Things you might watch – if in one case, not for long...

Turn’s worth watching, partly for the acting – it’s great to see Billy Elliott (well, Jamie Bell, who played him in the film) turn adult, give up dancing, take up spying and move 250 years back in time. But the pleasure of Turn is mostly in the story: it’s fascinating to learn how George Washington ran a spy network called the Culper Ring in New York City, then under British occupation, on lines that ought to gain at least the grudging approval of modern spy operations. He was concerned for his agents’ wellbeing, keen on keeping their communications secure, and only pressurised them to keep the information flowing.

Intelligent military intelligence, in fact.

The series has the merit of sticking quite closely to the known historical facts. It’s not as good as the book on which it’s based, Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies, which draws on close research and talks about more aspects of espionage in the American War of Independence than Turn. Even so, the TV series takes its structure from the record, so in broad lines and occasionally in detail, sticks to it with some degree of faith.

Jamie Bell as Abraham Woodhull,
lead agent of the Culper Ring, in Turn

Indeed, it’s at its least good when it diverges from history: in an attempt to give the series more of a soap feel, it takes some liberty, for instance adding a love triangle where there was none, between Jamie Bell’s character, his wife and his lead female agent: in reality, the female agent existed but was ten years his senior and in a perfectly good marriage, while he married only later. What it does well is to avoid a simple black and white distinction between supporters of the American or British causes – in fact, one of the most attractive characters is John André, the British spymaster, a historical figure involved in one of the iconic moments of American infamy, who was regarded by most who met him as charming and witty.

It’s that degree of fidelity to the record that also makes Vikings watchable. Here the issue is less historical fact, since it’s not even known whether the central character, Ragnar Lothbrok, ever existed outside legend. Myth or history, the tales of Lothbrok at least provide a framework for the series, as the history of the Culper ring provides one for Turn. That somehow makes the stories told more plausible, and therefore makes it easier to suspend disbelief.

Ragnar with his first wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha
Travis Fimmel and Katheryn Winnick

Nor does the series whitewash the brutality that was the hallmark of Viking raiding. Even if it cuts it back considerably, there is more than enough violence for anyone likely to be put off by its depiction. For example, there was a particularly vicious form of Viking execution by torture called the Blood Eagle; while it doesn’t happen as often in the series as it did in reality, it does happen once – be warned.

That being said, the series also puts into play a series of extraordinary characters who are a delight to follow: Ragnar himself has boldness and ingenuity that are not completely proof to failure (he has his share); Floki is almost as cunning as the god Loki his name conjures up, as well as wild to the point, occasionally, of lunacy; Ragnar’s first wife Lagertha is strong, courageous and straight; Athelstan is a monk captured by the Vikings in a raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne who finds himself sucked into their way of life (an early case of Stockholm syndrome, one might say, but these Vikings are from Norway not Sweden); even Ecbert King of Wessex is a well-painted study in deviousness, intellectualism and fascination with a past greatness (that of the Romans).

Gustaf Skarsgård as Floki in Vikings
Fascinatingly wild, to the point of craziness

In order to keep the series going, it again resorts to some soap-like devices – inexplicable failures of communication sustain misunderstandings or unjustified suspicions to fill a sub-plot or two – but overall it relies on the original story for some remarkable plot twists and a generally compelling narrative.

As for Revenge, it was highly entertaining for the first few episodes. The backstory is that a man has been betrayed by his friends at the top end of business and framed for collusion with a terrorist outrage. Particularly bitter is that one of those who sold him was the woman he loved, and who apparently loved him as strongly.

The best part of two decades later his daughter Amanda is back in the Long Island Hamptons, haunt of these gilded individuals, under the assumed name Emily, ready to wreak her revenge. She has the means because an internet billionaire (Nolan, much the most entertaining character), owes his fortune to her father, and has given her half of it. In the first few episodes she uses her resources and her intelligence to start destroying her enemies in ways that are brilliantly ingenious and devilishly effective, but then alas the series starts to decline and, to a far worse degree than the other two, descends into pure soap.

Emily Van Camp as Emily and Gabriel Mann as Nolan in Revenge
His is the only consistently entertaining, if not wholly believable, character

So we get characters who change character or, even more often, allegiance: he was intent on killing her before she killed him, there was nothing but intense hatred between them until, lo and behold, in this week’s episode they’re working together (usually against the ones we’re sympathising with). Love simulated for the purposes of revenge becomes real, without much plausibility and only in order to create tension that might otherwise be lacking. And ruthless, effective killers, fail to finish off adversaries when it would rather shorten the series if they did.

Reasonable entertainment if you’ve nothing better to do but, believe me, by the end of season 1, you have to be able to find better things to do.

Military force: limited, however great it may be

It’s hard to understand what prevents the United States understanding that, faced with a popularly supported insurrection of a majority of a population, even the most powerful military force on earth can only ever gain a temporary advantage.

What happens is that an occupying military force tends to alienate even those who are initially sympathetic to its aims. Foreign soldiers aren’t good at distinguishing between their enemies from their friends within a civilian population. They tend, therefore, to treat them all as hostile. And treating people as hostile generally means treating them badly, imposing martial law, for instance, denying their rights, even confiscating their property, and generally being arrogant, high-handed and brutal.

The result is that disaffection grows. What might have been a relatively small, localised antipathy quickly spreads, so that ultimately large swaths of the population are at least passive opponents, so that even if they don’t join the active insurgents, they don’t resist them and may even succour them. This affects every part of the occupied nation. Even those who are drafted in to support the occupiers, in some kind of locally recruited military force, lose their stomach for the fight or even worse, turn against their erstwhile allies.

They’re often quick to spot what’s happening themselves. Here’s a comment from one officer in a locally raised militia, on the behaviour of his supposed allies, and its effect on alienating the support they were initially offered.

… the people in general are becoming indifferent, if not averse, to a government which in place of the liberty, prosperity, safety and plenty, under promise of which it involved them in this war, has established a thorough despotism.

What’s got me thinking about these things?

It could have been the fall of Ramadi in Iraq. Units of the national army, exhausted and their enthusiasm worn thin, eventually collapsed in the face of the advance of ISIS, which occupied the large and strategically vital city earlier this month. There are reports of a counter-attack making some progress, but there’s clearly a hard battle ahead. Meanwhile, the civilian population is suffering the brutality that comes with ISIS rule. The Dubya-Blair assumption that all they had to do was overthrow Saddam Hussein by military force, to usher in a friendlier and democratically-inclined regime in Iraq, has been exposed as massively misguided.

The ruins of Palmyra: memento of an Empire
Now occupied by ISIS

Alternatively, the fall of Palmyra in Syria could have prompted my thoughts on this theme. Palmyra is one of the great cultural centres of the world. At one point, it stood at the heart of an Empire which for a time resisted the power of the Romans. The remains of that culture are a precious world heritage. ISIS have occupied that city too and, though they’re promising to respect the ruins, there’s no guarantee that they will. And meanwhile the civilian population is suffering the brutality that comes with ISIS rule.

But in fact it was neither of these events that got reflecting on the hopelessness of using military force to crush an insurrection.

Amazon’s streaming video service is currently offering viewers a series called Turn: Washington’s spies. Well acted and constructed, it also opened my eyes to an aspect of history that I knew little about: George Washington’s highly professional use of a spy ring against the British in the American War of Independence. It focuses on the so-called Culper ring that spied on the British in occupied New York.

Jamie Bell in the role of Abraham Woodull
a key figure in the Culper ring of spies

As it happens, the series, though entertaining, also suffers from some of the flaws of any soap. A narrative that would have been far more believable had it stuck to the historical record moves increasingly away from it as the series advances, until it becomes frankly implausible. So I’ve turned to the book on which it’s based, Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies. And I’ve found it fascinating.

You may have noticed that the remark I quoted earlier was a little archaic in its style. it comes from the book, and the person quoted was a loyalist – i.e. pro-British – officer in a Militia unit. He voiced his complaint in 1779, and what he was lamenting was the way the British, then probably the most powerful military nation on Earth, were driving loyal supporters like himself into the arms of those they regarded as rebels.

Benjamin Tallmadge
As a younger man, he ran the Culper ring, reporting to Washington

Which is why the Americans really ought to know better. They’ve been on the receiving end of the alienating behaviour of military occupiers. And they were able to turn it to their favour, to gain the ultimate victory.

The British, too, who lost their colonies through their own blundering actions, ought to have learned their lesson. Over two centuries ago.

And that brings me back to the intervention of both nations in Iraq.

What on earth were we thinking of?