Departed on Air Force One

‘Departed on Air Force One for the northeastern part of England in the Newcastle area, Tyne and Wear County, which was coincidentally the only county that the Labour Party didn’t lose in the elections yesterday. I’m at somewhat of a disadvantage in discussing the finance matters because Callaghan, Fukuda, Giscard, and Schmidt have all been finance ministers and have economics as a background. I’ve already begun to see the need for me to travel more and learn more about other leaders and countries.’ This is from the published diary of Jimmy Carter - 100 years old today - written while serving as president of the United States, 1977-1981. 

James Earl Carter Jr. was born on 1 October 1924, in Plains, Georgia. His father, a segregationist, was a successful peanut farmer and businessman who ran a general store and invested in farmland. His son was educated locally, then at Georgia Southwestern College, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and, from 1943, the Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. Soon after he married Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister, with whom he would have four children. In 1948, he began officer training for submarine duty and served aboard USS Pomfret; being promoted to lieutenant junior grade in 1949. He was preparing to become an engineering officer for the submarine Seawolf in 1953 when his father died. He resigned his commission and returned to Georgia to manage the family peanut farm operations.

Carter quickly became a leader of the community, serving on county boards supervising education, the hospital authority, and the library. In 1962, he won election to the Georgia Senate, but failed in 1966 to win election as governor. In 1971, though, he successfully ran again becoming Georgia’s 76th governor. He was the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections. Among the new intake of young southern governors, he attracted attention by emphasising efficiency in government and the removal of racial discrimination.

When Carter announced his candidacy for president in December 1974, he was virtually unknown, but after the national disappointments of Vietnam and Watergate, Democratic voters welcomed a fresh choice. He chose Minnesota senator Walter Mondale as his running mate. In November 1976 the Carter-Mondale ticket won the election, capturing 51% of the popular vote and garnering 297 electoral votes to Gerald Ford’s 240. On his second day in office he pardoned all Vietnam War draft evaders. He went on to create a national energy policy, and to pusue the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. His administration established the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Education.

The end of Carter’s presidency was marked by a series of troubles:  the Iran hostage crisis, an energy crisis, the Three Mile Island accident, the Nicaraguan Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In response to the latter, Carter ended détente, imposed a grain embargo against the Soviets, and led the multinational boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.That same year he lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.

Subsequently, Carter established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights. In 2002 he received a Nobel Peace Prize. He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and help eradicate infectious diseases. He has written numerous books, ranging from political memoirs to poetry, while continuing to comment on global affairs, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At 100 years old, he is the longest-lived former U.S. president. Further information is available from Wikipedia, The White House, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and The White House Historical Association.

During his presidency, Carter kept a diary by dictating his thoughts and observations several times each day. It was edited and annotated by Carter himself to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010 as White House Diary. This can be previewed online at Googlebooks. The Los Angeles Times judged the book thus: ‘It all makes for a uniquely unfiltered look at what occupying the Oval Office day to day means, as well as a bit of second thinking and score-settling.’

Here is an extract from Carter’s own preface: ‘Readers should remember that I seldom exercised any restraint on what I dictated, because I did not contemplate the more personal entries ever being made public. When my opinions of people changed, for instance, I did not go back and amend the entries. [. . .] Despite a temptation to conceal my errors, misjudgments of people, or lack of foresight, I decided when preparing this book not to revise the original transcript, but just to use the unchanged excerpts from the diaries that I consider to be most revealing and interesting. Admittedly, it was somewhat painful for me to omit about three-fourths of the diary, but for the sake of compression I concentrated on a few general themes that are still pertinent - especially Middle East peace negotiations, nuclear weaponry, US-China relations, energy policy, anti-inflation efforts, health policy, and my relationships with Congress. I also included some elements of my personal life that illustrate how it feels and what it means to be president. [. . .] Throughout this book, I wrote explanatory notes to help the reader understand the context of the entries, bring to life the duties of a president, offer insights into a number of the people I worked with, and point out how many of the important challenges remain the same. At times we presidents have reacted to similar events in much the same way; at other times we’ve responded quite differently. In presenting this annotated diary, my intention is not to defend or excuse my own actions or to criticize others, but simply to provide, based on current knowledge, an objective analysis of differences. Whenever possible, I attempt to articulate what lessons I learned and offer my own frank assessment of what I or others might have done differently.’

And here are several extracts from White House Diary.

17 February 1977
‘Mama returned from India, and I had a brief meeting with her early this morning. 1 think the trip was a superb diplomatic effort, and the State Department later said that we have the best relationship since 1960, to a large degree because of Mother’s visit there and her obvious concern about the Indian people. She got along well with Mrs. Indira Gandhi, by the way, whom she formerly had not liked or admired as a political figure.

Got my first haircut up in Rosalynn’s little beauty parlor next to the dining room. The barber is from Puerto Rico, and he and I spoke Spanish during the haircut. I think he might take over the regular barbershop in the West Wing shortly since the present barber is a strong Nixonite.

Amy and I went swimming for the first time. The temperature was freezing, and the outdoor pool had been slightly heated. We enjoyed it, though, and I’m going to try to do as many things as possible with Amy. I see her at least for supper every night, and quite often, I’d say two or three times a week after supper, we have some time together, either bowling or going to a movie or going swimming; and then the weekends we have always several hours together. She seems to like her school fine, but she still prefers Plains, which she has known all her life.’

6 May 1977
‘Departed on Air Force One for the northeastern part of England in the Newcastle area, Tyne and Wear County, which was coincidentally the only county that the Labour Party didn’t lose in the elections yesterday. I’m at somewhat of a disadvantage in discussing the finance matters because [Jim] Callaghan, [Yasuo] Fukuda [Japan], [Valéry] Giscard [D’Estaing, France], and [Helmut] Schmidt [Germany] have all been finance ministers and have economics as a background. I’ve already begun to see the need for me to travel more and learn more about other leaders and countries. There’s a great desire in the Western world for a restoration of confidence, and I believe that unless that confidence is derived from the strength of our country it won’t be coming from any other source. There doesn’t seem to be any jealousy of the strength of the United States, only an eagerness to see their own nations consulted on matters and an assurance that we won’t make peremptory decisions that might be embarrassing to them at home. Every one of the other leaders is very weak politically, and they recognize that at least for the moment I’m quite strong politically. They also see that to show a friendly relationship with me but to retain their own independence and prerogatives is a good combination for them politically. And, of course, I’m eager to accommodate that desire on their part.

I was surprised at the strength of Pierre Trudeau [prime minister of Canada], who seems to be at ease with all the others, quite uninhibited in his expressions of opinion, and they seemed to listen to him quite closely.

The Germans have some concern about our human rights position because they feel that in a quiet, unpublicized way they’ve extracted many East European citizens into the western European area. 
Callaghan showed us the room at 10 Downing Street where we will be meeting. It’s so small that only twenty-two people can get in it, but it’s been set up in a wonderful way, I think, for free discussions where there will be a disinclination to make speeches. Obviously there’s a tremendous struggle among staff members and others to get inside the room, but I think Callaghan did wisely to hold the room so there’s no way to stretch the limit.’

28 May 1977
‘We went fishing on Blackbeard Island, leaving about 6:00 a.m. and getting over there about 9:00 a.m. We fished for bluegill bream, and Charlie and I caught the largest bream I’ve ever seen. I enjoyed talking with Kirbo about the problems that I face as president, with big business, who are a greedy bunch; or the special interest groups; Congress; some of the foreign leaders. Quite often when I talk to him this in itself is helpful, but in addition he’s sometimes able to solve my problems. He has unique interrelationships both inside and outside of government, and he’s close enough to understand me well, and very discreet. He’s able to separate his law practice from his relationship with me, which is also reassuring.’

See also A boiling cauldron.

His eye became dull

‘This day cut short all our hopes and fears about our only remaining boy. At an early hour this morning his eye became dull, Anna tried repeatedly to make him take nourishing drink, but without effect.’ This is from the diary of John Allen Giles, an historian primarily known as a scholar of Anglo-Saxon language and history, who died 140 years ago. Though his long diary is full of relatively short and mundane entries (even about his own wedding), he does occasionally write more emotionally and at length, as in the entry about the death of his son.

Giles was born in 1808 at Southwick House, in Mark, Somerset. He was educated at Charterhouse and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, successfully completing his degree and MA before becoming a fellow at the same college. Though planning to become a barrister, his parents persuaded him to go into the church. He was ordained deacon in 1832 and priest in 1835. He held the curacy of Cossington, Somerset, jointly with the headship of Bridgwater School. In 1833, he married Anna Sarah Dickinson, with whom he had four children; that same year vacating his fellowship. 

Having published Scriptores Græci Minores in 1831, and a Latin Grammar in 1833, he was appointed to the headmastership of Camberwell College School, and two years later, headmaster of the City of London School. However, after losing the confidence of staff and pupils he was asked to leave in 1840. He retired to Windlesham Hall, Surrey, a house he had built, and there engaged in literary work, as well as teaching private pupils. In 1846, Giles became curate of Bampton, Oxfordshire, where he continued taking in students, and where he wrote many books, at least two of which were suppressed by Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford. He produced, among others, editions of most of the major English medieval chroniclers, including The British History of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1842), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (1847), and The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great (1858),

In 1855, Giles was imprisoned for falsifying details of a wedding ceremony (which had been an act of kindness for one of his employees), serving three months of a year-long sentence. He moved to Notting Hill, and in 1857 took the curacy, with sole charge, of Perivale in Middlesex. In 1861 he became curate of Harmondsworth, but resigned after a year and went to live at Cranford, where he again took on pupils, subsequently moving to Ealing. In 1867 he bought the living of Sutton in Surrey, which he held for 17 years. He died at the rectory there on 24 September 1884. Further information is available at Wikipedia and the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography (log-in required).

Giles kept a diary for most of his adult life. He left behind six manuscript volumes written up, mostly in 1878, as a fair copy from rough contemporaneous notes. The manuscripts were passed down through the family, and eventually gifted to the Bodleian Library. They were edited by David Bromwich for the Somerset Record Society and published in 2000 as The Diary and Memoirs of John Allen Giles. Here are several extracts as found in the published edition.

17 December 1833
‘I was married this morning in Bridgewater parish church and went back to a collation at the house of Mr Dailey at the end of West Street, to which he had lately removed from Huntworth. After the usual ceremonies, Anna and I started in a post chaise towards Bristol on our way to Oxford; but, owing to various delays we did not get beyond Crosse, and stopped for the night at the last inn on the road towards Shut-shelf, at the angle formed by the road over the hill and the road to Axbridge.’

18 December 1833
‘We started this morning rather late by a coach which went in the direction which we intended to take; but before we had gone far, I was seized with pain similar to what I had felt some few months before, and we were obliged to stop at Whitechurch, where I passed the night very ill at ease. The people at the Inn did all they could to relieve me.’

19 December 1833
‘I was able to continue the journey to Cheltenham, where we again slept, at the Plough Inn.’

20 December 1833
‘Went on to Oxford and took apartments at a house nearly opposite All Saints church in the High Street. Douglas Giles was residing in St Mary Hall Lane.’

21 December 1833
‘We went to breakfast this morning in Corpus, at the rooms of Crouch, who was next to me in the college list, and by my removal would succeed to a fellowship. After breakfast he went off to Christ Church cathedral to be ordained, but seemed much puzzled to know whether it was necessary for him to wear a white neck-tie or not.’

6 February 1934
‘We went to a large evening party or conversazione at Mr Cantwell’s , No25 Wimpole street. Old Mr Wood, for some time an itinerant lecturer on ancient history, was present. He once spent an evening at my father’s house, and somewhat astonished me both in history and etymology. He said Stonehenge was an antediluvian structure destroyed by the deluge, and derived “righteous’’ not from “right,” but as a corruption from “rightwise.” He however made himself very agreeable this evening, and showed that he was in general very well informed.’

16 February 1934
‘Our man servant John went to Mr Pickering’s in Chancery Lane and brought home the works of Matthew Paris. The same morning Mr Charles Grant, who had taken the pencil drawing (coloured) of me several years before at Oxford, took a sitting of Anna and me for the oil paintings which we still have.’

18 February 1934
‘Anna and 1 dined with Mr Melhuish, a most wealthy and respectable merchant, living at Peckham. His son, who attended the Camberwell Collegiate School, was a very genteel and well-behaved boy, but backward in his learning, from ill health. He had some complaint in his knee, and had a stump fixed to it, on which he walked, the leg sticking out behind him caused him much embarrassment in moving about among the school-boys.’

21 February 1934
‘I spent the afternoon at the British Museum, copying out some Latin poems of George Herbert, which I was preparing to edit for Mr Pickering.’

3 March 1934
‘Anna and I dined at Mr Webb’s, where we met Dr Laing and his two daughters Nancy and Jemima. Mr Walsh also, who held a good appointment in the Custom House, an antiquary, a virtuoso, and a dandy, was present; also another gentleman who knew Bp Heber and W. H. Ireland who forged the Shakespear Manuscripts. Dr Laing kept a school of verv respectable boys, and Anna knew him from her childhood.’

24 May 1837
‘This day cut short all our hopes and fears about our only remaining boy. At an early hour this morning his eye became dull, Anna tried repeatedly to make him take nourishing drink, but without effect. At a quarter before 7 o’clock she offered him some, but he said “No, no!”. She said to him “Arté, Arté, where’s papa?” Upon which he threw back his right arm over, as I lay beside him in the bed. At 7 o’clock his breathing for a minute or two became thick: the dreadful cough was coming on, but want of strength prevented it; one or two long gasps for breath succeeded, and my poor child was gone. The room was still covered with his playthings, the box of tools which Smith the baker had given him only a week before, and the box of bricks which had so often furnished him amusement. His third birthday, if he had lived so long, would have been the 10th of September. He had endeared himself to all the family in a thousand ways: no doubt the case is the same with other persons in the case of their first two or three children, and we now felt that our house was left desolate. The little fellow used to sit with me every day in my little library at Camberwell, whilst I was writing, and would play for hours with an old knife, wooden spoon, steel pencil-case, ivory paper-knife, piece of sealing-wax and many other such articles, which I kept in the cabinet, and took out occasionally to amuse him. It was not 2 months ago that I found him in the long passage of the City of London School running up and down among 300 of the boys, all of whom seemed as delighted as he was. He was a general favourite with all our friends both at Camberwell and elsewhere. He was an especial favourite with my father and all at Frome. His second visit to Frome in last December & January had particularly endeared him to my father, who seldom came into the room without taking him on his knee and singing the old song “Arthur O’Bradley.” That which gave me the greatest pleasure was the readiness with which he acquired the names of my books. Those which he knew the best were - The Byzantine Historians - Dr Johnson’s Works - Dr Lardner’s Works - Sir Philip Sydney - The Cruquian Scholiast - Gregorius Corinthius - and the Forty Commentators. Thus, by his death our house was desolate. In the afternoon we received the visits of several friends, all of whom were grieved but not surprized to hear what had happened.’

25 May 1837
‘Mrs Thurlby, of Camberwell Grove, called and sate more than two hours with us. She was deeply grieved at the loss of our poor boy, whom, next to her only child Ann, she loved better than any body in the world. The last time she had called before this, about a week ago, Arthur no sooner saw her than he asked for a watch which she used to give him to play with, when he was at her house, which was next to our own at Camberwell. The last visit he paid her was about 5 weeks ago: I carried him part of the way, and he walked the rest, until we reached Mr Thurlby’s house. As we passed our old residence in Chatham Place, No 17, in Camberwell Grove, he said pointing to it “Der is de old house, papa!” As Mr Coleman, who occupied it, was my undertenant until my own tenancy expired, we went in to call, and Arthur went at once to the folding doors which separated the dining room from the library behind it, and said “Is dat papa’s liblaly?

3 February 1862
‘Date of a letter to me from my college friend Dr Bloxam about the Chichele professorship of History at Oxford, for which I meant to become a candidate. But my connection with Oxford was now so slight that I had little chance, and indeed cared little about it. I am naturally disinclined to discharge public duties, and above all things hate committees, whereas in these days almost every thing is done by a committee.’

13 February 1862
‘I was agreeably surprized at receiving a letter from the Rev. Evan Davies, formerly master of the Grammar School at Dorchester, of whom I had heard nothing for 40 years - Also an almost illegible letter from a stranger Mr Upton of Cashel in Ireland.

23 April 1862
‘This morning, as I was in Bosworth’s shop in Regent Street, Mr Herbert Watkin, who occupied the rooms upstairs, ran down and begged me to go up and sit for a photograph. I went by invitation to a conversazione at the Marybone Institution, where the first thing I saw was my own photograph in a frame over the fire-place.

Mr Herbert Watkin no doubt knew that I had delivered a lecture at the rooms of that institution and therefore was likely to be known to the members.

About this time I got many letters from my friends hoping I should obtain the professorship at Oxford, and from others who tried to assist me.’

24 May 1862
‘This afternoon as my servant was driving me home from W. Drayton in my dog-cart some pleasure vans came furiously along the road and struck against us, breaking the carriage in such a way that, although the owner of the vans professed to mend it, the cart was fit for nothing afterwards.’

5 July 1862
‘A garden party at Fulham Palace.’

18 August 1862
‘A letter dated this day reached me at Frank’s house, Stourbridge, but I was so pressed for time that I was obliged to return home without going to see William and Anna Louisa as I could have wished.

About this time I began to enquire about an advowson of some living which I might buy, so as to present Herbert to it hereafter. Also at this very time Mr DeBurgh, instigated by his wife, who hated me as a liberal churchman, and afterwards became a Roman Catholic, tried to eject me from the vicarage house at Harmondsworth. I of course resisted, and compelled him to consent to my remaining up to a certain time, when I promised to give up the Vicarage House.’

16 September 1862
‘Date of a letter from Sophy de Vere with a polite invitation from Mrs O’Brien to pay them a visit. Mrs O’Brien told Sophy that she could not put down my life of Thomas à Becket, so thoroughly did she agree with me about him.

This won’t break us

‘The day began with the barber telling me that, as of September 19, we will have to wear a badge bearing the word “Jew,” even six-year-old children. This won’t break us either, even though life will be made more difficult.’ This is from the diaries of Dr. Willy Cohn, born 135 years ago today, who was one of many thousands of Jews executed by the Nazis at Ninth Fort in Lithuania. According to the publisher, the diaries show how the process of marginalisation under the Nazis unfolded within the Breslau Jewish community and how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps.

Cohn was born on 12 December 1888 in Breslau, Poland (though then it was part of the German Empire) into a wealthy Jewish merchant family. He studied history at the universities of Breslau and Heidelberg and married Ella Proskauer in 1913. They would have two children, before divorcing in 1922. He served as a soldier on the Western Front during the war, and won an Iron Cross for bravery. After the war, he secured a position as teacher at Breslau’s Johannesgymnasium in 1919, remaining there until 1933. During this time, he wrote several books, including biographies of Karl Marx, Robert Owen and Friedrich Engels. He married Gertrud Rothmann in 1923 with whom he had three children.

After being forced into retirement for ‘political reasons’ in 1933, Cohn became a board member of the Jewish Museum in Breslau, and he lectured at the Jewish Theological Seminary also in Breslau. However, as the persecution of Jews in Germany grew worse, he and his family began to consider emigration. They visited Palestine in 1937, but there seemed no employment prospects especially for Cohn who was not healthy enough for physical labor. By the time they wanted to flee, at the start of the Second World War, it was too late - the Nazi regime had begun its reign of terror, Wikipedia explains, and no longer allowed emigration. The Cohns and two of their children were arrested in November 1941, and deported to German-occupied Lithuania. A few days later, they were shot in Ninth Fort, together with 2000 other Jews from Breslau and Vienna.

Cohn’s life story stands out and is now remembered because of the diaries he kept all his adult life. These were found (along with a 1,000-page memoir in Berlin) in 1945. Excerpts from the diaries, in the original German, were first published in 1975, as was the memoir in 1995. Then, in 2005, the diaries were published in a fully annotated version, as edited by Norbert Conrads. This latter edition was translated into English by Kenneth Kronenberg for publication as No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941 (Stanford University Press). 

From the publisher’s blurb: ‘With great immediacy, the diaries of Willy Cohn, a Jew and a Social Democrat, show how the process of marginalization under the Nazis unfolded within the vibrant Jewish community of Breslau - until that community was destroyed in 1941. Cohn documents how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps. He chronicles the efforts of the community to maintain some semblance of normal life at the same time as many made plans to emigrate or to get their children out.’

From the translator’s note: ‘Willy Cohn was a complex individual: an Orthodox Jew and a socialist; an ardent Zionist and a staunch German patriot; a democrat but an admirer of Nazi resolve and sometimes even policy; a realist and an idealist often not up to grappling effectively; generous to a fault but also occasionally petty and stubborn. These and other contradictions within his personality, and the wealth of detail that poured from his pen, give us a unique view of a disorienting and frightening time in Germany.’

Here are several extracts.

17 December 1938
‘The first evening of Hanukkah. This morning I worked on my box of manuscripts and threw a few things out. This is the time of year when it makes sense to burn things. Delved into decades well before mv birth, when my father built his beautiful store with iron determination! Life smiled on us German Jews back then.

Went to synagogue, Shabbat afternoon service; first day of Hanukkah. The men’s section was very full, and we all proudly sang the old song of the Maccabees, which has been heard for more than two thousand years and will hopefully be heard for another two thousand. I firmly believe in the future of our people, and in its healthy inner life force. The Jews who pray in our synagogue, and who returned from the Buchenwald camp, all said the Birkat Hagomel, the prayer of deliverance.

Spoke with Tischler, the classifieds representative, and he told me that the Famlienblatt has been liquidated, that Schatzky sold it. How many Jewish livelihoods are now finished as a result; there will be no renewal of Jewish intellectual life in Germany now that all of the major sources of income have been blocked.

Celebrated Hanukkah in the evening with all three daughters. Trudi held Tamara in her arms. It is my most fervent hope that my family will celebrate this day next year in Erez Israel, in freedom. Whether I can still accomplish that, with all the efforts needed to get ready! Tamara will be five months old day after tomorrow! Susannchen knows all of the verses of “Ma’oz Tzur.”

This morning I sent both of my big girls to see Mother. Ruth was able to get half a chicken, and we sent a bar of soap along as well. Unfortunately, I can’t do much; I’m short on money right now myself, and I don’t know how we are going to get through this. I don’t want to ask anyone, either. It is very difficult for a father when he is unable to do what he would like to do, but of course that is also happening to innumerable Jews right now. I think that few of us Jews wall escape this mouse trap. Sometimes, a person must push his thoughts aside and bear in mind all of the good things that he has!’

18 December 1938
‘I don’t think I have yet noted that Curt Proskauer returned home from Buchenwald. His health seems to have been badly affected by it. I called him yesterday.

I went to see Czollak to greet him after his return from Buchenwald. He was in bed because of a nail-bed infection; other than that, thank G’d, he did not look too bad. He is very impractical about his emigration plans. I will help him to the extent I can. Urbach, in Jerusalem, is treating him and Daniel very decently. We have to help each other through these times!’

19 December 1938
‘Unfortunately, Trudi has to make the rounds of the police this morning about Ruth’s passport. First the district station, and then headquarters. She doesn’t want me to do it. The matter of Ruth’s identity card seems to be going smoothly; she will pick up her passport tomorrow. I don’t expect any other problems either. I am always quite anxious whenever one of my children’s emigration approaches. But it is not helpful, and I just have to get through it. We must fight against every sort of failure.’

22 July 1939
‘Yesterday was a horrible day. Terrible upsets, with Trudi as well. Arrangements for additional payments to the Palestine Trust Office so that we can at least take Tamara with us. To the bank, where I spent an hour negotiating; then came Dr. Latte, whom we had selected as our foreign currency advisor. We found a possible way out, namely if we can use the boys’ money that was placed in blocked accounts, we may be able to take Susanne with us. I cannot even imagine separating from the child.

Regarding yesterday, I must add that I was summoned to the Gestapo in the morning in the context of a so-called “street action.” They wanted my families personal information to the extent that they are registered in Breslau, and then he asked, “When are you emigrating?” I told him that my son had applied for me. “How long could that take?” I replied, “A few months.” “You can go home now," he said. The whole matter took a few minutes.’

2 September 1939
‘Thank G'd, the first nightly blackout went without incident. Sat on the balcony. There was a nice breeze, and I could see the darkened city. Toward evening, Trudi returned from shopping with the news that the airport in Warsaw had been bombed, and that Pless, in Polish Upper Silesia, had apparently been leveled. In the morning we will hear what is true and what is not.

I didn’t attend synagogue in the evening, nor did we light the Kiddush candles. Lay awake in bed thinking about Wölfl. We are completely cut off, and our thoughts alone connect us. It is sometimes difficult to turn them off. Emotionally, in fact, I have lost all hope that our emigration to Palestine might succeed. One has to consider the loss of money that would make possible such a transfer. But it makes no sense tearing my hair out about that now; all I can do is live from hour to hour. At this moment, I have no idea how the other powers will respond to the German-Polish war.

From a Jewish perspective, I can say the following about the situation. The Aryan population is surely not well disposed to us, and if Germany suffers failure in Poland, we can almost certainly expect pogrom-like assaults. Today on the street for the first time I heard two older men make an anti-Semitic remark: “The Jews must get out.” It wasn’t aimed at me, but that makes it all the more characteristic.’

6 September 1941
‘Yesterday a lovely and quick letter from Wölfl dated August 20, full of warmth. He asks about each and every one of us; a boy on whom we may rely.’

7 September 1941
‘No newspaper to be had yesterday. Paper is in such short supply that newspapers are quietly sold out. A number of streetcar lines won’t be running in the morning as of this Sunday. There is a shortage of personnel! I think that Germany’s situation continues to be very unfavorable, even though the newspapers report victories each day.’

8 September 1941
‘The day began with the barber telling me that, as of September 19, we will have to wear a badge bearing the word “Jew,” even six-year-old children. This won’t break us either, even though life will be made more difficult. In spite of it all, we will have to try not to lose our nerve. All of these measures show how increasingly bad Germany’s situation is, and how the people’s rage is being vented on the most helpless part of the population! This trumps the Middle Ages! Each violation carries a fine of 500 marks or one month in jail! In addition, travel by Jews has been banned throughout the Reich, and the obligation to report to the Gestapo tightened.

Worked in the Cathedral Archive and did some excerpting for Germania Judaica! Nonetheless, these matters coursed around my mind! Director Engelbert told me that I may continue to work there despite the badge. He is a man of great character, far different from Walter, the archivist, and Mother Huberta. Mother Innocentia is also a person with a large spirit.

9 September 1941
‘Dictated a considerable piece of my memoirs yesterday afternoon; I have now written more than 1,000 pages. I also wrote a lengthy letter to Wölfl! Given current circumstances, it is hard to find the right words. I was exhausted by evening. I went for a walk, but I am very unnerved by the decree about the yellow badge! I read it this morning!’

A boisterous yeare

Ralph Josselin - an Essex vicar, teacher and farmer - died 340 years ago this month. Though not particularly familiar as a historical name, he is remembered as an important early diarist. Indeed, his diary, with its many details of rural life in the 17th century, inspired a major research project to document the history of the village where he lived, Earls Colne, all the documents for which have been made available online. The originator of this project, Alan Macfarlane, is also the modern editor of Josselin’s diary, and he suggests Josselin might in time be seen to stand beside other great English diarists.

Josselin was born in 1617 at Roxwell in Essex, the first son and third child of a farmer. His early education was at Bishop’s Stortford, and, by his own account, he wanted to be a clergyman from an early age. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, receiving his BA in 1636–1637. His father died around the same time, and Josselin spent the next few years supporting himself in teaching teacher and curate posts. In 1641 he became vicar of the parish of Earls Colne, Essex, where he stayed for the rest of his life, embracing many different roles, not least teacher and farmer. Josselin died in August 1683, and was buried at Earls Colne on 30 August. Further information is available from Wikipedia and English Historical Fiction Authors.

Most of what we know today about Josselin comes from his diary, first edited by E. Hockliffe and published in 1908 by the Camden Society for the Royal Historical Society. According to Hockliffe’s preface in that edition, less than half the original diary was included since many entries were of ‘no interest whatever - endless thanks to God for his goodness - ‘to mee and mine,’ prayers, notes about the weather or his sermons, innumerable references to his constant ‘rheums’  and ‘poses,’ trivial details of every day life, records of visits to his friends etc. etc.’ The aim was ‘to extract so much personal detail as is required to give a picture of the actual life of the author, and to include everything that possesses any historical interest.’ The author’s spelling was ‘carefully preserved’. In the earlier years, Josselin made entries frequently, often daily, but from about 1665 onwards there was usually only one entry a week.

Hockliffe concludes his preface: ‘A kindly if somewhat self-seeking figure [Josselin] lives again in the pages of this diary, and when his story ceases abruptiy on July 27, 1683, with a broken entry, we feel with real sorrow that we have parted from a friend.’

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), the Camden Society’s scholarly edition omitted almost three-quarters of the original; the Josselin that emerged from it was ‘very much the public man, whose comments on the great religious and political issues of his day were what most merited attention’. ‘He was a moderate parliamentarian,’ the ODNB continues, ‘active in electioneering and petitioning and worried by the emergence of more radical groups like the Levellers, and served for a brief spell as a chaplain in the parliamentarian army and assisted locally with the implementation of measures for the reform of the church and augmentation of livings; he suffered plundering by royalist troops for his active organization of the defence of the village in 1648 at the siege of Colchester. Although unhappy at the king’s execution, he retained his support for what he called the ‘honest party’ even after the Restoration. Josselin’s well-informed comments on political events both in England and on the continent (on which he made an annual end-of-year report in his diary) reflect the social depth to political knowledge in mid-seventeenth-century England.’

Renewed examination of the manuscript diary in the 1960s led to a much fuller edition in 1976: The diary of Ralph Josselin, 1616-1683 edited by Alan Macfarlane and published by Oxford University Press. The picture that emerges from this modern edition allows the reader, the ODNB says, ‘to see Josselin properly in context, to sympathize with much that seems familiar in his life, and to puzzle over much that is foreign and strange.’ In particular, it shows him falling in love and marrying a wife, various emotions towards his children, chronic concerns about his finances (though a generous bequest from a wealthy parishioner helped establish him as a farmer in the mid-1640s) and his health, and an interest in public affairs, the weather, etc.

Of Macfarlane’s edition, the ODNB concludes: ‘By the time of [Josselin’s] death he had secured a comfortable material existence. But even to the end, his diary, maintained until the month before his death, reveals a man trying to fulfil his parochial duties, continually concerned with his children’s lives, receptive to political news (particularly of the fate of godly dissenters), and still, amid entries increasingly caught up with documenting his failing health, continuing to note, ‘God good to me’.’

Macfarlane, himself, in his introduction appears a bit mixed up in his opinion of the diary. He waxes lyrical: ‘Among many other topics to which he turns our attention are the following: accidents, food, geographical mobility, gifts, gossip, imagery, insanity, the poor, pregnancy, servants, wages. Anyone interested in the seventeenth-century thought and society is likely to find information of interest. An ordinary subject index cannot do justice to such a rich and complex document.’ And he adds, rather meaninglessly, ‘The Diary is, above all, unique as a total document.’

‘With all its redundancy and repetition,’ Macfarlane comments, the diary can ‘still be read straight through with great enjoyment’. But then he points out that ‘idiosyncrasies of grammar and style may, at first, provide difficulties,’ and that to reap ‘rich rewards’ the reader will have to ‘persevere and enter Josselin’s world, so strange and yet familiar’. Moreover, Macfarlane says that Josselin ‘does not emerge as lovable, or even endearing - his conscientious and suffering figure simply stands before us, to wonder at, pity and for all its frailty, respect.’

Finally, Macfarlane concludes, ‘posterity will judge [Josselin’s] right to stand besides Pepys, Heywood, Woodford, Kilvert - the great English Diarists of all time.’ Though, personally, I don’t think much of Macfarlane’s list of ‘great English Diarists’, Pepys apart of course. Much of Macfarlane’s modern edition is available to read online at Googlebooks. It is also available in a slightly awkward format - one web page for each day - on an extensive website concerning the parish of Earls Colne.

The 1908 edition of Josselin’s diary by Hockliffe is fully and freely available at Internet Archive, and it is from this that the following extracts have been taken. (These are almost all the diary excerpts for 1657 to be found in the 1908 edition, and take up little more than a couple of pages. By contrast, the modern edition requires more than a dozen pages to include all Josselin’s actual entries for that same year.) Josselin’s forecast that 1657 is likely to be a boisterous year, in the first of the extracts below, appears to have been proved true by his round-up of world events in the last of the extracts.

25 March 1657
‘When I come to view my estate this yeare, I find my expenses far deeper then divers yeares formerly, and my receipts more then ever, God bee blessed. Last year my estate was about 670l. I find I have about 590l. and I have pd for land to Mr Butcher 150l. and to Mr Weale 85l. which is in whole 235l. so yt I have had a great increase this yeare of 145l. or yr abouts, with the life & health of my family, no trouble in my estate; the Lords love in Christ is my life and joy. I have received in to my hand Mrs Maries land on which I am out 108l. 9s. This yeare 1657 is like to bee a boisterous yeare in the world.’

28 March 1657
‘Talke now of a king, the Lord bee our king and lawgiver.’

17 April 1657
‘Divers men bustle to make Xt king; truly Cromwell will carry it from him at present, but surely yt is a time when Xt shall reigne more then inwardly.’

19 April 1657
‘Heard this weeke the men that are to make Christ King were plotting agst the Protector, and that he seized on divers of them.’

7 May 1657
‘Heard as if Blake desired landmen to attempt the Canaries.’

15 May 1657
‘At night M. Hubbard of London with mee to teach two boys at 3l. per annum if they come.’

23 May 1657
‘John Eldred a scholler yt brought mee in 40s. yearly went from mee; the Lord will provide.’

17 July 1657
‘Protector proclaimed at Halsted by ye Sheriffs.

30 August 1657
‘This day I publisht the act about the Sabbath, the Lord doe good by it.’ [An act to punish ale-house keepers for profaning the Sabbath by permitting swearing, drunkenness, gaming etc. in their houses.]

9 September 1657
‘After hopes of a dry Sturbridge faire it rained very much, so that the wayes were exceeding heavy and dirtie, Mr H. had some hopes to make 500l. of his hops; the last yeare he made 790l.’

30 September 1657
‘A publiq fast in regard of the general visitacon by sicknes, wch was a feavor & ague very mortal in some places.’

8 October 1657
‘Being up, & riving logs, Mr Elliston came & told mee Dr Wright was most certainly dead, I had no warning of his sicknes, I was troubled that such a providence found mee not better imployed, and disposed, but I blesse God though I am like to loose 60l. per annum, yet yt is not much trouble.’

3-4 November 1657
‘Mr Cressener acquainted mee that my Lord of Oxfords Chaplain was come to town and he thought about the schoole. Mr R. H. made some proffers in it, and I desired to observe God therein, but my owne inclinations rather tend to lay it wholly by, desirous God would open some helpe to mee in carrying on the worke of the ministry.’

9 November 1657
‘Dr Pullein sent mee an offer to procure mee the schoole, if I would helpe him to his living; I had no desire thereto.’

17 November 1657
‘Mrs Marg: Harlakenden having laid out 120l. at London, about wedding clothes, her father being exceeding angry, I appeased him, so that though he chid her by letter for her vanitie, yett he paid the scores.’

25 November 1657
‘Rd my copies of my two fift parts of ye farme on Colne Green from my Cosin Josselin; yt purchase cost mee about 310l; God blesse it to mee & mine.’

27 November 1657
‘Dr Pullein was with mee, shewed mee his grant from my Lord; he lost the living, for which I am sorry, and I the schoole; Gods will be done; I doe not find any trouble on my spirit in it; he desired mee to teach the schoole till spring for halfe the proffits; I consented; Lord I blesse thee for that kindnes and mercy.’

3 December 1657
‘Spent some time in prayer at Mr Cresseners, the Lord good to mee yr in; about yt time at London, Dr Pullein’s busines was put to that issue, that if ye Earl of Oxford would stand by his present- acon of Dr Pullein, he might come into his living; the Lords name bee praised for this kindnes, the issue is in thy hand, oh Father.’

5 December 1657
‘Riding over to the Earl of Oxfords to Bently hall, and speaking with Dr Pullein, a full issue was put to that treaty about the schoole; I not having it, in wch disposall of God I desire to bee satisfied, and sitt down contentedly, knowing that he will order and direct every thing for good to mee; I was very sicke at night and vomited, which I judged a mercy to mee.’

8 December 1657
‘Talke as if some uprore in ye kingdom, the militia horse suddenly called togither and the army foot called of again towards the sea.’

12 December 1657
‘Saw a booke esp: of Welsh prophecies, which asserts that Cromwell is the great Conqueror that shall conquer Turke and Pope. I have many yeares on scripture grounds and revolutions judged him or his govermt and successors, but esp. my heart fixt on him, to bee most great; but sad will bee things to Sts and him; this booke of prophecies giveth mee no satisfaction, but perhaps may sett men a gadding to greaten him.’

15 December 1657
‘Mrs Margaret Harlakenden married to Mr John Eldred; her father kept the wedding three dayes, with much bounty; it was an action mixed with pietie and mirth; die. 18, the company departed the priory. God gave an emint answer of prayer to him & mee in providing her so good an housband beyond expectation; Mr Bridegroom gave mee 1l. & Mr H. 1l. God in mercy requite their love and bounty.’

27 December 1657
‘If it bee worth writing this tels yt raisins of ye sun were sold at 12, 14, 16, 18d. per pound.’

8 January 1657/1658
‘Received an order to bee an Assistant in Ejecting of Ministers & Jan. 8. schoolemrs for insufficiency; had the offer of two schollers, which I undertake to teach; the Lord helpe mee in all my callings.’

25 January 1657/1658
‘This day was the last of my 41 yeare, in which God hath been with mee and blessed mee, and though Dr Wrights death cutt mee short in the schoole, yett I find my heart quiett, rowling it selfe on God, and no way questioning his providence to take care of mee. God hath given mee three children instead of 3 more which I had buried, and thus my dreame of 3 shoots in my parlor cutt down and growing up againe is made good.

Abroad in the world matters are likely to bee sad, yet I find not the apostacy to increase; this yeare the Emp. of Germany died, and no other yet chosen in his stead; his son the K. of Hungary assisted Poland, wherby the Swedes are driven into Prussia. The P. of Transilvania forced to retreate home, and was deposed for his attempt to please ye Turke. Brandenburg made peace with the Pole and left Swede. The Moscovite was in a manner quiet this summer, yet the Swede brusht him a little in Livonia. Denmarke invaded the Swede in Bremeland, to his losse in Juitland; the Hollander proclaimed warre agst Portugal & tooke pt of the Brasile fleete. The English assisted France agst Spaine & gott footing in Flanders, the Venetians beate ye Turke, but in the winter he regained some Iles as Tenedos; the Turke hath issue male. The Q. of Spain delivered of a sonne, ye King 53 yeares old and no son til now; the affaires in Italy & Catalonia not very boisterous. The Spaniards invaded Portugal by land & tooke some places; thus warre breaks out, but no eminent matter was done in the world; the English Protector setled by Parliamt and a house of Lords in title erected January 20th.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 20 August 2013.

Edward VI, the Boy King

‘The lordes of the counsel sat at Gildhaul in London, where in the presence of a thousand peple they declared to the maire and bretherne their slouthfulnes in suffering unreasonable prices of thinges, and to craftesmen their wilfulnes etc, telling them that if apon this admonition they did not amende, I was holly determined to call in their liberties as confiscat, and to appoint officers that shold loke to them.’ This entry about a cost-of-living crisis comes from the remarkable diary of Edward VI, dubbed the Boy King, who died 470 years ago today aged only 15.

Edward, born in October 1537, was the only legitimate son of Henry VIII. His mother Jane Seymour died 12 days after his birth. On the death of his father nine years later, Edward became king. The realm, however, was governed by a Regency Council, which, initially, was led by Edward’s uncle Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. Towards the end of 1549, Somerset was arrested for mismanaging the government - the year had seen widespread social unrest across England - and eventually beheaded in January 1552.

Thereafter, the Regency Council was led by John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick, and, from 1551, by Duke of Northumberland. But, as Edward fell ill in early 1553, so a succession crisis loomed. Edward himself named Lady Jane Grey, a great-granddaughter of Henry VIII and a Protestant married to one of Northumberland’s sons, as his heir presumptive. A few days after Edward’s death on 6 July, Jane was indeed proclaimed queen, though there is academic debate over whether she was ever a legitimate monarch. A further nine days on, the Privy Council changed its mind and named Edward VI’s Catholic half-sister Mary as queen. Jane was executed the following year, aged 16.

Edward, himself, probably died of tuberculosis, though some have claimed he was poisoned. He was a precocious child, and his short reign is considered to have made a lasting contribution to the English Reformation, and to have seen radical changes in how the church operated. The pace of change stalled then with Edward’s successor, Mary, until Elizabeth took the crown in 1558. Further biographical information is readily available from Wikipedia or English History for example.

Remarkably, while king, Edward kept a diary - its 68 leaves are held by the British Library. He may have been prompted to do so by one of his tutors. In order to make a complete chronicle of his reign, he started with a description of his childhood until 1547, followed it with a list of past events (mostly referring to himself in the third person), and then from March 1550 he kept daily entries until November 1552. It was first published in Gilbert Burnet’s The History of the Reformation of the Church of England (volume 4), and later, in 1857, as part of the Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth by John Gough Nichols (from which the following extracts are taken). Nichols says the diary’s value does not lie in its completeness, nor in its minute accuracy, but rather in ‘its incidental disclosures of state policy, and in its continual reflection of the character and pursuits of the young monarch himself’. So dense are the historically important references, that Nichols’s footnotes often take up far more of the page than Edward’s diary itself.

In his 1966 study, England’s Boy King: The Diary of Edward VI, Wilbur Kitchener Jordan sums up the diary’s importance: ‘Surely in English history, and very possibly in European history, there is no historical source quite of the nature of the Chronicle of Edward VI. It is in part private diary, in part an educational exercise, and in part considered notes on policy and administration. The document stands as one of the major sources for our knowledge of the entire reign and not infrequently constitutes our only source of information for events of considerable significance.’ The full text of the diary - in the Literary Remains and in The History of the Reformation - is available online at Internet Archive and Googlebooks respectively.

24 May 1550
‘The embassadours came to me, presenting the ligier, and also delivering lettres of credaunce from the French king.’

25 May 1550
‘The embassadours came to the court, where thei saw me take the oth for th’acceptation of the treaty, and afterward dined with me; and after diner saw a pastime of tenne against tenne at the ring, wherof on th’on(e) sid(e) were the duke of Sowthfolk, the vice-dam, the lord Lisle, and seven other gentlemen, appareled in yelow; on the other, the lord Stra(nge), mons. Henadoy, and yeight other, in blew.’

26 May 1550
‘The embassadours saw the baiting of the bearis and bullis.’

27 May 1550
‘The embassadours, after thei had hunted, sat with me at souper.’

28 May 1550
‘The same went to see Hampton court, where thei did hunt, and the same night retourne to Durasme place.’

29 May 1550
‘The embassadours had a fair souper made them by the duke of Somerset, and afterward went into the tems (on the Thames) and saw both the beare hunted in the river, and also wilfier cast out of botis, and many prety conceites.’

30 May 1550
‘The embassadours toke ther leve, and the next day departid.’

15 April 1551
‘A conspiracy opened of the Essex men, who within three dayes after minded to declare the comming of straungers, and so to bring peple together to Chemsford, and then to spoile the riche men’s houses if they could.’

16 April 1551
‘Also of Londoners, who thought to rise on May day against the straungers of the cité; and both the parties committed to warde.’

24 May 1551
‘An earthquake was at Croidon and Blechingliee, and in the most part of Surrey, but no harme was donne.’

10 July 1551
‘At this time cam the sweat into London, wich was more vehement then the old sweat. Por if one toke cold he died mthin 3 houres, and if he skaped it held him but 9 houres, or 10 at the most. Also if he slept the first 6 houres, as he should be very desirous to doe, then he raved, and should die raving.’

11 July 1551
‘It grue so much, for in London the 10 day ther died 70 in the liberties, and this day 120, and also one of my gentlemen, another of my gromes, fell sike and died, that I removed to Ampton court with very few with me. [The epidemic called the sweating sickness, which remains a mystery today, had visited England before but this was the last major outbreak to occur, and thereafter vanished.]’

1 December 1551
‘The duke of Somerset cam to his triall at Westmyster halle. [The record mentions three indictments: 1) that he had designed to have seized the King’s person, and to have governed all affairs; 2) that he, with one hundred others, intended to have imprisoned the earl of Warwick, afterwards duke of Northumberland; and 3) that he had designed to have raised an insurrection in the city of London.]

He answerid he did not entend to raise London, [. . .] His assembling of men was but for his owne defence. He did not determin to kill the duke of Northumberland, the marquis, etc., but spake of it and determined after the contrary; and yet seamid to confess he went about there death. The lordis went togither. The duke of Northumberland wold not agree that any searching of his death shuld bee treason. So the lordis acquited him of high treason, and condemned him of treason feloniouse, and so he was adjuged to be hangid. He gave thankis to the lordis for there open trial, and cried mercy of the duke of Northumberland, the marquis of Northampton, and th’erle of Penbroke for his ill meaning against them, and made suet for his life, wife and children, servauntes and dettes, and so departed without the ax of the Toure. The peple, knowing not the matter, shouted hauf a douzen times, so loud that frome the halle dore it was hard at Chairing crosse plainly, and rumours went that he was quitte of all.’

22 January 1552
‘The duke of Somerset had his head cat of apon Towre hill betwene eight and nine a cloke in the morning.’

8 June 1552
‘The lordes of the counsel sat at Gildhaul in London, where in the presence of a thousand peple they declared to the maire and bretherne their slouthfulnes in suffering unreasonable prices of thinges, and to craftesmen their wilfulnes etc, telling them that if apon this admonition they did not amende, I was holly determined to call in their liberties as confiscat, and to appoint officers that shold loke to them.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 6 July 2013.

Irreversibly into the abyss

’The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason as among the Russians? [. . .] The Germans have been able to take good advantage of this characteristic of the “Russian swine.’’ Revolutionary Russia faces the task of either changing its ways or flying irreversibly into the abyss!’ This is from a ‘remarkable’ diary left by Iurii Vladimirovich Got’e, a Russian intellectual and historian, born 150 years ago today.’ 

Got’e was born in Moscow on 30 June 1873 (new style). His father was an upmarket bookseller whose grandfather had founded the family bookshop in 1799, and Got’e was the first eldest son not to take over the business. Instead, he chose to go to Moscow University and pursue a scholarly career in history and philology. Following graduation, he undertook a year of military service, then he taught in schools and from 1903 at the university. In parallel, he worked first for the Archive of the Ministry of Justice before being employed in the library at Rumiantsev Museum, eventually becoming head librarian.

In 1913, Got’e published his doctoral dissertation on the history of local administration. Two years later, he was appointed professor at Moscow University. Over time, he also spent several years teaching at the Geodesic Institute and at the municipal Shaniavski University. From 1919, he switched to teach archaeology, and he participated in numerous excavations in Eastern Europe. His lectures on the region’s pre-history were published in 1925 and 1930. Between 1934 and 1941, he was associated with the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History. Between 1898 and 1930 he was first academic secretary and then assistant director of the Lenin All-Union Library. He died in 1943. There is very little further information about his life freely available online, but see The Free Encylclopedia.

However Got’e did leave behind a set of diaries kept through five years (1917-1922) of revolution, civil war, family tragedy, hunger, and progressively deteriorating living conditions. These were translated and edited by Terence Emmons for publication by Princetown University Press in 1988 as Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got’e - see Amazon or Googlebooks to preview a few pages. According to Emmons, Got’e wrote the diary entries on a stool in the doorway of the room in communal quarters where he and his family took refuge after their own apartment had been sequestered in 1919.’ Toward the end, Emmons continues, ‘the entries become noticeably less frequent, mainly because by this time Got’e was afraid to keep the diary at home, but also because of his exhaustion, which was no doubt mingled with awareness that the new regime, having survived the Civil War, the Polish war, and the internal rebellions of 1921, was there to stay: the great uncertainty about the immediate future of the country that had sustained the chronicle for nearly five years had begun to fade.’ 

According to the publisher: ‘Among the few diaries available from inside early Soviet Russia none approaches Iurii V. Got’e’s in sustained length of coverage and depth of vivid detail. Got’e was a member of the Moscow intellectual elite - a complex and unusually observant man, who was a professor at Moscow University and one of the most prominent historians of Russia at the time the revolution broke out. Beginning his first entry with the words Finis Russiae, he describes his life in revolution-torn Moscow from July 8, 1917 through July 23, 1922 - nearly the entire period of the Russian Revolution and Civil War up to the advent of the New Economic Policy. 

This remarkable chronicle, published here for the first time, describes the hardships undergone by Got’e’s family and friends and the gradual takeover of the academic and professional sectors of Russia by the new regime. Got’e was in his mid-forties when he wrote the diary. At first he felt that Bolshevism meant complete doom for Russia, but eventually his ardent patriotism led him to accept the Bolsheviks’ role in preserving the integrity of the Russian state. The diary was discovered in 1982 in the Hoover Institution Archives, in the papers of Frank Golder, to whom Got’e himself had entrusted it in 1922.’

Here are several extracts.

17 July 1917
‘The newspapers are a little better. The hope has been kindled since July 15 that at the cost of yielding all of Galicia and complication of the already disgusting Ukrainian question (since, after all, the whole of the Ukraine lying beyond our borders is again in the power of the Germans), at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, the idiots will get smarter. Kerenskii’s efforts to create a genuine coalition government, with the exception of the adventurist Chernov and similar adventurists, ideologue-fools, and maybe charlatans, deserves every sympathy, but isn’t it already too late? Haven’t they been screaming and yelling and confusing the unfortunate Russian - stupid, ignorant, and unprepared for any kind of Rospublic (as Ivan Pavlov from Pochep says) - for too long? The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason as among the Russians? (1) From ignorance; (2) from the complete absence of a feeling of solidarity and fatherland; (3) from the fact that the leftist ideologues have been courting the minority nationalities for a good hundred years now; (4) from the benighted and anticultural deceitfulness that was remarked already by the foreigners’ narratives of the seventeenth century. The Germans have been able to take good advantage of this characteristic of the “Russian swine.’’ Revolutionary Russia faces the task of either changing its ways or flying irreversibly into the abyss!’

18 July 1917
‘[My] mind turns always to the same (subject). A quiet day without mail. A feeling of complete indifference on the one hand; (on the other] a feeling of regret that a people that could have made something of itself is committing suicide. What will we be - Muscovy, China, or Turkey? Will we have the energy to get on our feet? Although Kerenskii evoked the heavy hammer in the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, we may be only the glass that splinters. In any case, of all the combatant peoples, we have turned out to be the weakest in nerve, and thus Hindenburg’s thought is true - those with strong nerves will win. So everybody but us will win and logically should make peace at our expense: we will answer for all, and especially for our own stupidity, ignorance, and dishonesty. How often we all think: it’s good to no longer be tied to mama’s apron strings! In any case we are not a match for the Germans: they are unquestionably higher than we are in every respect, and most of all in personal endurance and courage; one can hate them, but it is impossible not to respect them.’

15 January 1918
‘A day without newspapers and with a small quantity of rumors; an extremely oppressive frame of mind, all the same. I saw V. F. Kokoshkin; that ebullient man is completely downtrodden and dispirited, and, in truth, he has cause to be. I His impressions from Petrograd: there everyone is even more dispirited than here. The blacks, led by A. A. Vyrubova, are playing some kind of role, but what kind is not clear to him. I have received information in the last few days from other sources as well that these forces are doing something. But to what degree are all these forces, those and others, organized? Isn’t it simpler to think that everything is happening spontaneously, without plan and with a complete absence of any kind of organization, like everything in Russia?’

20 July 1918
‘At the post office I read one of the bolshevik Pravdas - it seems that all is well in the West; if the Kadets are not adopting a German orientation, they are at least gravitating toward an understanding with them; the Czechoslovaks are squeezing the bolsheviks in various places. Everything else remains unchanged. A letter from Malfi - it seems they are leaving for France today. The good and gentle ideologue - but we will still do something. Work in the meadow all day; we all get dog-tired.’

8 April 1919
‘They have taken Odessa, probably because no one wanted to defend it. All the same, the policy of the Allies seems to me completely incomprehensible; now they start something, now they give it up. In regard to the Russian south, however, I do not see things as hopeless. Yesterday I had to undertake a journey to Iaroslavl’ station and to Mashkov Pereulok, whence I brought home twenty-three pounds of bread, four and one-half pounds of salt, and eighteen and one-half pounds of rye; I had an Alpine sack on my back, and two other sacks in my hands; thus the professor strolls around Moscow. The university question is progressively turning into a big mush. The bolsheviks, that is, Pokrovski! and co., have eliminated both of our history departments and replaced them with some kind of fantastic ones; some kind of further meeting is being proposed, but it all comes down to the fact that whatever straightforward appointment they may think up is better than the fiction of cooperation that was offered earlier. Something completely unimaginable is occurring on the streets of Moscow - one great puddle, which is traversed only by those who absolutely must go out.’

Route of Father Sarmiento

Martín Sarmiento, a much-admired Spanish scholar and monk, died all of 250 years ago today. He wrote on a wide variety of subjects, but he is mostly remembered for his book Viaje a Galicia, or Journey to Galicia, in which he recorded, diary-like, a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The route he took is now known as the Route of Father Sarmiento.

Pedro José García Balboa was born in 1695 and spent his childhood in Pontevedra, Galicia. Aged 15, he entered the Benedictine Monastery of San Martín in Madrid. There he became Father Martín Sarmiento and was mentored by Benito Feijóo, considered the most outstanding Spanish philosopher of the 18th century. There are few details of Sarmiento’s life readily available online, but Camino By The Way gives this brief assessment.

‘Father Sarmiento was an illustrious representative of the Enlightenment, the intellectual movement that promoted reason, individual liberty and religious tolerance. He fought superstition and ignorance throughout his life and encouraged the establishment of libraries in local towns. Father Sarmiento was an early champion of the necessity to understand, restore and preserve traditions and popular culture; as such, he made a strong contribution to the research and recovery of Galician culture. Improving his country’s economic status was also a major concern, which was typical of Enlightenment thinking at the time. [He] wrote on a wide range of disciplines including linguistics, theology, history, botany and medicine.’ Sarmiento died at the San Martin monastery on 7 December 1772. A little further information is also available at Wikipedia.

Sarmiento wrote several books during his lifetime, some even in the Galiican language. His most enduring legacy, however, is the diary he kept of a three-day pilgrimage he undertook in 1745, from Pontevedra, through the valley of Salnés to Santiago de Compostela. The 20 page manuscript formed the basis of a book edited by J. L. Pensado and published by the University of Salamanca in 1975 as Viaje a Galicia (Journey/Travels to Galicia). Much of this (in Spanish) can be previewed online at Googlebooks.

However, more recently the Salnés Union of Municipalities has published a comprehensive pictorial edition of The Route of Father Sarmiento to Santiago, across Salnés - in English and freely available online. The book contains a wealth of information about the route, as well as the architecture, culture, history, food etc, of the region. It also provides quotations from Sarmiento’s diary translated into English. Here are a couple of them.

‘On Monday 19 July I left Pontevedra for Santiago, travelling all across Salnés, Porto Santo, and Puntal point, Lourido, los Gallos point. Campelo, Río del Roboa, Río da Serpe. Combarro. Río de Cela. Chancelas and sand bank and Costoiras point. Samieira. Río de Ama. Arén. Ragió - Armenteira Priory. Bois de Raxó, Island of Tambo; from the sea peeks a tiny bud of an island, called Tenlo, facing Marín.’

‘I arrived on Thursday 22nd at Santiago, keen to beat the Jubilee. I did my diligences on the same Saint’s day and on the Saturday I went to the bulls or xovencos [young bull in Galician] in the morning and in the afternoon, to the college of San Xerónimo. I slept in the same college to see the fires by night, and they lasted nearly two hours. The multitude of people, particularly the Portuguese, was such that they didn’t pay us elders any attention. I heard the Penitentiary Father Goyri tell that on the day of the Apostle there were more than 30,000 people congregated in the cathedral, and many others gathered in other churches, and on the day of Pentecost, there were 22,000 people.

On the Saint’s day I made the offering to the judge of the court Saura de A Coruña. I registered at the archives of San Martiño where I am staying due to the kindness of Master Friar Pedro Mera, a Bishop and my co-disciple in matters of language. There are many precious Gothic instruments, and more than one hundred of them are judged useless.

I registered at the archives of the monks at San Pelaio or San Paio and I went inside two times. Most of the parchments, and there are many, are in the Galician tongue.’

The King went from his castle

Henry V, one the great warrior kings in medieval England, died exactly six centuries ago today. He is honoured especially for his military successes in France culminating in the famous victory at the Battle of Agincourt. There exists a diary-like account of the Battle -  amazingly so, since it must vie to be one of the very earliest of extant European diaries. Written in Latin by an anonymous priest, it was  translated into English for a 19th century history of Henry V’s expedition into France.

Henry was the eldest son of Henry, earl of Derby (afterward Henry IV), by Mary de Bohun. On his father’s exile in 1398, Richard II took the boy into his own charge, and knighted him in 1399. He was well educated, grew up fond of music and reading and became the first English king who could both read and write with ease in the vernacular tongue. When his father became king, Henry was created earl of Chester, duke of Cornwall, and prince of Wales, and soon afterward, duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster. From October 1400 the administration of Wales was conducted in his name, and in 1403 he took over actual command of the war against the Welsh rebels, a struggle that absorbed much of his time until 1408. 

Henry succeeded his father in March 1413. In the early years of his reign he was threatened by various rebels and conspiracies but suppressed them ruthlessly. However, his main ambition was towards France. Not content with lands ceded by the French at the Treaty of Calais in 1360, he laid claim to Normandy, Touraine, Maine, and to parts of France that had never been in English hands. Negotiations with the French and their King Charles, initiated during the reign of Richard II, were finally broken off in June 1415, but Henry was far advanced in his preparations for war.

Henry’s first campaigns in 1415 brought the capture of Harfleur and the great victory of Agincourt, triumphs which brought him much power in the European arena. The following year he was visited by the Holy Roman emperor Sigismund, with whom he made a treaty of alliance at Canterbury. The cooperation of these two rulers led directly to the ending of the papal schism through the election of Martin V in 1417. Using sieges, Henry gradually conquered of Normandy; and Rouen, the capital of northern France, fell in early 1419. Other successes followed, and, in 1420, Henry was recognised as heir to the French throne and regent of France; he was married to Catherine, the daughter of Charles VI. His triumphs were short-lived, though, as his health grew worse, and he died of camp fever at the château of Vincennes on 31 August 1422.  Henry VI, just 9 months old, became King. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, History.com, or The Royal Family.

An anonymous priest, it seems, accompanied Henry on his expedition to France and at the Battle of Agincourt; and he left behind a diary-like record written in Latin. This was translated into English to become the centrepiece of a History of the Battle of Agincourt and of the Expedition of Henry the Fifth into France in 1415 by Sir Harris Nicolas (published by Johnson & Co., 1832). The book itself can be freely downloaded from Internet Archive. However, it was also reviewed in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research (Vol 12, No. 46, summer 1933) by Sir James Edmonds. 

Edmonds titles his piece An Early War Diary - indeed, if the text is considered a diary it is one of the very earliest written in Europe to have survived - see The Diary Junction. He explains that the book has a narrative ‘deduced from such contemporary statements as were consistent with each other and with truth’. ‘The gem of the book,’ though, he adds, ‘is the translation of a diary, written in Latin, of an anonymous Priest who accompanied the expedition and was, he expressly states, present at Agincourt, where “I write this, sitting on horse-back among the baggage in the rear of the battle”. It is a first-class military record of the campaign, better kept than many diaries of 1914-1918.’ The translated diary covers the period from 7 August 1415, when Henry V embarked from Porchester, until 25 October, the day of the battle. Here are the opening passages of the text, and a section from a month or so later.

‘On Wednesday, the 7th of August, the King went from his Castle of Porchester in a small vessel to the sea, and embarking on board his ship called ‘The Trinity,’ between the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, he immediately ordered that the sail should be set, to signify his readiness to depart; and at the same time to serve as a signal to the fleet, which was dispersed among the sea ports, to hasten the more speedily to him. And when, on the following day, being Sunday, almost all had arrived, he set sail with a favorable wind. There were about fifteen hundred vessels, including about a hundred which were left behind. After having passed the Isle of Wight, swans were seen swimming in the midst of the fleet, which in the opinion of all, were said to be happy auspices of the undertaking. On the next day, being Tuesday, about the fifth hour after noon, the King entered the mouth of the Seine, which passes to the sea from Paris, through Rouen and Harfleur, and anchored before a place called Kidecaus, about three miles from Harfleur, where he proposed landing: and immediately a banner was displayed as a signal for the captains to attend a council; and they having assembled in council, he issued an order throughout the fleet that no one, under pain of death should land before him, but that the next morning they should be prepared to accompany him. This was done lest the ardour of the English should cause them, without consulting danger, to land before it was proper, disperse in search of plunder, and leave the landing of the King too much exposed. And when the following day dawned, that is on Wednesday, the vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the sun shining, and the morning beautiful, between the hours of six and seven, the noble Knight, Sir John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon the King’s cousin, having been sent by his desire before day-break, in the stillness of the night, with certain horsemen as scouts to explore the country and place, the King, with the greater part of his army, landed in small vessels, boats, and skiffs, and immediately took up a position on the hill nearest Harfleur, having on the one side, on the declivity of the valley, a coppice wood towards the river Seine, and on the other enclosed farms and orchards, in order to rest himself and the army, until the remainder of the people, the horses, and other necessaries should be brought from the ships. [. . .]’

‘[On 17th of September], a conference was held with the aforesaid Lord de Gaucourt, who acted as captain, and with the more powerful leaders, whether it were the determination of the inhabitants, still remembering the penalties of Deuteronomy, to surrender the town, without suffering farther rigour of death or war. But the King, seeing his terms despised, and that they could not be overcome by the distress occasioned by a mild mode of attack, determined to proceed with more rigour against a people whose obstinacy, neither alluring kindness, nor destructive severity could soften.

Towards night, therefore, he caused proclamation by trumpet to be made in the midst of the squadrons, that all the mariners, as well as others who were on the stations assigned them by their captains, should be prepared on the morrow to storm and mount the walls, which had been rendered by the shot of our guns more convenient and safe for the purpose, and much more unfit for the enemy to make resistance, or even to protect themselves from destruction. Towards night he began to assail them more than usual with stones, that he might prevent them from sleeping, and thereby render them on the morrow more easy to conquer. But God himself, propitious and merciful to his people, sparing the effusion of blood which probably would have been shed in storming the walls, turned away from us the sword, and struck terror into our enemies, who were probably broken-hearted on account of the loss of the said bulwark, and hearing they were so suddenly to be assaulted and stormed; and also at the penalties of the law of Deuteronomy, if a fortified town be recovered from them while making resistance; and perplexed and harassed by the stones, and almost despairing of being rescued by the French, which they had expected long beyond the promised time. On that night they entered into a treaty with the King, that if he would deign to defer the assault, and would refrain from harassing and oppressing them with stones, they would surrender to him the town, and themselves, and their property, if the French King, or the Dauphin, his first-born, being informed, should not raise the siege and deliver them by force of arms, within the first hour after noon on the Sunday following.’

Brighton in diaries

A decade ago this month History Press published Brighton in Diaries, a collection of diary extracts about the city, one of Britain’s most vibrant seaside resorts. This was my first published book about diaries, and is still available new or secondhand. Essentially, it consists of cameos of people, famous and ordinary, young and old, serious and cynical, but with Brighton always setting the scene: like a play, perhaps, in which, despite a medley of brilliant actors and a plot full of intriguing story-lines, it is the set, the backdrop that really steals the show. The idea for the book came out of writing these articles for The Diary Review.

Many legendary writers - including Walter Scott, Arnold Bennett and Virginia Woolf - inhabit the book’s pages, often appearing in their most unguarded guises. Here also are less well-known characters, such as William Tayler (a footman), Gideon Mantell (a surgeon and dinosaur bone collector), and Xue Fucheng (an early Chinese diplomat). There are also several diarists whose writing has never appeared in print before: Olive Stammer, for example, who kept a diary during the Second World War; and Ross Reeves, a young gay musician whose diary extracts are very recent.

Brighton in Diaries includes a chapter (one of 26) with some diary entries of my own relating to Brighton, starting in 1977 when I first went there and slept in a cemetery. The photo above is of my parents on the Palace Pier in 1951. Having just met, they’d gone there for, what is now referred to as, a dirty weekend! For a little more on the book see the feature published in The Argus.

Brighton in Diaries can be purchased directly from The History Press, from book stores in and around Brighton (such as City Books), and from online retailers such as Amazon. Here are a few extracts:

3 September 1778, Peregrine Phillips
‘A monstrous fish, called a Tunie, but not much unlike a shark, lays on the shore, wearing two double rows of large masticators: it has broke the net, and, towards mending same, the fishermen collect money of the curious.’

13 September 1778, Peregrine Phillips
‘Took the liberty of surveying all the bathing-machines. Fine ladies going - fine ladies coming away. Observe them at the instant of bathing. How humiliating! They appear more deplorable than so many corpses in shrouds.’

14 December 1818, John Croker
‘After breakfast Blomfield called to scold us for not going to the Pavilion at once, and to command us on the part of his Royal Highness to come there. We went there and walked through the rooms again and visited the offices. The kitchen and larders are admirable - such contrivances for roasting, boiling, baking, stewing, frying, steaming, and heating; hot plates, hot closets, hot air, and hot hearths, with all manner of cocks for hot water and cold water, and warm water and steam, and twenty saucepans all ticketed and labelled, placed up to their necks in a vapour bath.’

19 July 1837, William Tayler ‘There are numbers of old wimen have little wooden houses on wheels, and into these houses people goe that want to bathe.’

11 January 1910, Arnold Bennett
‘Grand rolling weather. Foamy sea, boisterous wind, sun, pageant of clouds, and Brighton full of wealthy imperative persons dashing about in furs and cars. I walked with joy to and fro on this unequalled promenade. And yet, at this election time, when all wealth and all snobbery is leagued together against the poor, I could spit in the face of arrogant and unmerciful Brighton, sporting its damned Tory colours.’

30 August 1940, Olive Stammer
‘Fights between planes over Bton, Hove & Patcham. Spitfire down in Portland Road. House tops damaged. Pilot killed. They could only find his hand.’

26 February 1941, Virginia Woolf
‘The fat woman had a louche large white muffin face. T’other was slightly grilled. [. . .] Brighton a love-corner for slugs. The powdered the pampered the mildly improper.’

21 April 1995, Des Marshall
‘I believe Brighton has more disturbed people in relation to the size of the population, than any other town in the country. There’s a sort of unreality about the town. It’s too frivolous. People don’t really listen to each other. They seem very excited and distracted. [. . .] People wear such odd clothes that don’t really match. Could be, sort of punk, with a bit of hippy thrown in, or mohair with greatcoat, or a collar and tie man, with shorts of different colours, possibly even with a bowler hat.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published in December 2011.