Dan Snow’s History Hit The Warsaw Uprising. It’s the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, which I have always had confused in my mind with the Warsaw Ghetto. This episode features Clare Mulley, the author of Agent Zo: The Untold Story of Fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elzbieta Zawacka. To be honest, I’d never heard of Agent Zo. She was born in German-occupied Poland, and was 11 years old at the end of WWI. Once WWII began, she was involved in active service with the Polish Home Army from the start, a resistance force of 400,000 to 500,000 people. The Polish government and army escaped and set up a government-in-exile, and never conceded defeat. From 1942 she used her German language skills and appearance to bring information into Berlin, and in 1943 was sent to Britain with microfilm. She brought parachutists back to Poland to join the uprising, which started on 1 August with an outbreak of brutal street fighting. Hitler was furious and ordered that every Pole be shot. Meanwhile, with Stalin advancing from the east (he had changed sides by now), the Russian government stepped back and let the battle continue, as it was in their interests for the Polish nationalists to be wiped out. The Warsaw Uprising continued for two months, and Warsaw was completely destroyed. Agent Zo was arrested and imprisoned in 1951, long after WW2 had finished. She died in 2009.
In the Shadows of Utopia Becoming Cambodia Pt 2: Cambodia after Angkor This episode deals with the increasing European influence in Cambodia, and the shift from a subsistence economy to a trade economy. Longvec (or Lovec) was the capital for 50 years until it was conquered by the Thai. A multitude of foreign traders moved into the area, including Portuguese and Spanish traders who were competing with each other. The first phase of trading involved the extraction of gold and silver (and the spreading of religion in return), but the second phase involved Dutch trading for goods, rather than mere extraction. In 1594 the Thais threatened again so the King looked to the Spanish in the Phillipines for support. By the time his envoy returned, the Siamese had invaded and the King fled. When the Thais were distracted by conflict with Burma, the King took Lovec back again. The Spanish envoys decided to support the King in exile, and were promised that they were free to spread Christianity. By the time the envoys arrived in Laos to liberate the King, he was already dead, so they brought his son back again, only for the son and the envoys to be killed. Meanwhile Pierre De Behaine, a French missionary stationed in Vietnam where there was north/south tribal conflict, went back to Spain and organized the Treaty of Versailles – no,not that one- this one was in 1787 between the French King Louis XVI and the Vietnamese lord Nguyễn Ánh, the future Emperor Gia Long. Not a good time to be ratifying treaties, and when the French government fell through with its promises of aid, Pierre brought mercenaries and modern warfare methods. In 1801 Nguyễn proclaimed himself emperor of North and South Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese and Thai governments both kept fighting to-and-fro over Cambodia. There was 40 years of Vietnam influence, then the Thais installed a pro-Thai King who gave away land around Angkor to a warlord, which was strongly resented. In the 1820s there was a new Vietnamese emperor who very anti-Catholic.
Episode 6 The Dawn of French Indochina This episode deals with the years 1789 – 1887. He starts off this episode with an engaging story of two little village boys growing up under the French protectorate. It’s only after you’ve been listening for a while that you realize that he’s talking about the man who became Pol Pot, and suddenly the story doesn’t seem quite so engaging any more. In telling the story of how the French came to dominate French Indo-China, he draws on three longer themes. The first is the French Revolution, which embodied nationalism as a source of power. When Napoleon III wanted to regain the empire that had been lost after Waterloo, he seized on the persecution of French missionaries in the 1850s as a cause to justify colonialism. The second factor was the unification of Vietnam, which had previously been split between clans in north and south Vietnam. This strengthening of Vietnam meant that Cambodia was being tussled over between two stronger countries: Vietnam on one side and Thailand on the other. The Cambodian king, crowned under Thai influence, started to look for a third power that he could turn to. Finally, we had the French naturalist Henri Mouhot who toured Siam, Cambodia and Laos and saw the potential for growing cotton, to fill a possible market failure with the American Civil War, and a way of competing with Great Britain’s imperial power. He also uncovered Angkor Wat during his travels. France invaded Vietnam by the end of the 19th century, as an opportunity to access Chinese trade, under the excuse that they were protecting French Missionaries from mistreatment. But the French didn’t need to invade Cambodia; King Norodom welcomed its presence.
Background Briefing. Kidnapping the Gods Part 1. Over this week, I was in Phnom Penh and visited the Cambodian National Museum, where they had a display about looted artefacts that had recently been returned to Cambodia. This two-part Background Briefing program looks at the Australian collection of Khmer artefacts purchased, of all places, from David Jones department store in Sydney, which had a special section for fine arts. Although the director of the gallery, Robert Haines, seemed completely above-board, he sourced his artefacts through a Bangkok dealer called Peng Seng who also worked for Douglas Latchford, an infamous dealer in Khmer looted goods.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 