Why we keep remembering Diana

With the twentieth anniversary of her death there's been an inevitable round of revisiting the life of Diana, Princess of Wales and once more revisiting her death. And naturally many wonder why we do this - surely this isn't the British way? Shouldn't we all have moved on?

But this misses much of the point of that strange week twenty years ago. In many ways it was the closest the UK has come to a revolution in my time. People were sad but also angry. And in particular they were angry at being told what was the "proper" way to do things.

At the time it manifested itself in the uproar about the lack of a flag at half-mast at Buckingham Palace. This was down to "protocol". But much of the public neither knew this protocol nor cared for it. Diana had broken the mould in many ways in life and a large section of the public would not accept old moulds in death. I was one of many in the crowds outside Westminster Abbey and remember the surge of emotion when Earl Spencer delivered his eulogy. The massive applause was the crowd agreeing that the old ways would not return.

That act of rebelling against protocol and tradition has continued. And by its nature people who still commemorate Diana's life and death are not going to meekly stop when someone tells them how things are supposed to be done.

Diana's death was also perhaps the last time the country seemed to be as one. This was probably the last big news story before the internet really took off and gave a platform for alternate and dissident voices. Instead the broadcast and print media still gave most of us the news and there were few ways to say "Not all of us!" Thus for perhaps the final time a single mass mentality could truly drive events. And it rejected traditional steering.

The Munich Agreement - 70 years on

Whenever I attempt to explain to people what my thesis is about, I invariably make reference to Neville Chamberlain, not least because it makes it easy for non-historians to identify the period. And Chamberlain is, unfortunately in my opinion, best remembered for one single event in his entire political career - the signing of the Munich Agreement seventy years ago tonight.

(Strictly speaking the Agreement was signed in the early hours of the 30th September 1938, but was dated to the previous day.)

Now this is not the place to delve into the rest of Chamberlain's career; suffice it to say that an overall assessment cannot but come to a very different conclusion from the populist image of Chamberlain as just a weak man who did nothing but fly to Munich during his three years in Downing Street.

However the Munich Agreement itself has long been misrepresented. It is often forgotten just how incredibly popular it was in the UK. This wasn't just "high opinion poll approval", this was one of the moments where much of the nation poured out its gratitude. In my research I've seen, amongst other things, footage of Chamberlain's car journey from the airport to Downing Street after signing the agreement. On a rainy day people lined the streets in droves. Bar the weather the scene is very reminiscent of the last journey of Diana, Princess of Wales. I've also seen many letters of gratitude sent to Chamberlain, reports of football matches pausing to pay tribute to him and so much more. This was an agreement that the British public embraced.

And it was one that in many ways the British public had made inevitable. The harsh fact, often now forgotten, is that in 1938 there weren't many options available. For a long time the British public (and, I believe, the French public as well but let's stick to the British for now) had given numerous indications that they were reluctant to go to war. Especially not for the Treaty of Versailles, a settlement that had been emotionally rejected by numerous people, whether conservative, liberal or socialist. As the Iraq War has shown, it can be terribly difficult to take a country to war when a large proportion of the population is opposed. It is impossible to contemplate a total war in such circumstances. For all the criticism of the "piece of paper" that Chamberlain and Hitler signed, it mean that there was now something for Hitler to violate which would provoke a desire to go to war amongst the wider public in the way that a violation of the Treaty of Versailles did not.

Also often forgotten is that the British Empire was severely overstretched in the late 1930s and divided. Many troops were stationed in the Far East, where the rise of Japan was worrying. Military resources were weak and overstretched. A war on multiple fronts without allies was a war that could not be won. There was the further problem that the Dominions (aka the Commonwealth countries) would not enter the war. As it was in 1939 Ireland stayed neutral and South Africa only joined after serious political turmoil in both government and parliament. A war in 1938 would have seen even more of the Dominions declining to enter, potentially fragmenting the British Empire as a political force at a crucial time.

The French were seeking to escape their military alliance with Czechoslovakia and could not be counted on. Nor could the "Czechoslovakians" as there were very few such people. As the post war history of that country showed the state was a mix of minorities and it took first the expulsion of the German speaking minority and then the Velvet Divorce to create permanently viable states. People often talk of the people of Czechoslovakia who were prepared to defend themselves as "the Czechs". They are probably even more accurate than they may think - would the Slovakians have fought and died to prevent "millions of Germans from being German" any more than the French or British?

(And how many people remember that after the Munich Agreement "Czechoslovakia" was renamed "Czecho-Slovakia"? The latter form both reflected Slovak desires for equality in the name and is a derivation of the name in Slovak, whereas the unhyphenated is a derivation of the name in Czech. The later Hyphen War reflected a long standing issue.)

So what was the alternative? To take a divided country and Empire into a war for the cause of preventing millions of Germans from being German? To go to war for Vietnam-style domino arguments? To take a country to war when it was not prepared either militarily or domestically? A convincing show of force in 1938 was not as easy as the Agreement's detractors made out.

Indeed today there are parallels. After the Iraq War there are many in this country who are opposed to further military engagements, regardless of the level or genuineness of the threat. Military action would be deeply divisive and if public support for the action is essential it is doubtful that such action could take place. It is easy to scream "Appeasement" and "Munich" against any attempt at a peaceful settlement of any problem in the world, but is military action really a viable alternative?

The "Where Were You When..." Meme

Normally I'm not one to do these, but Mars Hill: The "Where Were You When..." Meme has explicitly tagged me so here goes. So here is where I was when the following events happened:

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I was actually asleep and only found out when my mother came into the room at about eight o'clock that day, on the phone to her mother who had just told her the news. Initially I was confused as I thought I heard her say "the Prince of Wales" and I remember commenting that it solved some big dilemmas the monarch was facing. The she clarified and I turned on the news to get the details. I remember then going to church that morning where the congregation was even larger than normal. The rest of the day was spent mainly watching the news coverage of everything going on and the growing hostility to the Royal Family on that day. During the following week I was back at school in London and the conversations amongst strangers on the tube were clear that something big was happening.

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

I was at school when my class came in after (I think) the morning break to be told by our Latin teacher who had heard both the announcement and the famous weather forecast of "Thatchy Pog". I was stunned but not entirely surprises, as my family was entirely pro Heseltine. Later on the day on the second ballot I did an opinion poll of my class and found John Major leading to Douglas Hurd and I was the only pro Heseltine person! But I was young at the time.

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

I was working in the coffee shop at Marks and Spencer in Canterbury and didn't find out anything until after I finished my shift at about six that evening. On the way home I bumped into a local councillor who told me the World Trade Center had been destroyed and my reaction was sheer disbelief. I then made it home to the flat I was staying in to find my flatmate who told me and I saw the footage of the towers falling for myself. Having been up the towers only the previous summer I was amazed at the devastation. It took time to sink in that the world was entering a war.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990

I can't remember this one at all! My family was never particularly keen on football so we weren't watching or following it.

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

I was waiting to be born.

Diana - now please let it end!

So Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed was "unlawfully killed" due to the negligence of her driver and the paparazzi, with no conspiracy involved, according to the inquest. (BBC News: Princess Diana unlawfully killed) And evaporated are the claims of Mohamed Al-Fayed who, more than anyone else, has kept the conspiracy theories going for a decade. (BBC News: Fayed conspiracy claim collapses)

So would it be too much to wish for this to be the end of the matter? For newspapers like the Daily Express to stop running Diana conspiracy front pages all the time? For the media to move on and let all the families mourn in privacy? Sadly I think the media has shown itself too irresponsible on that score.

Ten years is long enough

It seems strange to think that it's been ten years since the death of Diana. Especially given the way the Daily Express seems to have a story about her on the front page every week. What good is it to constantly be raking over the ashes of her life?

It's time to move on.