Mosley - Season 1 - 2-DVD Set ( Mosley ) ( Mosley - Season One )

Although some seventeen minutes shorter than the original production, this 180min DVD mini-series starring Jonathan Cake and Vanessa Redgrave is centred largely on the private life of the man who tried to prevent WWII (and the end of the British Empire) by establishing a Fascist Government in 1930s Great Britain. It consists of four parts:-

Part 1: Young Man in a Hurry (1918-1920)
Part 2: Rules of the Game (1924-1927)
Part 3: Breaking the Mold (1929-1933)
Part 4: Beyond the Pale (1933-1940)

Like many fortunate enough to survive the killing fields of Flanders, Sir Oswald Mosley returned to England believing the fratricidal slaughters of WWI had so deeply wounded European culture that the damage would ultimately prove mortal unless the European nations united to maintain their remaining world power and replenish their numbers whils't it was still possible to do so. Like Hitler, the Duke of Winsor, Henry Ford, Lord Halifax, the bulk of Europe's aristocracy and very many others throughout the Western World; Sir Oswald saw clearly that European power relied on her military/industrial strength and that these were inherently vunerable in the early 1930's as they had not been in some four hundred years. Unlike Sir Winston Churchill, who believed almost mystically in the inherent superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and character, Sir Oswald realised that it was the blind hand of geography which had originally guided Europe's people to world domination. Like the Ancient Greeks before them with a similarly small irregularly shaped homeland surrounded by water; Europeans had also exploited early the fast/cheap transport opportunities provided by the seas, as compared to the cost/difficulty of land transport in pre-railway times. It was this historical advantage which enabled them to circumnavigate the globe, collect and then exploit the world's knowledge; led to the industrial revolution, which in turn created the population explosion, which resulted in the colonisation of the Americas etc.....

Compared to the America's, Asia or Africa however, the European continent is tiny; more an Asian peninsula than a continent at all. By the 1930's she had been virtually emptied of the mineral resources/raw materials needed by any modern industrial power. This was well understood by Europe's rulers who, alongside their industrial development, had used their military dominance to establish Empires throughout the world; the purpose of which was to ensure that Europe's industrial centres continued to receive these essential supplies. But Empire's can only be maintained by military force and this relies on manpower; by the 1930's the restricted landspace in Europe was already impacting on the European birthrate. As the Asian/African people's continued to multiply, Sir Oswald could see clearly that unless drastic and immediate action was taken, the balance of power must inevitably shift. Europe would first lose her colonies, then see her industrial lead disappear; and finally be culturally and genetically swamped by the Third World's ever multiplying millions.

Today those Empires are gone, along with Europe's world domination. The indiginous European population dwindles while millions of Asiatic/African immigrant/colonists arriving annually to settle, just as Europeans settled Australia and the Americas in previous centuries. Powerless, we watch the remorseless industrial growth of China, India, Japan and the Asian Tiger's, economic projections indicate that China is now surpassing America's economic strength. Our armies flounder in Iraq/Afganistan even as europe's rapidly growing Islamic community becomes evermore discontented. I suggest these intractable problems now confronting the 21'st Century Western World have their roots in diplomatic failures during the 20'th. Failures which led to what was essentially an European Civil War which began in August 1914 and 'ended' only with the USSR's collapse. The final ramifications of that civil war however have yet to play themselves out; not in our lifetimes, but in our children's. With an awful clarity, Sir Oswald saw the future of that now vanished world into which he had been born and which he loved; but like Cassandra, was cursed to be disbelieved by those he tried to warn.

As to a United Europe being a bad thing, immediately following the 1945 peace settlement all the remaining 'powers' made haste to construct exactly that; but by then the damage was done and neither Eastern/Western Europe or the Soviet Union ever regained their pre-war industrial/political power. Sadly, the wounds Hitler's Reich inflicted on Soviet Russia ultimately proved mortal; the USSR collapsing in 1991. The Western media portrays this as '"Cold War Victory", "The End of History" etc... but neglects to teach us that Russia's strength has long been European civilization's eastern shield, failing only twice in two millenia; we remember these failures as the invasions of Attilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. As with Russia, so Europe's wounds still debilitate/fester; as is made clear in the following docu-video:- [...].

In my opinion the major flaw in this otherwise excellent series is a complete ommission of the crucial two year period between the 'battle' of Cable Street and Britain's declaration of war on 3rd Sept 1939. Nothing on the splitting of the BUF, the campaign for a negotiated settlement etc... which led to Mosley's arrest/internment. Perhaps even today, revealing to the British public Sir Oswald's efforts to prevent that second bloodbath; re-inacting his prophetic speeches concerning the destruction of both the British Empire/European World Order that such a war would inevitably bring might be considered 'inadvisable' by our political masters. We should remember that Sir Oswald Mosley fills the role in British history that Trotsky plays in Russia's; and look what happened to Trotsky.

Whereas Cake looks good as Sir Oswald Mosley, the charismatic leader of Britain's half-successful British Union of Fascists (BUF; which later reformed itself in the German model as the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists), this is a very poor attempt to represent the real events of Mosley's life.

Yes: he started life as a Tory MP. Yes: he then became a Labour MP. Yes: he then resigned over the unemployment problem, and Labour's refusal to implement the 'Mosley Memorandum,' forming Nupa, the New Party, which in October 1932, with the publication of "The Greater Britain" almost morphed into the BUF - all in an emulation of Mussolini's Italy, who Mosley had recently visited.

But "Mosley" is melodramatic and badly weighted to his sexual prowess (although by all accounts he was quite a charmer). We should also be very much aware that it is based on the memoirs of his son, the novelist Nicholas Mosley ("The Rules of the Game" and "Beyond the Pale"), which are an attempt, and a convincing one, of airbrushing over the bad bits.

And Mosley's political life did not end with his internment under Defence Regulation 18B, as this programme would have us believe. In 1947 he released a new politcal manifesto (though he denied it was that at the time), "The Alternative." The Emphasis of this new party, Union Movement, formed in 1948 and his later "Europe: Faith & Plan" was to the Union of Europe, although the previous extremes of anti-Semitism etc. were to remain. He did however deny this. The sincerity of this new Europeanism is debatably a cover for a revival of the BUF, which in itself would, one would think, make it eligible for another episode in this "drama," but apparently not. Mosley retired from active politics in 1966, publishing his autobiography, "My Life" in 1968, and died in December 1980.

And a conclusion to this "essay": please, do not waste your money on this dross. If you want to find out about Mosley, buy a book! I would suggest either Robert Skidelsky's "Oswald Mosley" (1975) or Richard Thurlow's "Fascism in Britain" (2nd Ed, 1998). The former is quite sympathetic, but perhaps 'the' key work on Mosley, and the latter is extremely well balanced, being based on information from the Public Record Office.

And my interest in this you ask? I am doing a PhD history researching Mosley's and the fascists internment and the postwar movement at the University of Sussex - and am iritated by both the misrepresentation of history generally, and the reduction of it to little more than sex. Please, lets leave that to cheap Sunday evening costume drama.

A superb, detailed and well-acted account of the poltical maverick who led Britain's first major facist party. A must watch for anyone who is interested in British history between the wars