Book reviews from eucalyption

Mount Athos

by John Julius; Sitwell, Reresby Norwich

"The monastic republic of the Holy Mountain is an autonomous protectorate that occupies a remote peninsula in northern Greece. Twenty 'Ruling Monasteries' share government and own the land. In addition, a number of dependencies are to be found: some resemble the monasteries and others vary in size and appearance from small villages to the precarious cliff-dwellings of anchorites. A survival of the Byzantine way of living, set in a landscape that has remained unchanged since antiquity."

The above quote from this book is one of the best short descriptions of what Mount Athos is that I have read. It is the first paragraph of the second part of this multi-authored work, an attractive quarto in which the text is interspersed with pictures from the Holy Mountain. It is an account both of the history of Mount Athos (the first section of the book, written by Norwich), and a description of the authors journey to most of the monasteries and some of the other establishments in the early 1960s (the second section, written by Sitwell).

John Julius Norwich, while an expert on Byzantine history, is no lover of religion. His history of the Mount is shot through with what seems to this reader to be a disdain for the monks there and how they live their lives, with little insight into the religion which sustains them - much as in his history of the Papacy he refused to discuss theology at all. The trip was organised so the authors could see and photograph the architecture and the art, and Norwich's dismay at the treatment of the art and buildings comes from a secular viewpoint of a historian and antiquarian, which is at odds with the religious view of the material world held by the monks. It seems from his disparaging remarks about the food and the monks that Norwich did not have any sort of spiritual experience while on the Mountain. However, his potted history of the peninsula is a good one.

Sitwell's description of their journey is somewhat more sympathetic to the monks and their way of life. He seems to have been able to appreciate the timelessness of life on Athos better than Norwich, and his descriptions of their travels by boat, mule and on foot bring to the reader a flavour of what it must be like to visit and stay at the various monasteries - or at least what it was like in the sixties.

One enduring theme from both writers is that they felt they had visited the Mount just before it ceased to be. Many monasteries were in poor repair, most of the monks and holy men were of advanced years, and weren't being replaced by those younger. Sitwell and Norwich put this down to the advance of western materialism, and, importantly, that many of the countries from which monks were sourced had become Communist and banned religion. They saw their trip as a cataloguing of a way of life that was about to pass.

Fortunately for Athos, and the World, that hasn't happened. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Second World has led to a revival of Orthodox religion, and consequently the revival - to some degree - of Athos. More men are choosing to go there and live the religious life, and many of the monasteries have refreshed both their buildings and their personnel. There is life in the Mountain yet.

A big part of this book are the 63 plates, which are a mixed bag, photographically speaking. There are some wonderful pictures, but others not so good. They do, however, give the reader some insight into life on the peninsula.

Clarrie Grimmett - the Bradman Of Spin

by Ashley Mallett

Don Bradman looms like a colossus over pre-war Australian cricket history. His legacy is so great that it overshadows much of what occurred between the Wars. The casual cricket fan may have heard of Woodfull and McCabe thanks to Bodyline, and maybe "Tiger" O'Reilly, but most other players have subsided into oblivion. This serviceable biography by former Australian spinner Ashley Mallett reminds the reader that Clarence Victor Grimmett was one of the true greats of the game.

In fact Mallett, through statistical analysis, shows that Grimmett could indeed be said to be the Bradman of bowling. His test record is indeed extraordinary: in a mere 37 test matches he snared 216 wickets, grabbing 5 wickets in an innings 21 times and 10 wickets in a match 7 times. He achieved the "bowler's century" (5-for), every 1.76 tests. Bradman scored a ton every 1.79 tests.

Scyld Berry, in his book Cricket : the game of life, notes how cricket writing generally discusses batting in positive language and bowling in negative, and it would seem that to be the Bradman of spin when Bradman himself was playing was to be relegated to the second rank in the thoughts of history. This is not to claim that Grimmett wasn't viewed as a star during his career - no less a person than King George V chatted amiably with "Clarrie" and asked him to show him how to spin the ball.

Grimmett was born in New Zealand, and it was his burning desire to play cricket at the highest level that drew him "over the pond" to Australia in 1914. He landed in Sydney and soon was impressing in District ranks. However at State level the great Arthur Mailey ruled the spinner's roost, so Clarrie moved South to Victoria. He spent several very successful seasons playing for South Melbourne and Prahran, but - not for the first or last time in his career - cricket politics crueled his ability to play for his State. South Australia saw an opportunity, and lured him to Adelaide with an offer of a job. Adelaide became Grimmett's home for the rest of his life, and South Australia the State for which he took the majority of his 1424 first-class wickets (from 248 matches).

His bowling must have been something to see - his stock legspinner was deadly accurate, his variations in pace hard to pick, and his topspinner trapped many great batsmen lbw. With his peculiar round-arm action, and his habit of wearing his cap while bowling, he seemed an old-school cricketer. In many ways he was: his first-class career spanned the years 1911-1941, he bowled early in his career to the great Victor Trumper and by the end of his career he was witnessing the growth of the team that would become "The Invincibles". Grimmett was a late bloomer, playing his first test at 33 years of age, and at his last he was 45. In his last test he took 13 wickets, so the shock in the country when he was not selected for Australia's next series was severe. Grimmett himself was stunned but, as was his way, never publicly showed it. Mallett does point out that Grimmett probably held Bradman to blame for his relegation and his retaliation was to always place Bradman's place in the batting pantheon below other greats such as Trumper, and some others such as Jackson.

Mallett describes a man who lived for bowling, having his own pitch in his backyard in Adelaide, where he honed his skills hour after hour. Unlike his great bowling partner O'Reilly, Clarrie was quiet on the field: only the glint in his eyes would betray his glee on getting another scalp.

Although this book was published in 2003, Mallett makes no mention of Shane Warne, the recent great who surely brings to mind how spectators must have felt watching Grimmett bowl. The absolute control of his skill, the ability not only to create a plan for a batsman's demise, but to carry it out, and the creation of an aura that sometimes was all that was needed to get a wicket, would have been great to watch, and fearsome to face.

Mallett has a solid journalistic style, and his research is solid. The best parts of this book are the quotations from contemporaneous sources, which go some way to giving a 21st century reader an idea of what it was like to see Grimmett bowl and to face him as a batsman.

For the historian of cricket, this book is worth reading.

The Battle Of Dienbienphu

by Jules Roy

If you want a dry factual account of the battle of Dienbienphu, this is not the book to read. If you want a heart-felt paean to both the French and Vietminh soldier, on the stupidity and wastefulness of the whole French effort in Indochina, this book is a must-read. The Battle of Dienbienphu is a very French book about a very French military catastrophe. It is a story of pride, hatred, and incompetence on the French side, and of determination and ruthlessness on the side of the Vietminh.

Jules Roy was a former member of the French Air Force, who had resigned his commission in response to French policy in Indochina. His initial idea was to write a book about the battle and the heroism of the French troops, but as he researched more he realised that that the true story of Dienbienphu was one of the generals and government, the pettiness of the former and the cynicism of the latter, who didn't want to remain in Vietnam, but couldn't bear to loss of face a withdrawal would require.

It pays, as a reader, to have a basic idea of the course of the battle before you come to this book. Written about ten years after the battle, by a Frenchman in France, there is an assumption that some knowledge of events will be brought to the book by the reader. Written in a diary format, Roy begins his book with the appointment of Navarre as commander in Vietnam, and with his idea to provoke Giap by investing Dienbienphu to cut the Vietminh off from Laos and to draw them into pitched battle, while also providing a base from which to patrol and attack. This was a lot to accomplish, but Navarre was very sure of himself despite his inexperience in Indochinese warfare and refused to listen to the doubts his juniors cast on his scheme when they voiced them, which they perhaps didn't do aggressively enough.

That they didn't push their doubts may have been partly down to the contempt in which most French officers held the Vietminh troops. There was little doubt from the French that they could not only hold Dienbienphu, but also destroy any attack the Vietminh might like to launch. Navarre envisaged that Dienbienphu would draw the Vietminh in and allow him, while the bulk of the enemy were fighting there, to clear the Delta of enemy combatants.

This underestimation was fatal for the French. Not only could Giap get an army to Dienbienphu, he could also feed them and keep them in ammunition. More importantly, and to the complete surprise of the French, he could get heavy artillery into the hills surrounding the French base and dig them in well enough to survive any bombardment.

The geographical position of Dienbienphu was an appalling one in which to survive a siege: the bottom of a basin ("the Chamber Pot"), surrounded by jungle-covered hills, far from air support (fighters could only spend ten minutes over the base before they had to return), it was impossible for the French to effectively deny the hills to the Vietminh, and thus protect themselves.

The ambivalence of the French Government - unwilling to expand their commitment to Indochina - led to the French forces being short of the equipment they needed. Most of the Air Force consisted of war surplus US equipment, and Navarre stinted on ramping up Dienbienphu, insisting that it was the decoy for his larger Delta campaign long after it was obvious that Dienbienphu was in fact becoming the decisive battle for control of Vietnam.

Roy is quite naturally angry about this aspect of the debacle: men were being sent to die in the weeks before the final surrender in the full knowledge that it was pointless, with the Generals knowing that Dienbienphu was lost. This makes the many heroic actions of the troops on the ground poignant and tragic.

Roy does not ignore the Vietminh story, with respectful (too respectful?) interludes describing the herculean efforts of the Viets to undertake the logistical effort as well as the fighting to win a historic victory.

The diary-like structure that Roy has chosen does much to add to the drama of his telling of this story: each day brings the inevitable end closer, and the horrors suffered by the French are well conveyed. Roy pulls no punches in his views of the French leadership - Navarre the cynic, Cogny the schemer, Castries, hopelessly out of his depth, Langlais keeping it all together on the ground, Bigeard the hero. Roy builds his story around these personalities, and others such as Grauwin the chief medic.

Roy's conclusion is that Dienbienphu didn't have to happen, or that it could have turned out differently. But, the particular combination of both military and civilian leaders that were on the spot at the time led to the inevitability of the final disaster.

Dienbienphu was not the end in Vietnam: there was another twenty years of warfare ahead of it. One outcome of the French defeat was that the United States was drawn in to the quagmire, only in the end to fail just as the French did.

For a powerful, if partisan and opinionated, description of Dienbienphu, I recommend this book

War At the Top

by James Leasor

This was not quite the book I was expecting it to be. General Hollis, as described on the dust jacket of my copy, was "Assistant Secretary to the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and was priveliged to sit in at most of the major policy discussions where the great decisions were made..." so I was expecting a detailed and incisive look at how these high-level committees worked, and the back-and-forth that went on before decisions were approved by the Government.

Instead, War at the Top reads like a fireside chat between Leasor and Hollis, where Hollis expounds on the personalities of those Generals and leaders that he dealt with, tells some juicy stories, and gives his opinions on the war, and politics, with a particular British conservatism. So, in many ways, this book left me wanting.

Having stated that, it was an enjoyable book to read, precisely because it was like sitting around a fire enjoying a whisky with a person full of anecdotes. No doubt with the benefit of considerable hind-sight, Hollis shows us how gullible Roosevelt was in believing Stalin, and how un-strategic the American top brass were in their failure to understand what their designs meant for post-war Europe. Much of this book's discussion of strategy has to do with the timing and location of the Second Front, and the battle between Churchill with his plans for a Mediterranean front centred on Italy and the Balkans, versus the American plan for a frontal attack on France. Leasor and Hollis paint Churchill as being strategically smart, but too scattered in his promotion of all sorts of schemes for attacks on Norway, Rhodes, or whatever else might have been flavour of the day with him.

The first part of the book bemoans the state of preparedness of Great Britain for war, and the efforts of the likes of Lord Beaverbrook to build up production quickly, against much opposition from not only the Labour Party, but also the Civil Service. Hollis is very much on Beaverbrook's side, bemoaning the state of unionism in England, and the unwillingness to go all out for victory. He also looks at the British commitment of arms to Russia, which came at a time when Britain itself was precariously short of arms and armour, and he shows how Churchill and Brooke clashed horns over this - politics versus military needs. Needless to say, the politics nearly always wins.

The Water Dreamers

by Michael Cathcart

This is a book with a very interesting premise, which in some ways doesn't quite live up to the claim of the title, but is still well worth reading.

Much more and much less than a history of White Australia's interaction with water in Australia, Cathcart has also written about how the British (and others) took possession of the country through their imaginings of what it might be, and how those imaginings have been rebuffed by the country itself.

Starting with the arrival of the First Fleet, Cathcart shows how a people used to copious rain and riverflows struggled with the erratic nature of Australia's rainfall and water catchments. He delves further into the literature of early Australia than others have to show that some of the received knowledge that we thought we knew about what early White Australia thought of water and the interior may not be actually what we think we know.

Apart from Sturt, most early explorers soon realised that there was no great river, lake or sea in the centre of the continent. This did not stop them from over-estimating the carrying capacity of the water that was available, encouraging pastoralists to venture too far inland, and destroying many watercourses in their search for reliable water.

Cathcart chronicles two differing schools of thought that developed regarding the "Dead Heart", or "Red Heart", depending on the view taken. The centre of Australia was either a place of despair and death with no possibility of permanent settlement, or a potential food bowl and living place for millions, after man's hand was run over the countryside to provide it with water.

Cathcart chronicles much of the work and literature of the "water boosters" as he calls them, including the strange "Lemurian" literature, a kind of pulp fiction that spoke of lost tribes and ancient seas around which the "Dead Heart" was once civilized. Ever one for facts rather than fantasy, he pops the bubbles of those who would generate a history of the continent through their words, rather than from the actuality of water, or lack of it. As he writes in his introduction his book "is an investigation that returns again and again to one overwhelming fact. In Australia, the success or failure of settlement has been largely determined by rainfall."

As still happens all too often in this country, those that talk sense, such as Griffith Taylor, were hounded until he left. Taylor's commentary, that much of Australia is too dry to settle in the way that politicians hoped to, still holds up today. Cathcart pricks the "populate or perish" bubble as well - why would the "teeming Asian hordes" want to take a desert country - they are hardly going to parachute into the Western Desert and invade from the inside out...

The book finishes with a short section on the current policy of trading water rights, which, as Cathcart points out, has its own problems as a vehicle to rehabilitate our depleted rivers and wetlands.

With copious footnotes and bibliography, The Water Dreamers is an interesting viewpoint of Australia's history, and worth reading.