Telegram from Guernica
Jun. 22nd, 2019 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfbiterNicholas Rankin – Telegram from Guernica
This is a biography of British (South African-born) de facto war correspondent George Steer. Over his career Steer witnessed fighting in Ethiopia, Spanish Basqueland and Finland. The title of the book refers to the fact that Steer reported how he found evidence that German incendiaries had destroyed Guernica – when Franco's side blamed the anarchists and British government claimed "there was no evidence".
Information about Steer's childhood is scarce so Rankin begins with his professional years – and his foray into Italo-Abyssinian War.
Steer was more sympathetic about the cause of the locals than lots of British establishment at the time (the fact some of those involved would like not to talk about). Evelyn Vaughn seemed to hope to "civilizing" influence of Italians in Ethiopia (his novels about the country are mostly composed of ridicule) and lots of Tories wanted Franco to defeat the Spanish Republic.
The propaganda war over the bombing of Guernica is also very similar to current propaganda contest about fighting going on in Ukraine. Many Right-wingers still seem to believe Nationalist claims that Spanish anarchists torched their own towns and burned churches. Rankin argues that Guernica also started the trend of bombing civilian targets to "destroy morale" (like British "strategic bombing" which failed to do exactly that in Germany when Germany failed to break British morale during the Blitz).
To a Finn, the part about the Winter War is annoyingly short. Granted, maybe Rankin wanted to avoid contemporary news reports – mostly invented out of whole cloth by sympathetic correspondents – about "Finnish ingenuity" (no, we really had no large amount of furs to cover trenches or cellophane to disguise lakes). And, well, Rankin's list of equipment British supposedly gave Finland is actually list of equipment Finland had bought. Mostly Britain gave some outclassed armored cars and lots of platitudes (maybe Rankin wanted to omit that fact). And British volunteers – one of them too young Christopher Lee – never reached the front (many Swedish volunteers did).
After World War Two broke out, Steer was put into propaganda duties – first helping in taking Ethiopia back from the Italians (even thought some British appeared to be more interested on turning Ethiopia into a new colony than letting it be independent). After that, he ended up trying to same in Burma.
Rankin occasionally digresses to other things and viewpoints (including putting whole paragraphs between brackets) and sometimes briefly jumps to future events that happaned after Steer's death. His sympathies are certainly similar to Steer's – towards the Ethiopian and Basques, for example.
This is a biography of British (South African-born) de facto war correspondent George Steer. Over his career Steer witnessed fighting in Ethiopia, Spanish Basqueland and Finland. The title of the book refers to the fact that Steer reported how he found evidence that German incendiaries had destroyed Guernica – when Franco's side blamed the anarchists and British government claimed "there was no evidence".
Information about Steer's childhood is scarce so Rankin begins with his professional years – and his foray into Italo-Abyssinian War.
Steer was more sympathetic about the cause of the locals than lots of British establishment at the time (the fact some of those involved would like not to talk about). Evelyn Vaughn seemed to hope to "civilizing" influence of Italians in Ethiopia (his novels about the country are mostly composed of ridicule) and lots of Tories wanted Franco to defeat the Spanish Republic.
The propaganda war over the bombing of Guernica is also very similar to current propaganda contest about fighting going on in Ukraine. Many Right-wingers still seem to believe Nationalist claims that Spanish anarchists torched their own towns and burned churches. Rankin argues that Guernica also started the trend of bombing civilian targets to "destroy morale" (like British "strategic bombing" which failed to do exactly that in Germany when Germany failed to break British morale during the Blitz).
To a Finn, the part about the Winter War is annoyingly short. Granted, maybe Rankin wanted to avoid contemporary news reports – mostly invented out of whole cloth by sympathetic correspondents – about "Finnish ingenuity" (no, we really had no large amount of furs to cover trenches or cellophane to disguise lakes). And, well, Rankin's list of equipment British supposedly gave Finland is actually list of equipment Finland had bought. Mostly Britain gave some outclassed armored cars and lots of platitudes (maybe Rankin wanted to omit that fact). And British volunteers – one of them too young Christopher Lee – never reached the front (many Swedish volunteers did).
After World War Two broke out, Steer was put into propaganda duties – first helping in taking Ethiopia back from the Italians (even thought some British appeared to be more interested on turning Ethiopia into a new colony than letting it be independent). After that, he ended up trying to same in Burma.
Rankin occasionally digresses to other things and viewpoints (including putting whole paragraphs between brackets) and sometimes briefly jumps to future events that happaned after Steer's death. His sympathies are certainly similar to Steer's – towards the Ethiopian and Basques, for example.
