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- [00:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Thank you for listening to the Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to thereestishory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.
- [00:19]
Tom Holland
This is the Sound of Norway.
- [00:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [00:49]
Tom Holland
This episode is brought to you by Amazon. Now when someone says Amazon, do you think healthcare? Well, maybe you should.
- [00:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
Amazon One Medical offers 24. 7 virtual care so you can speak to a provider within minutes instead of waiting weeks for an appointment. Not only that, there is also Amazon Pharmacy. So after your virtual visit, Amazon will deliver your prescriptions directly to your door. No waiting in line with people who are sick with who knows what. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon one Medical healthcare just got less painful. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Now, every year brings new challenges. But there's one thing you don't have to worry about in 2025 spending too much money on a wireless plan. Because now you know all about Mint Mobile. They have plans starting at just $15 a month when you buy a three month plan. And Tom, you can even bring your own phone.
- [01:49]
Tom Holland
That's insane. And with all that money I'd save, I could maybe get another Roman coin. It's certainly a lot easier to do than learning Welsh, which is my other New Year's resolution.
- [01:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
This deal is almost as good as what I consider deal in history, which is the act of Union when England bailed out the Scots and basically enabled the Scots to be kind of like honorary Englishmen. It's a brilliant deal and everybody should do it.
- [02:10]
Tom Holland
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- [02:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [02:42]
Tom Holland
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- [03:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
We were making our way through the deserted fields looking for stray Hens and eggs. When a nearby artillery unit opened fire, we went to look and found a battery of Polish gunners setting up for a barrage. The gun sight was hidden in a clearing within a large wood. As we watched, suddenly out of the wood came a large bear walking on its hind legs. It seemed to be carrying something. Both Vincent and I shouted a warning to the gunners that a bear was going towards them, but nobody responded. The bear went up to the trail legs of the artillery gun and placed a shell on the ground. The bear then went back into the wood and reappeared with another shell. By this time, we'd realized that the bear was tame and most likely a circus bear. We just went on our way. That was John Clark, and in April 1944, he was serving with the Black Watch in the Monte Cassino campaign, one of the most celebrated campaigns of the Second World War, the Battle for Italy. And he is remembering an incident near the village of Aquafondata, which is six miles from Monte Cassino, and he and his comrade Vincent were foraging for food. And that story, Tom, which you have quoted, it's actually quoted by Eileen Orr in her book, Wojtek the Bear, Polish war hero. And as you say in your notes, it's like an armored bear from Philip Pullman's stories. The last episode, we were talking about the fate of Poland. We talked a lot about Danzig, Gdansk. There's a brilliant museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. And as is my want, when I went there with Sambra junior we went to the shop to look for merch. And they didn't have very much, I have to say. But what they did have was dozens of copies of a children's book in Polish about this bear, Wojtek, who is an absolute folk hero in Poland, isn't he? And a symbol of Polish resistance and Polish heroism in the Second World War.
- [05:08]
Tom Holland
And I think every Polish friend I've got has said, do you know the story of Wojtek? So particular. Shout out if she's listening to this, to Bena, who first mentioned Wojtek to us and in fact gave us a children's book about it. Maybe it was the one that you saw in the. In the shop in Gdansk. And this is about a bear. But important to emphasize that it's about a Polish bear. So in the account that you read about those British officers walking the battlefield of Monte Cassino, the bear is helping Polish gunners, and these Polish gunners are fighting on the British side against the Germans. And so, in a sense, this is what I said in the. At the end of our. Our previous series, that we wanted to give a kind of coda to that story. Terribly dark, bleak, somber story. But I guess this is also a palate cleanser. It's a way of kind of plunging back into the heart of darkness, but coming out, perhaps the other side. And I think. I mean, I don't want to speak for Polish people, maybe they can correct me, but I think that is. That is a huge part of why the incredible story of Wojtek the bear who basically becomes a Polish soldier. Why it has the kind of resonance that it does. So before we come to Wojtek, we've also done a number of episodes on famous animals in history. So we've done dogs, we've done monkeys, and we have actually already had a number of bears on. The rest is history. So we. We did an episode on the. The inauguration of the Coliseum in A.D. 80, and that featured a bear from Caledonia. There's the polar bear that was given to Henry III by the King of Norway in 1252, and which was kept in the Tower of London. And then there was Lord Byron, who kept a bear when he was a student at Trinity.
- [07:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [07:02]
Tom Holland
Because he'd been told he couldn't have a dog. So he wrote in his diary, I've got a new friend, the finest in the world. When I brought him here, they asked me what I meant to do with him, and my reply was, he should sit for a fellowship. So Byron and his bear, none of.
- [07:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
These were military bears, none of these were fighting bears. And Wojtek is a fighting bear.
- [07:19]
Tom Holland
Wojtek is a military bear. There are actually other examples of bears who served as mascots in war. Probably the most famous of these is an American Black bear who was called Winnipeg. And Winnipeg came into the possession of a guy who originally had come from Birmingham. So he was a Brummie who'd emigrated to Canada and he'd settled in Winnipeg in Manitoba, and there he'd become a vet. And then in 1914, war broke out and the news came to Canada, you know, dominion in the British Empire. So lots of Canadians signed up to fight for king and country. And Harry Colborne, he got the train from Winnipeg to get shipped for Britain, and at a station in Ontario, he got off the platform and there, for reasons that are not entirely clear, because it seems quite an odd thing to be for sale, but he gets a. He gets an orphaned bear cub.
- [08:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [08:16]
Tom Holland
And because he's already feeling homesick for his native town of Winnipeg, he calls this bear. Winnie takes him this orphaned bear. With him to, to Britain, trains with the, the Canadian unit that he signed up to. And then in December 1914, he crosses the channel to go and fight on the, the Western Front. And he can't take this orphaned bear with him, so he donates it to the London Zoo. So Winnie becomes one of the star attractions in London Zoo. And Winnie is there the whole way through the First World War and stays there after the First World war. And in 1924, a writer called A. A. Milne takes his son, who's a little boy called Christopher Robin, to see Winnie, this Canadian black bear. And Christopher Robin is, you know, thinks this bear is wonderful, goes back home and changes the name of his teddy bear to from Edward Bear to Winnie the Pooh.
- [09:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh was this.
- [09:21]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [09:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Wow, that's amazing. But the real Winnie the Pooh, as in Winnipeg, never saw action. Is that right?
- [09:29]
Tom Holland
Doesn't say.
- [09:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
There's a big difference with Wojtek.
- [09:31]
Tom Holland
Okay, so there is another famous bear that does see action because this is a bear who gets taken up in the Korean War by a US paratrooper unit. And she's bought as a cub from a Japanese zoo, say right at the beginning of the Korean War in 1953. And the paratroopers, you know, they go to Korea and they take her up in planes and make her do paratroop jumps.
- [09:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
God almighty, that's a shock for a bear. I mean, does she, does she do it? Does she like it?
- [09:58]
Tom Holland
Well, she hates it. I mean, she absolutely hates it. Of course. I mean, you know, you're a bear and you're being chucked out of a plane, of course you kind of hate it. And on her second jump, understandably, she's so upset that she starts biting the soldiers as they try to push her out. And then on her fourth attempt, she actually, she chews up the boot of a soldier. But they keep doing it. They keep chucking her out of the plane with her parachute and she ends up garlanded with honors. So she wins a parachutist badge, she wins a Purple Heart, she wins a Korean service medal. But I think it's fair to say that she's not an enthusiastic paratrooper. She doesn't enjoy it. And in 1954, so she only seized a year service, she's discharged and sent to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. So we could have gone to Lincoln park, see, when we were in America, couldn't we? We were in Chicago.
- [10:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. We never did.
- [10:47]
Tom Holland
So those, I guess, are the two bears who, who serve as mascots and who have. Have kind of won a certain measure of fame. But Voytech's story is a different order. I think it's the strangest, it's the most moving, and it's definitely the most historically resonant of any bear. Not just a military bear, but any bear in history. Because Wojtek isn't just a mascot. He's literally enrolled in the Polish army as a private for reasons that we'll come to, and rises. Right, and is promoted, probably gets promotion to a corporal. There's kind of debate about this, but I think almost certainly becomes a corporal in the Polish army. And the reason that it's a moving story is that Wojtek, who is, again, like previous, the two previous bears that we talked about, is bought as a Cuban. He grows up and he provides an emotional focus for soldiers who had been uprooted from their homeland. Many of them lost their families, had suffered unspeakable traumas. And this bear provided them with a focus for kind of wellsprings of love that perhaps otherwise wouldn't have had a focus. And I think that this is a huge part of why Wojtek is so famous and celebrated in Poland. But I have to say there's also a personal link for me because, as we will find out, Wojtek ends up very close to the banks of the Tweed.
- [12:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, where you've got your house.
- [12:18]
Tom Holland
My Scottish estate, yes. So, I mean, it's kind of mad to say this about, you know, a bear, but I think his story really does provide a window onto the kind of the miseries of Polish history in the 1940s. But it is also. It's a kind of charming story at the same time, and it's one that has a. It feels like it has a kind of personal connection to me. So it's. It's a story I've wanted to do for a very, very long time.
- [12:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
All right, let's put it back into the context. Let's pick up in a way from where we ended that. That series. So Poland was defeated, you know, swiftly by the Nazis, Warsaw taken, and then Poland was divided up, and Poland vanishes from the map of Europe. But, of course, a lot of the Polish army have escaped, haven't they? They've crossed the border into Romania, and a lot of Poles who are scattered are determined to continue the struggle, aren't they? They have not yet given up their government in exile and so on. So how does Wojtek sort of fit into that story?
- [13:15]
Tom Holland
Okay, so as you say, Poland is defeated, it's carved up, it vanishes from the map. But there are Poles who want to continue the fight. And basically there are three ways in which Poles are able to do this. And the first, and by far, I guess the most dangerous, is to continue the fight in Poland itself. And as you said in the previous episode, the German occupying forces have targeted the Polish elites for complete elimination and, and that their aim is to reduce the mass of the Polish population to kind of heritage, to, to the status of the Helots that the Spartans used as their slave labor. That's what the Germans want to make the Poles become. And so effectively, for lots of Polish young men, they feel that resistance, I mean, why wouldn't you resist? Because the alternative is either enslavement or extermination. And this is something that they are kind of facing up to very, very early on. So in April 1940, forced conscription in Germany is introduced. Polish young men are kind of rounded up and taken as slave labor into Germany. And so rather than submit to that, lots of Poles take to the forests. And this is the genesis of the Polish resistance. Yeah, of course, it's like something out of medieval history. They're centered in the vast woods and forests that spread over much of Poland. And by 1943, the Polish resistance numbers almost half a million, which is by far the largest resistance movement in Nazi occupied Europe. But its ultimate fate is miserable because it's destroyed by the Germans. I mean, this is kind of, they're embroiled in the Warsaw Rising and all that. And then of course, by the Soviets who are invading and who are not friends of the Polish resistance. Want to see it wiped out.
- [15:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, that's a terrible story and I'm.
- [15:07]
Tom Holland
Sure one day we'll, we'll come to that awful story. The other option, if you have managed to get outside Poland, is to continue the fight by signing up perhaps with the French. And then after the fall of France, with Britain, and the Polish forces in Britain come to number almost 80,000. So we talked yesterday about how lots of Polish pilots fight for the RAF in the Battle of Britain, perform heroically. Polish sailors join the Royal Navy. Churchill admires them hugely. I think that they, they garner a great deal of sympathy in Britain both for the fate of their country, for the evident heroism with which they're defending Britain. And I suspect a measure of guilt at the failure of Britain to, to come to Poland's rescue. And these soldiers are stationed, lots of them are stationed in Scotland. They're posted along the, the, the eastern Scottish coastline. To ward off a possible invasion from, from Norway. And one of the places where a camp is set up is above the Tweed, just downriver from Berwick. And this camp is called Winfield Camp. It's a center for lots of Poles there. So there is, of course, a third reservoir of potential soldiers that is waiting to be tapped on when the Soviet Union enters into alliance with Britain in the wake of Operation Barbarossa, which in turn means that the Poles and the Russians are then fighting on the same side. But before that, the fate of Poles in Soviet occupied Poland is pretty much as grim as it had been for the Polish elites in Germany, because the Soviets want to eliminate them just as much as the Germans do. And you described how in your Bravora form, the episode that you did before this, how the Soviet forces had invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, in the wake of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. It comes as a total surprise to the Poles, to the Western Allies. The Polish forces are already disintegrating and this just completes that process. 200,000 prisoners of war are taken. 15,000 of these are officers, and these are taken to three camps in Russia and Ukraine. And then they vanish and no one is really sure what happens to them. And the truth is only discovered later in the war, in the wake of Operation Barbarossa, when the Germans are invading, going into, into Russia, into Ukraine, and in the forest called Katyn, they discover the corpses of 5,000 murdered Polish officers. And the Germans. The Germans, with supreme hypocrisy, trumpet this as an example of Soviet war crimes, which of course it is, but it ignores the fact that the Germans are doing, committing even worse crimes. And these officers who were found in Katyn, they'd been killed in March 1940, along with all the other Polish officers on Stalin's personal orders. But it's not just, as we said, it's not just the officers who are, are dispatched. So in February 1940, the Soviet authorities had begun the kind of mass expulsion of the Polish civilian population. And the nkvd, which is the kind of the, the, the predecessor of the kgb, had begun herding up Polish families, taking them to railway stations, cramming them into cattle wagons, sending them off eastwards towards Siberia. And these are scenes that are very reminiscent of the fate of Jews in occupied Nazi Europe who are being rounded up and put in cattle wagons, unheated women, children as well as men, no food, no drink, freezing cold. And it's been estimated that by early 1941, about 1 1/2 million Poles have been driven into exile. And that of these, by the summer of 1941, between a third and a half of all these Poles who've been deported are dead, either from malnutrition or from the cold or from exhaustion or, of course, from. From disease. So it's the same process of genocidal expulsions that you're seeing in Nazi Germany and which are much better known.
- [19:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
But then it all changes, of course, in the summer of 1941, because on the 22nd of June, Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa, and suddenly the Soviet Union goes from being effectively Hitler's ally to Britain's ally, doesn't it?
- [19:43]
Tom Holland
Yes.
- [19:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
And that changes the whole story for the Poles who are in the Soviet Union.
- [19:47]
Tom Holland
Yes. So there's a Polish government in exile by this point, in London, which means that they're unable really to resist British pressure. And Britain wants this Polish government in exile essentially to ally itself to the Soviet Union, which, of course, is really tough for the Poles to do. I mean, you know, the Soviet Union has dismembered their country, stabbed them in the back, deported millions of their fellow citizens, but they do it. And one of the reasons that they do it is that they see that this is a way to secure the release of the Poles who have been kept prisoner in the Soviet Union. And among these prisoners is one of the very few Polish officers who had been deported to have survived Soviet captivity. And this is a man called Vladislav Anders. And he had spent. He. So he hadn't been taken into a wood and shot. He'd been taken to the Lubyanka, the NKVD prison, and he'd spent months there. Kind of horrendous experience of imprisonment. But then he's released. And initially he. He thinks, if I'm going to carry on the fight against the Germans, then I'm going to have to do it with the Red Army. But he realizes very rapidly that Stalin is not going to allow an autonomous Polish military force to assemble in the Soviet Union. You know, the risk, in Stalin's opinion, is too great. And so therefore, Anders starts thinking, well, we should try and get these guys out of the Soviet Union altogether and see if we could maybe fight with the British. And Stalin is also very keen to see the back of them. And so Stalin and Anders agree that Stalin will allow Polish prisoners to travel down to the Caspian Sea to sail across the Caspian Sea and land in Iran. And the reason for that is that there is a British military presence in Iran, because at this time, Iran is under joint Soviet, US and British occupation. And specifically the rendezvous is a port called Parlevi on the Caspian Sea that I gather is now called Bandar a Anzali. And throughout the spring and summer of 1942, over 100,000 Poles, and this includes women and children, are ferried across the Caspian Sea. You know, they've traveled all the way across the Soviet Union from the camps that they were being kept in. They've traveled there and they're now being ferried across the Caspian Sea and they arrive in, in Paravi and they're in a terrible condition. You know, they, they're hunger ravaged, they're disease ridden, they're shattered, they've traveled vast, vast distances. And I think British officers looking certainly at the men think, oh God, I mean, how are we ever going to get these people into condition to fight? But the British have brought food, medicine, ambulances, and although lots of Poles do die, there are also lots who then start on the road to recovery. And civilians are sent to camps outside Tehran and Isfahan, in, in Iran. And then they are sorted out and they're sent onwards to various territories within the British Empire. So Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia, Kenya. And lots of these Poles, I mean actually they kind of end up settling in these various countries and, and staying there for good. But the plan for the young men, these Poles who have come to join the British to fight the Nazi enemy, the plan for them is to send them from Iran through Iraq to Palestine to train them, to get them ready to join British forces and if needs be to join the fight against Rommel, who at the time is kind of advancing across North Africa towards Egypt. And this force of Poles, they can't call it the First Polish Corps because the First Polish Corps is, you know, that's the body of Poles who are stationed in Britain. So they become the second Polish Corps. And the nickname that they get given is the Anders Army.
- [23:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Brilliant. I have to say I've got, I've actually got two different friends who have grandparents, I think, who were involved in that movement of people. So I've got a friend called Matt Kelly, who's a historian, and my friend Anna as well. And, and they are unbelievable stories. I mean, these people who were deported east from the Polish borderlands, they went to Russia, then crossing the Caspian Sea, going across Iran, going across the Middle east. And then often people would end up in. Some people ended up in Africa, some people ended up in Britain. I mean, it is mind boggling. It's like something from a science fiction book or something.
- [24:32]
Tom Holland
And so little known in this country Isn't it?
- [24:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Although there's actually quite a few people in Britain. There's a kind of Anglo Polish community with roots in this movement of people in this mass migration. But anyway, it's an incredible story. And this is the point where Wojtek enters the story when the bear finally appears. So how does the bear turn up?
- [24:52]
Tom Holland
I mean, it has the force of a kind of folk tale, I think. And as with a folktale, there are various accounts of exactly how Wojtek comes to be a part of this movement of Polish troops to Palestine. But I think the basic outline is clear. So there's a group of Polish soldiers, maybe officers, maybe private soldiers. Accounts differ. And they're in the wilds outside Tehran, and there they meet a young Iranian boy. And he has a sack tied around his neck. And he opens up the sack and inside it there is a tiny bear cub. And the boy tells the Poles that the mother of this cub had been shot by hunters and the cub had been abandoned and the boy had found it. And it's something that he can sell because it's the customary fate of abandoned cubs to be sold to trainers who will raise them as dancing bears. And to be a dancing bear is hideous. I mean, you're chained, you're kind of whipped, you're prodded, you have a miserable life. So the Poles know this and obviously have a sense of fellow feeling for an animal that has suffered bereavement and faces a terrible future. So they, they buy it from, from the, from the boy, either with.
- [26:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
With what?
- [26:13]
Tom Holland
With food, probably barter or food. Or, you know, maybe they've got a few, a few coins. Anyway, they, they, they come into possession of this bear cub. And what happens next? Various stories. So one story says that this, this cub is bought by a Polish officer who gives it to the niece of another officer. And this niece is called Irina. And she looks after the cub for three months in the. The civilian transit camp where she's been stationed. And the bear is kind of very mischievous, full of fun. It's clearly not a good place for a kind of wild animal to be kept. And so Irena gives it to the. To the army as a mascot. And the bear ends up being given by a lieutenant in Anders army to Polish soldiers in the second transport company. And these have already reached a base at Gedera in Palestine. So that's one account, another account, and this is the one you'll get in Eileen Orr's book, which is a wonderful account of Wojtek. And she says that actually it was Polish privates in the second Transport company had come into possession with Wojtek right from the beginning, that they were the ones who had negotiated with this Iranian boy, and that they had kept the bear with them as they traveled to Palestine because they weren't really allowed to have a bear with them. And when the commanding officer is told, we're really sorry, sir, we've got this. We've got this bear cub, yeah, he allows them to keep it because he recognizes that it's really good for their morale, that the soldiers are devoted to the cub and that it's kind of raised their spirits.
- [27:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
And it's these guys in the second Transport Company who give the bear its name, right, which is Wojtek, which is a sort of diminutive of Wojciech, which is a proper Polish name.
- [27:58]
Tom Holland
So the bear is variously known, I think, by Poles as Wojciech or Wojtek. So Wojciech is the formal. Wojtek is the. Is the informal. And it means happy warrior. Right. And in due course, Wojtek grows up to full size. He's absolutely enormous bear. And then another Wojtek joins the company. And so the bear is called Big Wojtek, and the soldier is called Little Vojtek. So his full name is Big Wojtek. But as a cub, Wojtek is given a kind of carer. One of the Polish soldiers in. In the second Transport Company, and this is a guy called Peter Prendis. And most of the soldiers in Second Transport Company are young. They're kind of teenage or early twent. But Peter is. He's 46, and he's probably the oldest soldier in the company, and that is why he is given responsibility for the bear. It's thought that he is. He's the guy who will prove the best parent. But actually the role that Peter plays is not that of a father, but of a mother. Daddy bears, I gather, do not bring up their babies.
- [29:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, they're probably not close to that. Yeah.
- [29:04]
Tom Holland
No, cubs are raised solely by their mothers. And so Peter comes to be nicknamed by his comrades, Mummy Bear. And I mean, you read the accounts of it. And Wojtek, he's a little cub. He might get frightened. He might get scared. Whenever he does, he runs to Peter and Peter picks him up in his arms and cradles him and cuddles him, gives him his finger for. Yeah, for Wojtek to kind of suck on. Yeah, it's all very sweet. But then gradually, of course, Wojtek starts to grow up and he he's, you know, he's a great laugh.
- [29:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
Is he?
- [29:40]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [29:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Bears are like that, though, aren't they?
- [29:42]
Tom Holland
He loves it. So there's. Initially, there's, there's great fun and games with a Dalmatian that's owned by the. By the British liaison officer. He is, he's always climbing trees and then finding that he can't. He can't climb down, so he just drops down and falls on passing soldiers. And it's all great fun.
- [29:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [29:59]
Tom Holland
And he's, he's. Well, I'm not going to call him a perv because of course he's a bear. But he's very keen on stealing the underwear of Polish female soldiers. So to quote Eileen Orr, the women, part of a Polish signals unit, were furious because after months of living rough in their isolated camp in the dusty desert, they had only recently taken a rare trip to Tel Aviv to acquire the much cherished underwear. And Peter has to go and get it back. Get. Get the underwear back.
- [30:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
What's he doing with it? What interest does he have trying it on? Yeah.
- [30:34]
Tom Holland
Who knows? I don't know. The thing he really loves is swimming. And this is obviously a problem if you're in a kind of dusty, parched land in, In Palestine. So whenever he, he finds water, whenever he finds a kind of river or a pond or mud or whatever, he'll kind of roll in it. And the larger he gets, the more his use of water has to be rationed because of course, it's a very precious commodity. And so he's always trying to sneak into the shower. Hut this is another example of his mischievous nature.
- [31:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right.
- [31:04]
Tom Holland
And on one occasion he does this and he finds that there's an Arab spy in the corner, so he's cornered. So, so he. His reward for this is he gets an extra long shower, plus lots of fruit and beer.
- [31:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
And beer. So he's tanked up half the time.
- [31:19]
Tom Holland
So he loves beer and he loves cigarettes and he loves coffee. The cigarettes have to be lit, but he won't smoke them, he eats them. But I think the reason for this is that at no point does it cross Wojtek's mind that he's a bear. He assumes that he is a Polish soldier. I mean, he has no reason to think otherwise. He's been brought up by them, he lives among them, he adopts their habits and he marches with them. He. He kind of learns to kind of salute. I mean, he does this without being instructed. He just kind of picks up on it. Right.
- [31:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Everyone else is doing it. You do it.
- [31:57]
Tom Holland
Right, you do it. And so you can see why he would become a massive, massive favorite, not just with the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, as the second transport company has now become, but with the whole of Anders army, the whole of the second Polish Corps, obviously, really, really good for them.
- [32:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Rally.
- [32:14]
Tom Holland
You can completely see why officers are going, yeah, let's keep this bear. It's. It's good.
- [32:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, maybe not if you're. If your underwear has been stolen. He's trying to get into the shower with you.
- [32:22]
Tom Holland
Yeah, maybe not, but I think in general, very good for morale. But then in December 1943, there is a crisis because Wojtek and his company are moved to Egypt, to Alexandria. And the reason for that is that by this point, Rommel is, you know, he's gone. And the British have invaded Sicily and going up Italy, and they need the Poles to help them in this terrible war. And the crisis is that soldiers are forbidden to transport pets or mascots. There is no room in the transport ship for such animals. So their solution to this is to draft Wojtek officially into the Polish army as a private. And the British authorities approved this. They, you know, they did Wojtek's military papers. He is now enrolled as a Polish soldier officially. And on 13 February 1944, Wojtek and his comrades, they're in Alexandria. They board a troop ship and they set sail westwards across the Mediterranean. And their destination, Dominic, is Taranto. And from there, Monte Cassino.
- [33:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Crikey, what a cliffhanger. So let's take a break, and we will return with Vojtex heroism at the battle for Monte Cassino.
- [33:36]
Tom Holland
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- [34:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [34:30]
Tom Holland
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- [34:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [34:49]
Tom Holland
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- [35:21]
C
Hi, it's Katie K. Here from the Rest Is Politics Us we felt at this time, as America is heading into the Trump administration, that we should look back on one of the darkest moments in recent American history. So we have done just that with a series on Trump's insurrection and his attempts back in 2020 to steal the election from Joe Biden.
- [35:41]
Tom Holland
There was an incitement of an insurrection.
- [35:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
They stormed the Capitol.
- [35:44]
Tom Holland
They literally have senators running for their lives. We break it down, we give a hour by hour of all the incidents. The fences smashing, the windows breaking, gunshots firing, Trump supporters smoking joints in Statutory Hall. Just imagine the bedlam. And incredibly, some of these people are going to be pardoned by Mr. Trump. And so January 6th. I've never told Katty K this, but January 6th is my birthday. Tune in and listen.
- [36:10]
C
Yeah, that's not the only extraordinary thing about the date of January 6th, however. I mean, this is why this story in this series is so important and so gripping, because so many of these characters are coming back with us today and so much has been forgiven and swept under the carpet. And America decided in the election last year that they were going to reinstate Donald Trump. With that, there really is no better time to take a look at these events.
- [36:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
To hear more, just search the Rest.
- [36:36]
Tom Holland
Is Politics Us Wherever you get your podcasts, hear a clip from this miniseries at the end of this week's episode.
- [36:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
General Oliver Lees had earmarked the Poles for the key role of capturing the Monte Cassino Massif. He had sensed a fire and a pride in the bellies of the Poles that suggested they might be more willing to take on this toughest of nuts than other units in 8th army visiting General Wladyslaw Anders, the Polish Corps commander, on 24 March, Lys quoted his proposal in very clear terms that what he was offering would be immeasurably challenging, but was also a singular honour and Indicative of the respect he had for the general and his men, Anders was well aware that the abbey had not been taken in two months of bitter fighting, and that it had eluded the efforts of battle hardened and highly experienced troops. I realized that the cost in lives must be heavy, he later wrote. But I realized too the importance of the capture of Monte Cassino to the Allied cause and most of all to that of Poland. So that was the immortal prose of James Holland, brother of the lesser known Holland podcasting star. And that's from James's book Cassino 44 Five Months of Hell in Italy. And that reminds us, actually, Monte Cassino is not just any battle of the Second World War. It is regarded as one of the most difficult because it's the hinge of a German defensive line called the Gustav Line, and the Allies have to break it to get to Rome. And on the summit of Monte Cassino is this monastery that was founded by St. Benedict. Tom?
- [38:26]
Tom Holland
Yes. So one of the most celebrated monasteries in the whole of Latin Christendom, founded in AD 529. It had been rebuilt and rebuilt kind of had this glorious heyday in the 11th and 12th centuries, 14th century, there'd been an earthquake, it had been rebuilt again. So it's a great emblem of the, the kind of the, the ability of the Catholic Church to rise above all the disasters that could be thrown at it. And now it is in the eye of this terrible storm because the Allies have to knock it out, essentially because the Germans have occupied it, and the Allies feel that they have to destroy the German positions if they're going to have a hope of breaking through and getting on to Rome. And we actually spoke to my brother in an earlier episode about the build up to the Battle of Monte Cassino, but Wojtek arrives right in the middle of it as it's kind of reaching this terrible climax. And as you said in my brother's reading, Anders and his army are given the opportunity to storm Monte Cassino to capture it. And, you know, this is a mark of great honor because as my brother says, it's the toughest of nuts. And there have previously been three attempts to take the monastery. It's failed. The monastery itself has been bombed completely into rubble, which actually means that it's now harder to take because there are more places to kind of hide. Three offensives have failed. The Poles will now take part in the fourth offensive, Operation Diadem, and in fact will kind of spearhead it. So the task for the Poles is to capture a mountain that has defied all the previous Allied troops. So, you know, they've, they've smashed themselves against it and broken against it. So can the Poles do it? So, 24th of April, 1944, they start moving up the foothills to take up positions for the final assault. And it is the job of Voitex company to keep the Polish artillery supplied with shells, with ammunition as the. The Poles make their advance towards Monte Cassino. So inching forwards, and they do this for three weeks and it's exceedingly perilous and dangerous job. So they are having to drive at night to avoid, you know, enemy artillery, kind of sheer hairpin bends. People always kind of driving off cliffs and things like that. So to quote a Polish veteran who's cited by Eleanor in her book, when we finally pulled into the positions of our artillery, we unloaded the ammo and fuses and after a short rest turned round and got out as fast as possible. In spite of all our precautions, a number of trucks crashed into the steep gorges, killing their drivers. So it's a very perilous business.
- [41:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, this must be absolutely terrifying, traumatizing for Wojtek. I mean, he's just been having larks in the desert, showers and stuff. Yeah. So this.
- [41:22]
Tom Holland
Cigarettes.
- [41:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. So. So what does he make of all this?
- [41:25]
Tom Holland
Well, he's terrified and he stays in the lorries, kind of whimpering, covering his eyes with his paws, you know, completely shell shocked. But then he starts to get his. His kind of mojo back and he climbs out of the lorry that he's been hiding in and he kind of looks around and wanders over to a tree and he climbs up the tree and he kind of watches the action. So he's down seeing his friends, carting, you know, shells up to the gums and carrying crates and things. So he drops down from the tree and he, he walks over to his fellow soldiers and he holds out his paws to indicate that, you know, he'd quite like to join in the fun. He doesn't really know what it's about, but it's, you know, his friends are doing it, so why wouldn't he want to join in? He's never, of course, been trained to, to handle heavy boxes of munitions, but he's a bear, so he's very strong. And so actually he turns out to be absolutely brilliant. And he, he does this with all his mates. And the boast is that he never drops a single shell and he does it kind of for as long as he wants to, and then if he gets bored, he'll go off and maybe have a, you know, have a, have a sleep or something or have a, have a bit of a doze. And if they want to get him back on, they give him a lit cigarette or bar of chocolate or something and then he'll join back in and he puts in really, really sterling work and he contributes to the softening up of the German defences that enable anders army on the 11th of May to begin the long awaited fourth offensive. And it's an absolutely murderous battle. It lasts days and days and days. So just to give a description again from my brother's book, this is just one passage. On one occasion, a Polish lieutenant had been standing behind three men. A shell came over and exploded right on top of them, he commented. Two of the men disappeared into thin air. There was nothing left. But on a bush nearby I saw the ammunition belt and the stomach of the third. That was all that was left. Soon after he spotted a soldier sitting down close by, simply staring into space. The man was covered in dust and had a glazed expression on his face. The lieutenant bent over and touched his back and saw that it was covered in blood. The man he realized was dead.
- [43:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
So, I mean, this is a pretty serious business. And amazingly, I guess partly because he's at the back, right, because he's helping to load the guns, he's not in the forefront of the action, but he doesn't get hit at all, am I right?
- [43:53]
Tom Holland
No, he doesn't get hit. So he carries on throughout this. I mean, obviously if he'd been in the forefront of the battle, it would have been rather different because that is, I mean, really brutal. And on the 17th of May, at last, Anders leads the Poles in a second attack on Monte Cassino. The Germans withdraw. 18th of May, the Poles see a white flag flying over the ruins of the monastery and they're so shattered by what they've been going through that it takes some time to find enough men who are strong enough to go up to the height to take possession of the rubble of the monastery. But they get there and they raise the Polish flag over the scene of desolation. And a bugler plays St. Mary's trumpet call, which according to legend, had first been played on the walls of Krakow to warn of the Mongols. And so it's hard not to think of all the emotions that must have been felt in Polish breasts at hearing that and thinking of the fate of their own country looking around at the rubble of this ancient monastery, how this.
- [44:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
Is not a Hollywood film, I do not know.
- [44:53]
Tom Holland
I mean, I don't Know how? I mean, Voytech would be an amazing subject.
- [44:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of course. Do a CGI Bear, or. I'd do it in a bear suit.
- [45:01]
Tom Holland
Well, it's good, Paddington. I mean, you do have a kind of track record.
- [45:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
I missed out on Paddington. But I think, Voytek, I was born to play that part.
- [45:09]
Tom Holland
So the polls have lost a lot of men. Second Polish Corps have lost 1150 killed, 3050 have been wounded. The 22nd Artillery Supply Company, so that's the company that Wojtek's been serving with. You know, they have suffered casualties. So, you know, Voytech undoubtedly has been, you know, he's. He's been in the line of fire, but they have done heroic work. So to quote or. During the Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek's company supplied approximately 17,300 tons of ammunition, 1,200 tons of fuel and 1,100 tons of food for Polish and British troops.
- [45:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, good on them. And he gets a badge or something. There's a. So they all get the badge.
- [45:53]
Tom Holland
They all get the badge. So it's a badge featuring Wojtek carrying an artillery shell. And he's got, you know, he's. He's. It looks as if he's marching off to go to battle. And this becomes the badge of the 22nd company. It's kind of one of the most sort of pieces of military memorabilia that you could. You could possibly have. And it becomes the kind of the. The, I guess, the emblem of the 22nd Company. And it. It gets copied and copied, and it kind of obviously serves to broadcast Wojtek's fame far beyond the limits of his own company. And if Wojtek is promoted to corporal, this is the moment where it happens. I mean, there is. It's contested, I think the military records have been lost, so we will say he gets promoted to corporal at this point.
- [46:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
But this isn't the end of the fighting, right? I mean, for Wojtek, because all the 22nd company, because they're still battling their way through Italy, well, they end up fighting right up to the end of the war, till April 1945. And Wojtek is always in the thick of it, isn't he?
- [46:49]
Tom Holland
The war goes right the way on till Bologna, which is the last town that the Poles capture. And as you say, Wojtek is with them throughout this whole campaign. And he does, you know, he does have kind of brushes with danger, but these tend not to be from German bullets. So he. He finds a pack horse and he thinks this is great fun. So he stalks the pack horse and corners it, and the pack horse lashes out and kicks him in the face with its hooves. And this does him some damage. And maybe the time he comes closest to death is where he wanders into a base that's been set up by Indian soldiers serving with the British Army. And he wanders into a tent and curls up with a Sikh soldier, who wakes up and discovers this huge bear lying next to him and is so alarmed that he reaches for the gun and realizes that it's a tame bear, a pet bear, in time not to kill him. So the war ends. And this is a great time for the 22nd company, because they're stationed on the Adriatic. Very nice. The war is over. It's summer, there's a beach. So they all go down to the beach. Wojtek again, I'm afraid, disgraces himself with girls. So he has this trick where he swims underwater towards a group of unsuspecting women. Yeah. And then he'll suddenly surface in the midst of them and there's lots of kind of screaming and splashing. And Wojtek thinks this is absolutely hilarious. And, of course, for the Polish soldiers, who then have to come over and explain to the Italian women who this bear is, you know, it's a great way of meeting girls. Let me introduce you to my bear. Yes. He's a babe magnet, I think might be one way to describe him. So he's having a lovely time. His fellow soldiers are having a lovely time. It all looks great. But then, of course, the shadow of Stalin falls over their prospects again, because we are now into the, you know, the onset of the Cold War, and Stalin does not want seasoned soldiers who have fought with the British going back to Poland, and he doesn't even want them on the continent of Europe. And this is expressed to the British government. And the British government say, okay, well, we will, you know, we'll. We'll. We'll take them back to Britain. So they go back to Britain and specifically they go back to Scotland. And in September 1946, the 22nd Company arrive on Clydeside. They march through the streets of Glasgow. They're cheered as heroes, and among their ranks is Wojtek. And these soldiers are now the responsibility of the British government. And the reason for this is that they're very conscious of the debt they owe the Poles. And again, I think it's this thing that has been shadowing British attitudes throughout the war, which is a feeling of guilt.
- [49:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [49:49]
Tom Holland
And for the British government in particular, this guilt is, of course, Compounded by the fact that, that Churchill has signed Poland over to Stalin at the altar conference. So there's been, you know, yet another British portrayal of Poland. And to quote Neil Asheson on how the British government feel about this, they hope to soothe their consciences by handling the problem of the Polish armed forces in a generous and humane way. An interim Treasury Committee for Polish questions was set up immediately after the London government was derecognized. So that's the Polish government that had been in London throughout the war. The British government has, has recognized the kind of the. The puppet government that Stalin has set up in Warsaw in their place. So continue quoting Ashton. In effect, this meant that Britain, although exhausted and bankrupt at the end of nearly six years of war, was taking on the duty to pay and maintain and house the Polish armed forces in the West.
- [50:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's actually a terrible story, this. It's just as bad a betrayal as the. As what happened just before the war, because the British completely pulled the rug out from under the Polish government in exile. I guess they would say it's rail polity, we have no choice. And with the Polish army, they basically wanted to get rid of them, didn't they? They really hoped they would all just go back.
- [51:01]
Tom Holland
You know, the problem is, is that, that Stalin will not take back people from these, you know, these Polish brigades unless they actively volunteer to go back. So in other words, they have to be communist sympathisers to do it. And in the event, I think only 7 officers go back, something like 14,000 privates opt to head back. There are a few of these from the 22nd Division and they want to take Wojtek with them. And there's a massive row about this, but the vast majority of soldiers from the 22nd Division opt to stay in Scotland and they get to keep Wojtek.
- [51:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right.
- [51:33]
Tom Holland
The commanding officer says you cannot take him. And instead, where do they go? They go to Winfield Camp, which is.
- [51:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
The camp you talked about before, above.
- [51:41]
Tom Holland
The Tweed, just down from Berwick. And initially there is some hostility from the locals. You know, they're all suffering from rationing and things. But there are two things that help, I think, to, to thaw the relations. And the first is again, that's this sense of how much people in Britain owe the polls. And the second is that the 22nd Division have this bear. And Wojtek is the kind of perfect ambassador because he remains as amiable and as full of fun as ever. He's still got Pyotr with him, you know, so kind of mummy bear. He's got all his mates.
- [52:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [52:20]
Tom Holland
And I think it just. It never crosses his mind that he's not one of them.
- [52:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's a. In his own mind, he's a Pole, not a bear.
- [52:28]
Tom Holland
Absolutely. And so they take him to. To dances. And when he goes there, Wojtek gives the local children rides on his back. He amuses them by doing huge farts. They all find this hilarious. Again, kind of breaks ice with the local girls.
- [52:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right.
- [52:46]
Tom Holland
Foytech is taken swimming in the Tweed. So he's brought down from the camp and he's led on a chain because, you know, they can't risk him being kind of swept out into the North Sea. And he goes swimming beneath the Union Bridge, which is this wonderful bridge built in 1822. It's the oldest functioning suspension bridge anywhere in the world. And Void really has a wonderful swim beneath it. And I've actually been to see the camp, the site of the camp where Wojtek stayed. And there's a big pool there, and you know how much Wojtek likes pools. And all around it are trees, and they're still marked with his claw marks. No, really, I just want to give a shout out to Livy, who I know will be listening to this, who took us up there and showed us where the trees were. The paw marks of Wojtek on the living tree. It's a kind of wonderful thing. And it's so odd. This is a story, as I said, begins with all this darkness and horror that you were describing on Monday. And yet there is a link that takes us to a tree above the Tweed that is marked with the claw marks.
- [53:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's amazing.
- [53:47]
Tom Holland
Off a bear.
- [53:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
And the people love him. Do they? They're delighted. They think he's a tremendous person.
- [53:52]
Tom Holland
They do. And the measure of this is, of course, that, you know, there's very strict rationing at this point, and Wojtek is a bear with a huge appetite. And it's not just the poles. It's all the locals kind of. They, you know, they get together and they make sure that he has enough food. And maybe it helps that on the far bank. So on the English bank, opposite the Scottish side of the Tweed, there is a honey farm in the village of Horncliff, which is excellent. And again, a shout out to them.
- [54:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
So brilliant.
- [54:21]
Tom Holland
So they're able to keep Wojtek in.
- [54:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
That you genuinely could not make that up.
- [54:26]
Tom Holland
But then, Dominic, I mean, you know, this heartwarming story, but then tragedy.
- [54:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, no.
- [54:32]
Tom Holland
Because in 1947, the 22nd Division start to be demobbed. So they are. They found settlement across Britain. The camp is going to be closed down. The men leave for civilian life. And the question is, what is going to happen to Wojtek?
- [54:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
He can't get a job, can he?
- [54:53]
Tom Holland
I mean, we can't get a job. You know, he can't be reunited with his loved ones because his mother's dead, you know, real problem. So it's decided that he will be taken to Edinburgh Zoo. Oh, and on the 15th of November, 1947, you know, he's. He's. He's loaded into a cage, the cage is put on the back of a truck and he's driven off to Edinburgh.
- [55:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, that is quite sad.
- [55:15]
Tom Holland
And everyone who watches him go in 22nd division is devastated. None more so than Peter. And from this point on, it is said that if anyone ever mentioned Wojtek's name to him, he would burst into tears. And his comrades as well, are devastated. They are repeatedly making trips to the zoo.
- [55:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
And I suppose, Tommy, if you were trying to sort of give this story a bit of profundity, not that it needs it, you might say there's a kind of. This is Poland's story in microcosm. People have lost touch with their families. Every family in Poland has been scarred by grief and loss and trauma. And in a way, Pyotr having lost.
- [55:53]
Tom Holland
Touch, he'd lost his family and now he's losing Wojtek.
- [55:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, it's part of a bigger story.
- [55:58]
Tom Holland
And that is why, genuinely, the Polish soldiers who've been his comrades are always visiting him. And sometimes they'll break into his enclosure and wrestle with him like in the good old days. And when they leave, Vojtek tries to clamber out through the bars. And it's not just the Poles who feel the tragedy of this. I mean, so the director of Edinburgh Zoo, who's a guy called Thomas Gillespie, I mean, he wrote, I never felt so sorry to see an animal that had enjoyed so much freedom and fun confined to a cage. Oh, there are shards of light in this story. So one is that Peter, who had lost his family, he is reunited with most of them. His two oldest sons are lost for good, but the rest of his family, they do come and join him in London.
- [56:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right.
- [56:37]
Tom Holland
And Wojtek also, it's not total misery, because I'm very happy to say that he becomes obsessed by penguins. So he. He takes a huge interest in them and whenever they kind of march past, he'll watch them with huge fascination. And also, of course, Poles continue to visit him. And it's not just his former comrades, because by now Wojtek has become an emblem for Poles in Britain of everything that they've been through. And so they will come and watch and talk to him, and he always perks up. And this is a story that starts to get resonance in Britain as well, particularly, I think, in Scotland, in the Borders region and in Edinburgh, to the extent that ultimately, Wojtek is always appearing on Blue Peter, the children's TV program. Children's TV program. So he's a kind of a regular star, but towards the end of his life, so going into the 60s, he does start to become very depressed. He goes into a steep decline. And on the 15th of November, 1963, so by which point he's been in the zoo for 16 years, he's put.
- [57:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Down, oh, poor Wojtek.
- [57:39]
Tom Holland
Poor Wojtek.
- [57:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's a bittersweet story, I suppose, isn't it, Tom?
- [57:43]
Tom Holland
Yeah. So I think that. That he is a worthy hero for an episode of our podcast, and I think it for a number of reasons. So we've talked about how this is a story that spans a vast range of places. So it begins in Poland. It takes us to Siberia, to the Middle east, to Italy, to the woods above my Scottish estate. It reminds you just how much of a World War, the Second World War was. I think also Wojtek is a very moving symbol of Polish Scottish friendship. So I know that he is hugely famous in Poland, but he's pretty well known on the Borders as well. School children there know all about him. There's a statue of him in Duns, which is, you know, just up from the Tweed, and there's a statue in Edinburgh commemorating his presence there.
- [58:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
Quite right.
- [58:46]
Tom Holland
But I think above all, and the reason why it's good to have this as a coda to the terrible story that we've been telling in our previous three episodes is that Wojtek's career does kind of rub up against the horrors that overwhelm Poland in the war. But because he was wholly innocent of them, knew nothing of them, he. He somehow seemed to provide the Poles who. Who were with him with a way of kind of staring into the abyss of their own grief and everything that they'd lost, their bereavement, in a way that was kind of less painful than staring into that heart of darkness directly. Yeah, I think that makes. I mean, again, I don't want to kind of put words into. Into the Polish soldiers who went through all that, but that's the sense that I get from Reading about the obviously very profound bond that they felt with this kind of this. This innocent animal.
- [59:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, that makes. I mean, they've lost everything. They've lost their families, they've lost their homeland, and they can pour a lot of that emotion into their relationship with this, with this, as you said, this innocent bear.
- [59:58]
Tom Holland
And, and that is surely why, you know, these bereaved, homesick, grieving men had adopted him in the first place. It's why the. The Polish officer said, yes, let's keep him. It's why the British high command recognized this and said, yes, we will, you know, take. Enroll him as a private. And I. It's. It's why they invested such love in him. And I think it's why to this day in Poland, Wojtek does remain kind of very loved.
- [60:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, Tom, that was amazing. A brilliant story. Very moving story. Actually, I didn't expect it to be such a moving story.
- [60:31]
Tom Holland
I find it a really moving story.
- [60:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
And it was the perfect coda to the grim story of the. The fall of Poland in. In 1939. So that's the story of Wojtek the bear, if you're Polish, of course. There are loads of children's books you can look that up in. And a shout out to the most amazing book on Poland's experience in the Second World War, which we talked about a lot, which is Halleck book, the Eagle Unbowed. But next week we will be back with something completely different because I've heard a rumor that the previous translations of Suetonius the 12 Caesars have been superseded. Is that correct, Tom? Am I right?
- [61:09]
Tom Holland
It's not for me to say, Dominic.
- [61:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
That a new translation by an unknown Author of Suetonius 12 Caesars is about to hit the bookshelves. And to celebrate this, the author himself on his podcast will be taking us into a series on the sex secrets of the Caesars. And we'll be looking not just at Sutanes 12 Caesars itself, but also at the lives of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. So a complete change of tone and I suspect a slightly more lubricious style of podcasting next week when we return with the Romans. So on that bombershell, Tom, thank you so much. That was absolutely wonderful. And we'll see you all next time. Bye bye.
- [61:58]
Tom Holland
Bye bye.
- [62:13]
C
Here is that clip from our miniseries on Trump's Insurrection. And these senators are being kind of ushered out through a very narrow corridor, and one of them says, we were 20ft away from the rioters. If the rioters had just looked the other way and seen that a whole bunch of senators were coming out. Who knows what would have happened? Who knows what could have happened to Mike Pence? And I think it is important to point out that Donald Trump was getting these reports and did not care. The Senate has been evacuated. At 2:18pm Nancy Pelosi is also pulled out of her chair by the Capitol Police and taken off the podium and taken to a safe location at Fort McNair in Southwest Washington. She originally tried to stay. She didn't want to leave the building, but because of security, she had to get out of there. One of the Democratic members of the Congress at this point, as they realize that the rioters are starting to breach their area, one of the members, Democratic members of Congress yells down to the Republicans, this is because of you. And the members are getting texts. This is how they know that things are bad, because they're getting texts from their family saying, what are you doing there? Why haven't you left? Are you safe? And they haven't got a television. They're not watching it. They're trying to get on with the business of the day. I mean, it's this surreal. I keep thinking how surreal it was that inside the chambers, they're trying to do business as usual. And feet away, the rioters are there saying that they want to have some of these people hungry and that they want to overturn the election result. So then a few minutes after that, the House floor is evacuated, literally in front of the rioters. The police manage again to secure a very narrow passageway through the rioters to get them out. And one member afterwards says, I could look in the eyes of those officers and I saw the fear. They knew that the officers were outnumbered.
- [64:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
To hear more search, the rest is politics.
- [64:12]
Tom Holland
Us, wherever you get your podcast.