"Anglo-Afghan Wars: popular perceptions" Topic

My experience is that the modern day 'popular perception' of British Imperial entanglement with Afghanistan is that the Brits were beaten time and time again.
This is, of course, at odds with reality as, though the First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Imperial defeat, the British achieved their aims in both the Second and Third Wars.

So – assuming the great minds of TMP agree there is one – where did this flawed popular perception come from?

Is it based on a different perception of the relative war aims of the opposing sides? Given that the Third Anglo-Afghan War was started by an Afghan attempt to invade British India, surely there can be little doubt over the winner of this one?

Or is it a case that the political-correct delight in talking up any Imperial defeat has now been stretched to re-invent even Imperial victories as defeats?

(for example: in the 'extras' on the DVD of the latest version of 'The Four Feathers', the director, Shekar Kapur, explains his main battle scene – in which the British lose – is based on Abu Klea… which the British won).

I don't know if that is the popular perception of the Anglo-Afghan wars. Certainly the first was a disaster in both conception and execution but I'm not aware of a general feeling that the other conflicts were. I think rather that Britain's experience in Afghanistan shows the futility of attempts at long term influence – much like what is happening today.

I agree with you about Shekar Kapur's commentary on The Four Feathers though – I remeber thinking he was full of tosh when I listened to it. And the film is rubbish.

Once I was told, after having asked why in a lot of popular history the Kabul Massacre and Maiwand are the only things remembered and not Pollock's Army of Retribution, The battle of the Kabul Cantonment and Roberts' march to Kandahar…

'I suppose you are not British'

'No, I am Italian'

'I see, it seems British popular history has a knack to remember only defeats.'

Maiwand and Gandamak caught the immagination and stuck in the popular history. When Victoria's small wars faded from real memory history of the empire became less popular and this was connected with a trend of magnifying afghan resistance in the 80s.

I will simply say the perception is flawed because 'ignorance', penchant for big headlines, and the lack of willingness to read military history. You can just name Maiwand and pass yourself for an expert on Afghanistan in these days… Still there are very good and readily available accounts of these wars, including Barthorp and Stewart that put in thing in perspective. But remember nowadays the general public want history in small tablets…

So – assuming the great minds of TMP agree there is one – where did this flawed popular perception come from?

The Retreat from Kabul, 1842

Maiwand, 1882

Both were major incidents* and were widely broadcast as such throughout the Empire and World, so anyone doing a cursory examination on the subject today comes up with this, wrongful, conclusion.

* Defeats actually, however:

The Retreat from Cabul was avenged by the Army's of Retribution coming through the Quetta and Khyber Passes, but even they had a very difficult time of it, especially from the Sikhs who were going through a major upheaval at the time and were, lukewarm, at best, about providing the minimal support to keep the passes open. If the Khyber had been closed…things would have gotten real fun, real fast.

Maiwand was the appearance of the first, modern, trained, army fielded by Afghanistan. True they had tonnes of irregulars and ghazi's, both horse and foot, supporting them, but it was the first time that actual brigades and batteries of regulars were fielded, on an open field, against the British. It was, for Afghanistan, their Lundy's Lane/Chippewa moment.

I hope this helps. As others have noted, it's what's in Google Search and Wikipedia that many draw their conclusions from today, including otherwise intelligent and learn-ed people who just didn't know/study up on the subject in school, sincethe "need to know" wasn't there 20 years ago.

Hope my, and the comments above, are of assistance.

Arrigo

I think you make an interesting point re. the potential 'reinvention' of the Afghans into 'plucky fighters' in the 1980s when the Soviets had a go. I wonder if that's where a lot of this came from?

I was working in the US when the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001. There were lots of (premature?) self-congratulatory comments in the tabloid press along the lines of 'the Brits couldn't beat them, the Russians couldn't beat them, but we kicked their asses in a couple of weeks' etc… so this flawed popular perception seems fairly wide-spread?

Andrew Preziosi

Good point on the over-importance assigned to one or two stand out defeats – and this is not something unique to the Afghan Wars: though both were were British victories, in popular culture (especially here in South Africa), the Zulu War is primarily remembered for Isandlwana and the Boer War for Colenso / Spion Kop.

Alex Kulic

Yup – the 1939 version was much better.

They're seen as failures because the Brits kept having to go back through every generation or so and fight the same battles, in the same places, against the same tribes.

'When you're lyin' out wounded on Afghanistan's plains
An' the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just you roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains
An' go to your God like a soldier -
Soldier of the Queen.'

Don't ignore the role of Kipling in popular British culture; his poems may have helped create the popular view of 'colonial' warfare, just as those of Sassoon, Owen et al. created the image of trench warfare in the Great War.

Lion in the Stars

By that argument, the First and Second World Wars should be seen as failures?

My perception is that any darn fool can come in and occupy Afghanistan. Then, what do you do?
You aren't actually contemplating CIVILIZING those … people, are you?

Well, I certainly see the First World War as a failure, since part 2 was guaranteed to happen as soon as the Treaty of Versailles was signed.

I think that I could actually change the Afghan definition to 'march through the same valleys and fight in the same places every 5 years or so' and be more accurate.

And I must agree with Howard and Churchill: Afghanistan is the last refuge of the uncivilizable.

The trope of unconquerable Afghanistan does seem to date from the 1980s; before that it was irrepressible Afghanistan. Look at the first edition of "The Sun Never Sets"; Afghanistan rose up in revolt- but could be pacified. That was written in 1982, so wargamers clearly have been immune to this myth.

Some very interesting thoughts and remarks. A lot of comments about Afghanistan being impossible / difficult to conquer, but one must always remember that the Third Afghan War was fought because the Afghans invaded India, not because anyone wanted to repress the Afghans.

Lion in the Stars

Yes – fair point, but there is not the same sort of popular myth doing the rounds that the Brits always got beaten by the Germans. Indeed, your average Sun reader will tell you quite the opposite.

One of the most famous fictional characters from the 19th Century was wounded at Maiwand and invalided back to London, where he and his service revolver turned up in numerous short stories, novels, and films. I'm thinking, of course, of Dr. John Watson.

I have modern copy of a Victorian print of the battle of Maiwand, showing a little knot of British soldiers--and Bobby the dog--around their standard, being charged by hordes of Afghans. I understand this sort of thing was extremely popular with the Victorian British. Certainly it has more drama than the firing line at Omdurman cutting down the charging Dervishes before they could close to spear range. Stiff upper lip, fighting the good fight, and all that.

Grelber

Perhaps it is because the perception of failure is easier to convay than the complex details that make up the truth. The Afghans themselves celebtate independence day on the day they 'beat' the British at the end of the Third Afghan War*. This perhaps resonates with the Americans with the similarities to July 4th and American Media does have a huge say in how the West perceives things? Wikipedia adds to this as it calls the British win a marginal tactical victory as evidenced by the Afghan battle losses of 1000 and total British casualties (including KIA, WIA, disease and accidents) of 1751, i.e. comparing apples with oranges. As the British and Indian KIA were 236 I make that less than 1/4 of Afghan KIA but that would skew the myth too much.

On a similar vein I have been told by several Americans I have worked with that the Brits were 'kicked out' of Iraq in 1921. I do tend to point out that seeing that Iraq was a British protectorate from the end of WW1 to 1932 when it gained independence peacibly. Indeed the air policing of Iraq of the 1920s did a lot to keep the RAF an independent service. But again it seems there is a popular idea that the Iraqis drove the British out of Iraq in the 1920s that seems to reoccur here.

*The myth comes about because after asking the British for an end to hostilities, after failing in the invasion of India and not getting the mass uprising he was expecting to support his invasion, the Amir announced to his army that the British had surrendered. Although I must admit that if he had told the truth, Afghanistan would have found themselves a new Amir very quickly.

Well said, Philby.

With regard to Elphinstone's Retreat from Kabul and the Last Stand of the 44th at Gandamak/Jagalak in 1841-42, it was a horrendous defeat which caused a scandal at the time, but Pollock's Army of Retribution avenged it rather severely, and up until the destruction of Elphintone's army, the British had been rather uniformly victorious throughout the campaign.

Same thing goes for Maiwand in 1880.

These are the two exceptional Anglo-Indian defeats, against a much, much longer list of Anglo-Indian victories. At the macro level, I think the answer to the "popular perception" being one of British defeat in Afghanistan can be attributed to cultural masochism, AKA: what you refer to as "politically correct delight."

After all, the grand strategic objective of the three Anglo-Afghan wars -- 1839-42, 1878-80, and 1919, was to secure and protect the North-West Frontier of Imperial India from Russian attack. You can argue intelligently that the perceived Russian threat of such an attack was vastly overblown by certain parties in the British political and military leadership at the time, but you can't argue with the record of keeping British India safe from Russian, or Afghan -- see 1919 -- invasion throughout the entire time the British controlled the sub-continent.

It's true the British and Indian armies suffered a couple of harrowing, disastrous defeats at the hands of Afghan tribal, religious fanatic, and regular army forces, over the course of the three Anglo-Afghan wars -- and the 1841-42 destruction of Elphinstone's army in particular had a significant negative impact on the British position in India, as it was the first time a British army had been broken by the local inhabitants, and the possibilities this raised in the minds of Britain's Indian subjects is often cited as planting a seed that grew into the Great Mutiny of 1857-59.

But with the exception of a small ministerial contingent back in London during the First Afghan War, British war aims never included occupying all of Afghanistan for a protracted length of time. It was all about guarding the frontier, which said frontier stood rather steadfast until the British withdrawl in 1949. At different times there were plans for "regime change," and for dividing Afghanistan into two or more parts, but not for making it a permanant component of the British Empire.

So overall, I think a well-informed, objective judge would say that the British won at least 2 out of their 3 Afghan Wars. But that has had, and will continue to have, no effect whatsoever on "popular perception."

Philby and Mad Guru

Great posts and some excellent and well-made points.

All this reminds me of a recent argument. I took the memsahib on a luxury train trip through South Africa for our wedding anniversary recently. One of the excursions just happened to be a series of Boer War battlefield walks in Natal (amazing coincidence) and I was amazed by the 'popular perception' of that conflict – indeed, not just the popular perception, but even that of the guides who really should know better. I made a few comments and pointed out a few mistakes the guide made, which did not seem to go down too well with him or with some of my fellow passengers, none of whom seemed keen to have their myth busted.

Anyway, we got back on the train and one of the other passengers accosted me later that night in the bar, drunkenly telling me that 'the Brits really got their arses kicked in that war' – this imbecile's rant prompted a lot of head-nodding from other passengers. When I pointed out that the British won the war, and that this is not the usual definition of getting 'an arse kicking' this cut little ice and he merely started ranting about concentration camps (surprise surprise).

Probably the root of the problem is in the fact that Afghanistan never became part of the Empire, despite British and John Company Armies making expeditions into it from time to time.

But then you could argue that China wasn't part of the Empire but it is not assumed that the British lost the Opium Wars or Boxer Rebellion.

When I pointed out that the British won the war, and that this is not the usual definition of getting 'an arse kicking' this cut little ice and he merely started ranting about concentration camps (surprise surprise).

When you have personally lost members of your own family to said concentration camps (as several friends of mine from SA have)…

As to whether the cholera epidemic was merely a result of a poorly planned encampment or an active decision to provide infected food is a much different discussion.

The point was that the two statements were in no way related. It would be like a German telling a Briton or an American: 'we really kicked your ass in WW2' and, when it was pointed out to him that Germany lost the war, replying: 'that's because you bombed our cities'.

Incidentally, it was the measles epidemic (which pre-dated the war) which was the biggest killer – accounting for 43% of deaths in the camps – followed by pneumonia, dysentery, diarrhoea, typhoid and whooping cough. Typhoid also killed 8,020 Imperial troops during the war – but no one ever mentions that.

During the 'flu epidemic of 1918, 142,000 South Africans (ie. about 7 times the number who died in a couple of years in the Boer camps) died in a few weeks – something else that gets rather less attention for some reason.

The 'infected food' myth is Apartheid-era propaganda and I have never seen any evidence to support it whatsoever – indeed, the figures prove that the longer people stayed in the camps, the healthier they were – which kinda torpedoes the myth immediately.

It's easy to be objective when your Great-Grandpa didn't lose 5 of his brothers and sisters in the camps.

Or when only the people in the camps that bought food from the outside didn't get sick.

You basically told someone with a string of numbers tattooed on his arm that the camps didn't kill people. I'm surprised you weren't physically assaulted.

Lion in the Stars

What on earth are you talking about? Are you honestly trying to equate Hitler's death camps to the British concentration camps? Are you joking or just clutching at straws?

'Only the people in the camps that brought food from the outside didn't get sick'?
Where are you getting this stuff from? Please cite references (preferably ones other than the AWB website I think you must have been reading).
I actually love the sheer lunacy of these sort of statements: "the British wanted to poison all the inmates… but they let them bring their own food in".
And: "the British deliberately spread disease in the camps… and then spent millions providing doctors and hospitals to cure the inmates".

Please take a moment to re-read my post.

In fact, I'll break it down for you, as you obviously mis-read it:

He said that the British got their arses kicked in the war.
I pointed out that, as the British won the war, this was a bizarre take on history.
He then claimed this was because they used concentration camps.
I did not say that people didn't die in the camps – you made that bit up. In fact, I just shook my head and walked away as I have found such people to be beyond rational debate.

The point I was making is that it was strange for him to say the British got their arses kicked (for the simple fact that they won) and when challenged on this indefensible statement, he suddenly wanted to talk about something completely different.

Do you also think it would be reasonable to claim the Americans got their arses kicked in WW2, and when challenged to say: thats because they nuked Japan?
Or that the British got theirs kicked in the Falklands War, and when challenged say: that's because they shot down most of the Argentine air force?

It should actually be easy to be objective about things that happened decades before you were even born – that some people take offence (or pretend to take offence) at things like this speaks volumes of the success of Apartheid era propaganda machine. 'The Camps' were used as a tool to paint the Boerevolk as the innocent victims of the piece and to justify virtually anything between 1948 and 1994. I lost various ancestors in the Second World War, but don't go around physically assaulting Japanese or German people for stating historical reality.
I had a German colleague who would theatrically shake his head and say: 'if only it wasn't for that damned English Channel!' whenever we were winding him up about the football / basically anything at all.
Should we have physically assaulted this chap?

I'm referring to a gent I know. His family was well-off enough that they could afford to buy food, rather than eating what was provided. They lived, those that ate the provided food got sick.

Like I said, it's pretty much impossible to be objective when it's not 'some time in the past to someone else', it happened to your own family.

I'm still ed at the people who 'adopted' my great-aunt as a child and then immediately put her to work in a box factory, where the typical 'workplace injury' was losing part of your hand because you didn't move fast enough.

Why are you so surprised that a man who personally lost family isn't debating rationally?

And in case you haven't noticed, the US also used concentration camps during WW2. We put the Japanese in them.

Why are you assuming the man I spoke to personally lost family? That is an enormous assumption, so I would be fascinated to know where it comes from.

I further note that you have not answered any of my other questions or provided the references I asked for.

Myths die hard.

I doubt the layman even knows we've been in Afghanistan before.

It's a little hard to provide a cite for a personal interview, BullDog69. It's not like I recorded it, transcribed it, and had it published all on my own dime.

As far as my assumption that the person you were talking to lost members of his own family: How many Boers were there before the war? How many Boers in the camps? How many Boer families after the war and camps?

OK – so it's a real leap of faith to accept your sweeping claim that 'Only the people in the camps that brought food from the outside didn't get sick' given that you now say it is based on a single statement which you cannot in anyway substantiate.

How old was this person? Had he lived in the camps? If not, I think you have to agree that he was speaking from no personal experience whatsoever. Even if he had lived in one of the camps, I would be fascinated to know how he could speak authtoritively about every other inmate in every camp – how would this be possible?

If I were to tell you, for example, that my grandfather, who was born the year after the war ended and who's father served in it, once told me that all the camp residents were given champagne on Saturday nights, would you simply accept this too?

And why do you assume that the person I spoke to on the train was a Boer?

Is there one good book on the three Afghan Wars currently in print – or something older that might still be in the UK public library system – that dispels these myths?

I do recall being surprised at looking up the National Army Museum's web pages on the Afghan Wars (admittedly some years ago now) and they pretty much parrotted the "we got thrashed" line. Don't know if they still do, as they have re-structured their website recently.

The Boer War "Concentration Camps" argument has been repeatedly laid to rest on this site BullDog69, but people keep repeating the same myths, even those who have had the truth pointed out to them before in previous threads. There is little point repeating the same facts to people who refuse to accept the truth. For example, the fact that loyal and indeed British families were also kept in the "concentration camps" and suffered the same amount of death through disease does tend to suggest that death was not an intention of the camps. In any case, the US used concentration camps in their colonial struggle against the people of the Phillipines in the same period. They also used "concentration camps" in their struggle against the Navajo in the 1850's, only they called them things like reservations, at places like Bosque Redondo.

Chouan

Yes – you are right, of course. I do find the sheer nonsense of the arguments some of them come up with highly entertaining though.

And why do you assume that the person I spoke to on the train was a Boer?

Because I can't imagine a member of the ANC having a single good word to say about a white man.

The current ANC (not that of Mandela) seems to keep to the motto of 'the only good whitey is a dead whitey.' Hell, read the new constitution: it's not a racist policy if the only ones negatively affected by it are white!

You seem to assume that South Africans are either Boers or Black. There are a significant number of white South Africans, a minority of course, of British heritage, would wouldn't be pleased if called Boers. They tended to call South Africans of Boer descent unkind, though apt, names, my favourite being "Ropes". There are also significant numbers of people of Indian heritage, who wouldn't necessarily be ANC supporters.

I can't imagine any of the Brit-descended white South Africans cheering about kicking the Brit's ass. I'd be surprised to hear the Indian-descended South Africans cheering for the 'defeat' of the Brits, too.

Supercilius Maximus,

There is at least one single volume history which covers all three Anglo-Afghan wars: "On Afghanistan's Plains" by Jules Stewart. I've heard good things about it, but haven't read it myself.

You may want to consider picking up a copy of Peter Hopkirk's: "The Great Game" -- a bit of a masterpiece IMHO, covering the entire width and breadth of the British experience on the North-West Frontier, including the three Afghan wars.

If you are interested enough to consider reading one book on each of the wars, I would heartily recommend:

For the First Afghan War of 1839-1842, "Fierce Pawns" by Patrick Arthur Macrory -- an excellent history and an equally excellent read, making extensive use of primary sources.

For the Second Afghan War of 1878-1880, "The Road to Kabul" by Brian Robson, a very good book on a very interesting campaign.

For the Third Afghan War of 1919-1920, "Crisis on the Frontier" also by Brian Robson, another very good book on this little known and little written about campaign that involved WWI-era technology, including biplanes, armored cars, and transport trucks. Unfortunately this title is usually on the expensive side, though it should be available through any decent library system.

Thanks, Mad Guru. I think my local library's inter-loan section may be hearing from me soon.

<<I can't imagine any of the Brit-descended white South Africans cheering about kicking the Brit's ass. I'd be surprised to hear the Indian-descended South Africans cheering for the 'defeat' of the Brits, too.>>

The person concerned could, like Bulldog69, be a European or North American either with some interest/connection to the conflict, or their own reason for hating the British. There were numerous mercenaries fighting for the Boers (in fact, I understand they constituted a high percentage of the "Bitter Enders" who carried on fighting after the official surrender); many of these were Dutch, Swedish, German, and – of course – Irish (which in turn leads us onto the "hyphen-American" elements). A Dutch friend tells me that the Boer War was a major reason the Dutch remained neutral in WW1 – though, interestinly, the South Africans seemed to have no problem in coming in on our side.

Apart from the Boers, like Maritz, De Wet and Beyers, who started a short lived pro-German rebellion in 1914.

I know some Dutch descent South Africans who would bridle at being called Boers, too!

Lion in the Stars

As others have pointed out, South Africa is not populated only by members of the ANC and Boers. The gentleman in question was actually born in the UK, and had moved to South Africa as a youngster. This is actually a very interesting point as, over the last generation or so, I think most 'English' South Africans have essentially lost that link to the Motherland. Whereas, for example, there were street parties in Natal when Prince Charles and Lady Diana were married in 1981, there was nothing whatsoever when Prince William married Catherine Middleton. When it comes to rugby or cricket, very few 'English' South Africans will shout for England even as their 'second team' – indeed, it would be fair to say that England are the team that pretty much all South Africans most want to beat. Though there are exceptions, most 'English' South Africans I know now think of themselves simply as 'South Africans' and many will even talk about 'you and us' with respect to the Boer War – ie. they have been so indoctrinated that they sympathise with the Boers, not their own forefathers who fought against them.

I note you declined to answer any of my questions regarding your 'source'.

Chouan

Yes indeed – and the future President of the republic of South Africa (C.R. Swart) was imprisoned for treason during the 1914 rebellion.

In other news, I have just returned from the bush, where I helped organise a Land Rover off-road competition in the eastern Free State. As part of it, we gave the competitors (all of whom were South African) a small quiz on the local area and such like. One question was: 'Forces from which army surrendered at Surrender Hill near Fouriesburg?'.
Of the twenty teams competing, one correctly guessed: 'the Boers'. The other nineteen plumped for 'the British'. Such is the power of 100+ years of propaganda and nonsense that only 5% of these people had heard of a massive defeat for the republicans, in which about 4,500 were captured – ie. a much, much bigger defeat than the famous British losses Spion Kop, Colenso etc.
And even more instructive is that everyone else automatically assumed that the British must have lost.

One of the reasons why the teaching of History, as opposed to mythology, is essential. Our present government is attempting to set a new curriculum for schools to teach which is, essentially, that kind of History/mythology/heritage nonsense, supporting it's view with lies and distortions about how History is currently taught.

Chouan

Yup – could not agree more. And if the current UK government can do a good job at spreading myths, just think what the Apartheid regime was able to do.

I guess the main difference is that at least the Apartheid regime wanted to twist history so as to paint their people as 'the goodies' – whereas the last few UK governments have been resolutely determined that British school children should be ashamed of their heritage.

I'm sorry BullDog69, but that's a much of a myth as the rest!

Which bit?
That was certainly my experience at school in the UK. Maybe it was unfair of me to say it was the government's fault, but the school system / BBC etc seemed determined to emphasise the worst bits of British history and gloss over anything that didn't fit their agenda (eg. one History teacher taught us that the British 'invented slavery' – and didn't mention the lengths the British Empire went to to stamp out the trade)
Just my opinion, though – maybe you had a better experience.

I'd like to think so, I teach secondary history.

FFS, Bulldog, there isn't a person alive today that was in the camps, let alone old enough to remember what it was like.

There are no primary sources left to interview. None. There is only secondary source information, like the 3rd (or 4th) generation of survivors families.

I believe that the disease epidemic was unintentional, caused by too many people in too cramped quarters with criminally negligent sanitation arrangements. Hell, there were some nasty bugs going through the US internment camps, too.

Lion in the Stars

My point exactly and precisely why I cannot take your source terribly seriously. If you prefer to take his 3rd-hand family anecdotes as Gospel, then that's your prerogative, of course. However, if you'd like to widen your sources of information, I suggest reading the following:

Devitt, Napier, 'The Concentration Camps in South Africa', Shuter & Shooter, Pietermaritzburg, 1941

Martin, Colonel Arthur Clive, 'The Concentration Camps: 1900-1902: facts figures, and fables', Howard Timmins, Cape Town, 1957

The Number of the South African War (1899-1902) Concentration Camp Dead: Standard Stories, Superior Stories and a Forgotten Proto-Nationalist Research Investigation

'A Tool For Modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900-1902', South African Journal of Science, Vol.106 no.5-6 Pretoria May/June 2010

Chouan

Well, I wish I'd had a teacher like you in that case – good luck to you.
We were even taught in Geography (this was in the late 80's) that 'British ship building has completely finished and today even all the Royal Navy ships are built overseas'. When I pointed out that the last part of this statement was quite simply untrue, the teacher waved her notes at me and said: 'well that's what it says here'.

I came into teaching rather late, having had a 17 year career at sea first. There were, I must admit, some pretty poor teachers; indeed there still are. However, the situation isn't as bad as Gove and his supporters would have us believe. If his proposed new National Curriculum is adopted kids will be obliged to do a linear narrative of British History from the age of 7 to 14. They'll be studying the concept of "Nationhood" at 7 years old. The English Reformation at 9, thus learning about the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and of course between Anglicanism and Puritanism, and the Glorious Revolution at 10. Will they understand any of it?

I don't understand much of that now!

In support of BullDog's comment about self-loathing, I used to lecture at the National Army Museum from time to time in the mid-/late-1990s. The most common A-level history course we came into contact with was "retreat from Empire" that studied America (my lecture), Ireland, and Kenya. Countries whose path to independence was peaceful were simply ignored (I did ask), and the "we invented the slave trade" theme was certainly present.

Personally, I can see a rationale behind Gove's idea, even if it might be somewhat over-complicated for the younger ones in terms of actual delivery. My own sons – now teenagers – studied what appeared to me (and to them) a series of non-sequential, random "highlights": Tudors, then Romans, then WW2, then Victorians.

The problem with History teaching is balancing content with skills, teaching Historical facts, although important, is only part of History, there are the concepts and the analysis as well that the kids need to grasp. They need to understand chronology, continuity, change, development, decline, the changes in society, and why it is important. There simply isn't enough time in the timetable to cover all the content that I, for example, would want to. Where I teach now, for example, we look at what History is, then the Norman Conquest and a bit about Medieval Britain in Y7. The Industrial Revolution and the Civil War in Y8, with a bit on America, and the Twentieth Century in Y9. Of course it is random highlights, there simply isn't the time available to do anything else.
Simply learning stuff, as Gove proposes, will, as has been argued by Historians involved in teaching, give the kids the knowledge they would need to win quizzes, but not the skills and understanding that they would need to interpret events, and think critically about what has happened, and what is happening.
The other problems with Gove's approach are:
Where do the schools get the money from to buy all the new resources, books, etc.
Junior school teachers are not qualified History teachers, indeed, most haven't even studied History beyond the age of 16, if that. So where will the specialised History teachers essential in junior schools for teaching this new curriculum come from?
The content in the proposed curriculum is vast. Where will teachers find the time to teach historical skills, such as source analysis, when the kids have got so much "stuff" to learn.
If 9 year olds haven't grasped the basics of the English Civil War, where will the specialist teachers in KS3 (11-14) find the time to ensure that they actually understand the issues.
Where will History Departments find the time to completely re-write their schemes of learning? Where will they find the time to create a completely new set of resources for the kids to use?
In any case, the new schools known as Academies, and the new, so-called "Free Schools" won't be obliged to teach History at all!