Baldwin Saint George, the eager young squires who had disembarked at Corunna in July 1386? We know that the latter two made it back to England. But if Quinebery’s estimation is correct, statistically it’s unlikely that their companion survived the summer. English soldiers now began to desert the disease-infested camp at Villalpando, where John waited to receive word on terms for a truce from Juan Trastámara. He was forced to come to terms not only with his failure to take Castile but also with the huge loss of life. As soldiers packed up and left the camp, João angrily called them traitors, and John bowed his head and wept into his horse’s mane. Having failed to take Villalpando, let alone León, the remaining army retreated towards Portugal, camping outside the walls of Salamanca en route. Seeing the sorry state of the ravenous English men, French soldiers who occupied the city took pity on them, delivering cartloads of supplies to the camp. This offering was reciprocated with an invitation to the French, and a knight called Renaud de Roye brought 50 knights and squires to a joust arranged by the English. The Portuguese, meanwhile, were forced to scavenge birds’ nests on the sides of the roads for sustenance. A crown of gold Back in Portugal in early June, John of Gaunt met the ambassadors of Juan Trastámara at the castle of Trancoso, and appointed Sir Thomas Percy to conduct peace negotiations. A key term was the marriage of Juan’s son, the soon-to-be prince of Asturias, to Catherine of Lancaster, John’s daughter. The marriage would guarantee succession to the throne of Castile, grafting John’s bloodline onto the dynastic family tree of Spain. “Immense riches” were sent to John, including mules laden with crates of gold – payment for relinquishing his claim to Castile. So a sorrowful John of Gaunt abandoned the goal he had pursued for 20 years. As a parting gesture, he arranged for the delivery of a personal gift to Juan Trastámara: the gleaming golden crown given by Richard II to John as he left England the previous year, full of ambition and hope. Following the failure of his Castile campaign, John’s interest in Spain waned. Returning to England in 1389, he promoted clemency and spent his final years as a peacemaker, playing a political long game amid Richard’s volatile tyranny in an attempt to protect his family and legacy. When John of Gaunt died at Leicester Castle in February 1399, his son, Henry Bolingbroke, was in exile and all seemed lost. Yet John’s legacy did endure. Young Bolingbroke returned to claim the English throne as Henry IV. And John’s daughter Catherine became queen consort and then regent of Castile. Through her arose the most famous alliance of the 16th century – the marriage between her great-granddaughter, Catherine of Aragon, and Henry VIII. The dynasty had come full circle. Despite his failure in Castile, John of Gaunt became the father of long lines of famous monarchs in England and Spain – kings and queens who dominate the pages of history books to this day. This article was first published in the May 2021 edition of BBC History Magazine
“We were trying to find stories that tell us about resilience – history as a kind of therapy”: Bettany Hughes on finding hidden treasures during Covid
Historian and classicist Bettany Hughes tells us about her series Bettany Hughes’ Treasures Of The World and, in particular, some of the remarkable sights she saw on Gibraltar…
Q: The series was made when much of the world was in lockdown. What was it like filming in these circumstances? Bettany Hughes: We formed a very tight filming bubble, and we didn’t have a single positive Covid test. We thought, “What can we do, in a small way, when people seem to be really missing seeing other places?” More than that, it’s been a time when people are asking, “Who are we as humans? As a society, how do we work? And how do we survive?” We were genuinely trying to find stories that tell us about resilience – almost history as a kind of therapy. What were some of the highlights when you visited Gibraltar? I was blown away by the incredible Neanderthal remains. Specialists know about them, but I think the whole world needs to know. We saw two sites: Gorham’s Cave and Vanguard Cave, sea caves. A couple of years before we arrived, a Neanderthal footprint had been discovered, a footprint in the sand, which was baked by the sun. Remarkable. Then there’s so-called ‘Neanderthal art’, which is abstract. There are really incredible scourings in the rock face, and they’re definitely 100% consciously done, taking hours of work. Professor Clive Finlayson [director of the Gibraltar Museum] shared with us the idea that amazing art could well be an exact replica of the lines of the palm of the hand. They were creatures who imagined a world. And turning to Covid again, it’s our imaginations that have really got us through this crisis. whether it’s imagining a life beyond Covid, or scientists imagining solutions to the crisis. Professor Finlayson makes the point that many of us carry Neanderthal DNA in our genes. So in some ways, Neanderthals haven’t gone extinct, they’re living with us. What was their world like? Presumably, the sea level was lower and it was colder. Not that cold. At the caves we visited, they would have been looking out over a kind of savannah plain and hunting big animals. There’s a hyenas’ lair in one of the caves, and they discovered the remains of a Neanderthal child that had been taken. We were short-circuited into their lives. What else did you see? Gibraltar is associated with conflict. After the battle of Trafalgar, Nelson’s body was brought to Gibraltar and his death was first reported in the Gibraltar Chronicle newspaper. I saw the original copy. This is where Nelson’s death becomes history and it’s set down in this report, very detailed. It made us reflect on how we need heroes. We invest a lot in the idea that people are on the frontline, fighting in whatever way it is, to save others. Also, a number of the war dead are buried in the Trafalgar Cemetery on Gibraltar. It’s all a reminder that Gibraltar has often been right on the front line of history. At another point, I nearly rendered myself completely immobile by crawling through the interior wall at the so-called Moorish Castle. I get claustrophobia, but it was a way to look at some of the missiles that had been lobbed into the castle during one of the sieges by Frankish and Christian soldiers. Yet this is also a reminder Gibraltar was a place that realised its potential in the Islamic period [711–1462]. We were trying to make the point that Islamic dynasties are integral to Gibraltar’s history. Are there highlights you would flag up in other shows? Briefly, in the show on treasures of the Mediterranean, I got invited to stay overnight on the sacred island of Delos [the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis] on the night of a ‘super moon’, a privilege because nobody is usually allowed to stay there. In Istanbul, we were there when they drained the huge Basilica Cistern, built by Emperor Justinian, for restoration and to make the structure earthquake proof. I walked on the original sixth-century tiles, which will be covered with water as soon as the restoration is finished – a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The episode of Bettany Hughes’ Treasures of the World on Gibraltar will be broadcast on Saturday 11 September on Channel 4. Catch up on previous episodes via All4 Bettany Hughes was talking to Jonathan Wright
Two worlds collide: Spanish conquistadors and Aztecs
Five centuries ago, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés met Aztec emperor Moctezuma – a moment often depicted as the start of an unstoppable, inevitable European colonisation of the Americas. Caroline Dodds Pennock explains why the story is much more complex
On 8 November 1519, on a wide wooden causeway outside the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, the tlatoani (ruler) Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin – better known today as Moctezuma – and the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés came face to face for the first time. The meeting powerfully symbolises the confrontation between the great civilisations of Europe and the Americas: Cortés, standing as representative of the king of Spain and newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V; and Moctezuma, the ruler of an empire of millions. It was the start of a series of events that led to the downfall of the Aztec empire, and to the Spanish conquest and colonisation of Central and South America. The epic myth of the Spanish conquest has become famous in history: the daring adventurer Cortés and a few hundred plucky conquistadors who defied overwhelming odds to vanquish the brutal Aztec empire. But this is no simple tale of inevitable European dominance. This was a moment when events were finely poised, before the balance of power shifted decisively towards the Europeans. And, for the players in this delicate game, it was not at all apparent who held the strongest cards. The meeting on the causeway has been depicted as emblematic of the meeting between the Old World and the New. But various aspects hint at the complexities and nuances of the encounter. After Cortés rode his horse onto the causeway he seems to have been kept waiting while Aztec nobles conducted a ceremonial welcome: each saluted him in courtly Nahuatl language before bowing low to touch and kiss the ground. It must have been an incredible scene, with thousands of Aztecs watching from canoes and rooftops, hoping to catch a glimpse of the newcomers; the causeway, too, was packed with people. In a striking distinction, Spanish accounts of the event emphasise the precious metals and stones sported by the Aztecs, whereas the Florentine Codex – compiled later from the recollections of indigenous informants – gives priority to the glorious flowers that adorned the causeway in gourd vases, wreaths and garlands: sunflowers, popcorn flowers, magnolias, cacao blooms. With so many nobles involved, these initial ceremonies dragged on for perhaps an hour, and it seems that Cortés endured them a little impatiently. Fortunately, the proceedings were deciphered for him by an indigenous translator, Malintzin (known to the Spanish as Doña Marina or La Malinche), who had been given to him as one of a group of enslaved women. Her importance to the encounter cannot be overstated: it was actually her voice that both Moctezuma and Cortés heard during their ‘conversations’, with all the potential for misunderstanding and misinterpretation that entailed. Fascinatingly, though the Spanish sources largely ignore her involvement, indigenous accounts don’t contain the same omission. In those, Malintzin appears as a central character, both the voice of the Spaniards and an authority figure in her own right. After the initial ceremonies, calculated to make a grand impression and emphasise Aztec dominance, Moctezuma himself came out to meet the conquistadors. The tlatoani was carried onto the causeway on a litter with a magnificent canopy of green feathers, decorated with gold and jewels. The shimmering feathers and the green jade dangling from the canopy border, were among the most precious objects in the Aztec world, enveloping Moctezuma in a lustrous display of his power and wealth. He was surrounded by the high lords of his empire, themselves fabulously dressed, but the tlatoani’s rank was marked out by his ornate sandals. All the other Aztecs, even the highest nobles, went barefoot to honour the man who stood so close to the gods, and only his closest advisors were permitted to look him in the face. When Moctezuma stepped down from the litter, Cortés dismounted and the two engaged in a fascinating exchange that reveals their very different values. It is hard to know precisely what happened. However, it seems that Cortés proffered his hand to Moctezuma but was rebuffed by his attendants – one did not touch the tlatoani. Moctezuma instead extended his own hand – taking control of the interaction – before accepting from Cortés a necklace of worked-glass beads scented with musk, which the conquistador had been wearing. In return, Moctezuma offered the Spaniard flowers, then put over the conquistador’s head two necklaces made of beautiful and valuable red snail shells, from which dangled eight shrimps made of pure gold, each the size of a man’s hand. After this rather unequal swap, the tlatoani invited Cortés into the city. It was the beginning of a famous relationship that led ultimately to the death of Moctezuma, and to Cortés’s triumph over a city in ruins. Things never dreamed of before Thanks to the dominance of sources produced by conquistadors or their supporters, this story is typically told from the Spanish perspective: scores of readers have experienced the entry into Tenochtitlan through the wide-eyed wonder of the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his popular account of “things never heard of, seen, or dreamed of before”. The awe of the Spanish is not hard to imagine. Tenochtitlan was almost certainly the largest city that any of them had ever seen. Home to perhaps a quarter of a million people (more than double the population of contemporary London), this island city was a teeming metropolis, with palaces and temples towering over clean streets, fertile gardens, orderly canals and huge plazas. The market at Tlatelolco alone drew around 60,000 people each day – similar to the population of Seville, the largest city in Spain at that time. This was, incontrovertibly, a civilisation, much to the consternation of the conquistadors. The Aztecs are often stereotyped as an ‘ancient’ culture: superstitious, Stone Age, in thrall to bloodthirsty gods. It is easy to forget that Moctezuma, a contemporary of Henry VIII, was not just a powerful warrior but also a literate, effective administrator whose people were highly educated, well-organised and determined. Our narrative of the conquest usually follows the path of the Spanish expedition, but the meeting on the causeway was actually the culmination of more than six months of careful manoeuvring from both sides. From the time Cortés landed on the Mexican coast in March 1519, Moctezuma had been carefully monitoring his movements, despatching emissaries to meet the new arrivals and sending astonishing gifts of gold and silver; these were intended to persuade the invaders to depart his territory and move on to others less powerful or less willing to pay tribute. To the Spanish, though, these courteous exchanges were not a deterrent but an invitation: they saw them as confirmation of the existence of a wealthy kingdom in the interior that could be easily exploited. In a precarious position after defying his local superior – Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba – Cortés saw the incredible treasures sent by Moctezuma as an opportunity to buy the support of Charles V. He promptly dispatched these riches to the Spanish king, along with emissaries to plead his case and secure his authority in a land he had no real mandate to conquer. This was just one prong of a complex strategy designed to legitimise Cortés’s actions and ensure his success. First, he ordered that his ships be disabled, forcing his followers to commit to the mission and realise – as Cortés himself said later – that “they would conquer and win the land, or die in the attempt”. This do-or-die attitude was not merely a facade. Having departed from Cuba without the governor’s sanction, Cortés had been declared a rebel against the crown and, as a result, was fighting on two fronts for much of the expedition. Indeed, in May 1520 he found himself facing a force sent by Velázquez to arrest him, but in a characteristically bold (and lucky) move, Cortés convinced the Cuban soldiers to join his quest for gold and glory. It was not until 1523, two years after the fall of Tenochtitlan, that Cortés learned he’d been named governor of New Spain, and he spent most of his life fighting Velázquez’s accusations. It’s clear, then, that his position here was far from secure. Cortés’s strategy on the ground was to exploit local divisions, winning allies (or at least reasonably compliant bystanders) through a combination of force, diplomacy and terror tactics. By the time he arrived at Tenochtitlan he was accompanied by some 10,000 indigenous warriors. These men were Tlaxcalans, close neighbours and enemies of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan; after initial fierce resistance, they had been convinced to throw in their lot with the Spaniards against their old adversaries. The entry into Tenochtitlan was an awe-inspiring moment for the conquistadors. Superficially, the balance of power favoured Moctezuma: he controlled the stage, and the Spaniards found themselves at the heart of a hostile city, in the centre of an empire of millions, surrounded by highly trained warriors who thought nothing of offering their opponents to a merciless god. “What men in all the world have shown such daring?” boasted Díaz. But the presence of a multitude of Tlaxcalans on the causeway must surely have affected the dynamic of the meeting. Bravery comes much more readily with 10,000 allies at your back. When Cortés rode towards Tenochtitlan, he was at the head of a strikingly foreign force – unfamiliar clothes and weapons, white faces, beards, strange crosses and banners all feature in later depictions of the invading Spaniards by indigenous people – but he also led an army in which the conquistadors were outnumbered by Mexicans at least ten to one. We don’t know what the Aztecs thought about the Tlaxcalans in their midst, but we know that their fellow Mexicans were luxuriously accommodated in the city with the Spaniards, and that many Tlaxcalans died alongside their allies on the so-called ‘Night of Sorrows’. This was the night when, after simmering hostilities erupted into open warfare following the slaughter of unarmed Aztec warriors at a festival, the conquistadors fled the city, losing most of their party in the process. Moctezuma was also killed at some point during this clash, though it’s unclear whether he died at the hands of the Spanish or his own people. Cortés and his allies then orchestrated an unlikely reversal, besieging the city with brigantines constructed in Tlaxcala and carried over the mountains. Ravaged by a smallpox epidemic to which they had no immunity, the Aztecs nonetheless fought to the death, refusing to surrender until their new ruler, Cuauhtemoc, was finally captured in a canoe on the lake. By that stage, the city the Spaniards had so admired was in ruins. Moment of uncertainty This story is not new. It has been told and retold: as the triumph of technology; as a tale of heroism and European derring-do; as a story of Spanish barbarity and vicious conquest; as the salvation of savage souls; as the last gasp of a great empire or the start of a new one. And yet we keep returning to it – to this moment of historical tension, this instant when the world stood at a tipping point. It is, for me, this very uncertainty that draws us back. There is an inexorability to history. The story marches towards the present, towards the birth of brutal European empires and the annihilation and exploitation of indigenous communities. The violence of conquest, combined with the merciless epidemics that swept through the Americas in the following decades, left all but a small fraction of the original population dead, families and communities in ruins, and thousands of Mexicans enslaved and transported to Spain. But for the participants in this historical tragedy, the outcome was not inevitable. When the Aztec empire fell, indigenous Mexicans did not passively submit to Spanish rule. For many, one faceless emperor was simply replaced by another, and they adapted accordingly. The Tlaxcalans fought for their rights as allies to the Spanish, successfully asserting their autonomy and gaining exemption from tribute. They sent emissaries to Spain, won coats of arms, and became prominent players in colonial politics. Other cities also asserted themselves, swiftly adapting their knowledge of legal and literary conventions to a new alphabetic system of communication, proving their adaptability and resilience, and learning the delicate art of negotiation with the crown. Even the noble families of Tenochtitlan – the conquistadors’ fiercest opponents – successfully asserted their ‘traditional’ rights, intermarried with the Spanish elite, and gained posts and grants at court in Spain. The meeting between Cortés and Moctezuma was remarkable for all that it symbolises. For the Spanish, it was a precarious juncture. For the Aztecs, it was the arrival of a strange force to be dazzled and dominated. For the Tlaxcalans, it was an opportunity to exploit. It is a reminder that history is a mirror with many faces. The side we most often see reflects European dominance, but tilt the angle and we see other perspectives, other possibilities, other people. It is tempting to see this as the start of European global dominance, but the route by which we got here was not clearly signposted to its participants. In the 500 years since Moctezuma met Cortés, the world was remade. Yet a closer look at this moment reminds us that this history was not direct or inevitable, but a mosaic of endlessly complex possibilities. What to read more about the Aztecs and the New World? Here are some of our most popular articles... Aztec sacrifice: how many people were really put to death? What can the Aztecs tell us about themselves? The secrets of their ‘indigenous annals’ Tudors in America: how England’s New World colonies came into being Caroline Dodds Pennock is lecturer in international history at the University of Sheffield and author of Bonds of Blood: Gender, Lifecycle and Sacrifice in Aztec Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, paperback 2011) This content first appeared in issue 14 of BBC World Histories magazine