DIARY JOHN KEEGAN
The publishing director of The Architectural Review sends an urgent message for help. He was about to chair a meeting on the place of tall buildings in London, for the City Architecture Forum. The subject has now been changed to 'the architecture of defence'. Do I know anyone who is an expert in the history of fortification? Could I come to the meeting to help with the discussion? Do I have any immediate thoughts? Yes. I say. Tall structures, if hit hard in the right place, fall down. In 1494 Charles VIII of France brought his train of modern artillery to Italy and started knocking down city walls, which had withstood siege by catapult for centuries, in a few hours. Almost overnight municipalities began spending fortunes on artillery-proof defences. Anyone who could pass himself off as a siege engineer coined money. Leonardo da Vinci announced that, though he did not know much about painting, he was a fortification expert. The results of the 'artillery revolution' are all about us, those low, thick-walled 'star forts' that guard ports and frontiers across Europe. Who says history won't repeat itself? Goodbye skyscrapers, hello bunkers.
Military historians always know when there is real trouble. For years they potter away in archives, explaining to each other why Wellington won and Napoleon lost, to no one else's interest. Then some Islamic fundamentalists turn airlines into cruise missiles, and newspapers and television stations demand instant comment. During the Falklands and Gulf wars I could help. History supplied all sorts of clues as to what was happening and what the outcome would be. The nasties made familiar mistakes. One could state with confidence how they would go wrong and why our side would win. This time, stop me. Not even the Mongols — about the nastiest enemies civilisation has ever had to face — took war to the extreme of killing themselves so as to kill others. Rather the contrary. What the Mongols specialised in was ruthlessness. In 1258 they captured Baghdad, the seat of the Caliph, head of Islam. He was promised his life. As soon as they got their hands on him, he was put to death. Soon after the fall of Baghdad they converted to Islam.
My son Thomas, who is an environmentalist at Imperial College, London, has just spent a fortnight in Greenland. He was looking forward to surviving on the ice-cap. I had also told him to look out for traces of the Greenland Vikings, who disappeared mysteriously, after several hundred years'
settlement, in the 15th century. Greenland life proved not to be what he expected. The Inuit wear shell suits, drive about in off-road vehicles, and shop at supermarkets. Tom and his friend spent every night in a tourist lodge, usually with a tourist official to cook their supper. He had bought an ice axe but his mobile phone proved more useful.
Aheartfelt appeal from a Wiltshire friend about the Fovant Badges. Can I help? The badges were cut by soldiers of Kitchener's army, training for the battle of the Somme, in the Fovant Valley chalk. They are quite as striking as Wiltshire's White Horses and now almost as mysterious, since most of the regiments — the London Rifle Brigade, the Post Office Rifles — have disappeared. Even to recite their titles evokes a vanished Betjemanesque world of Poshes and Pooters, military innocents all, attempting a fragile effort at immortality before immolation in the chalk of France. The badges are going back to grass. The locals do their bit, but real money is needed. The preservationists have put their trust in the Heritage Lottery Fund. History, however, particularly military history, is not today culturally correct. Apshill House, Wiltshire, SP7 6NB, is the place to send contributions.
Iused to be a trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund. I have become a commissioner of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. There is a connection. War graves are a British heritage, a particularly poignant one. Recently I took part in the reburial of two Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Messines. There wasn't much to bury, nor could the commission tell if the soldiers had been killed in 1914 or 1918. Horrible to think that there are still half a million undiscovered bodies lying out in a tiny area in northern France or Belgium. No wonder the Great War haunts the British imagination.
The year is dying, but with colour and richness. I have never seen such blackberries, nor haws, nor rosehips. The hedges in the local lanes are scarlet in places. My plant book tells me that. in 1943, 300 tons of rosehips were collected, to supply vitamin-C syrup to British schoolchildren. I remember only the cod-liver-oil malt, still disgusting to the taste buds after 50 years.
Fans of our Maine Coon cat, Edgar, whose habits I recorded in another diary, now know that he did not survive his second quarrel with a car. I learnt through him, however, that what really interests the British is not terrorist atrocity, let alone Parliament or party conferences, but news of pets. We have replaced Edgar with Claude and Cecil. They are not as eccentric. They do not sleep inside the washing machine, cool off by sitting on cases of white burgundy, or lose mice in their fur. They are very beautiful, however, silver tabby and cream ginger respectively — and they have all the Maine Coon puppy-like characteristics. Their particular interest is moles. We have a solitary molehole in the garden. They keep watch over it — rather like Inuit sitting over an icehole — turn and turn about, until they get their man. Two so far. I am awaiting the outcome of the latest re-appearance of a molehill on the lawn. I wouldn't bet on the mole's chances.
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