The Rest Is History - 169. The Falklands War: Countdown to Invasion

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Welcome to our mini-series on The Falklands War, where Tom and Dominic will break down the causes, conflict and aftermath of the war on its fortieth anniversary.  In the first episode we dig into the history of the islands, the causes behind the Argentine invasion, and the domestic situation in both Britain and Argentina in the late 70s and early 80s. The boys also dissect the almost farcical events that took place in the build up, some of the memorable characters like Rex Hunt, and the significance of a reindeer barbecue in South Georgia. For access to all four episodes, go to www.restishistorypod.com Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Jack Davenport & Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Hello, welcome to The Rest Is History, and now we go over to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Well, the radio station has now been taken over. I still hope that we can get His Excellency the Governor's message to you. Sir, what do you want to... Do you want to speak to the people? What do you want to tell them?

Tell the people to wait, turn on their receivers, to wait some minutes. In some minutes the chief is going to communicate to them what we want for the population. Well, just a minute. If you take the gun out of my back, I'm going to transmit that to you. If you take the gun away. But I'm not speaking with a gun in my back. There's an argument going on now between the three Argentines. They've disappeared.

They've left me alone in this room. That was the Falklands National Radio Station on the morning of the 2nd of April, 1982. And Dominic Sandbrook, that is history in the making, isn't it? Being broadcast out. That is the arrival of the Argentines on the Falkland Islands or Las Malvinas, as the Argentines themselves would call it. And that set in train a very, very dramatic series of events that happened exactly 40 years ago. And I know that you're brimming over like a six-year-old hosting a birthday party with excitement at this.

I am. I am. It's a great way to start, Tom, because it's starting such a dramatic moment, such an extraordinary moment, actually, because that guy is Patrick Watts. He is broadcasting to the people of the Falkland Islands, the 1 the 1800 people um on the friday morning and he's basically saying the argentines have landed overnight and as he's broadcasting the argentines burst into the studio and then they have a massive row among themselves waving their guns around in the air and at precisely that moment we can't play the whole clip but precisely that moment the governor of the falklands rings up and says i've got very bad news the odds have arrived and and it's just an absolutely so the whole story of the falklands war it's the 40th anniversary um we were talking about this before we started weren't we tom about how it's a sort of combination of it's it's very

churchillian in some ways or these people think it's sort of Churchill role play for the British. But at the same time, there's this bizarre kind of 1950s comedy aspect to it, which that clip actually perfectly encapsulates. Yeah, it's, yes, it's the finest hour kind of rewritten by the carry on crew or Tom Sharp or Peter Sellers or that level of. And I have to say, Dominic, that the definitive account of this, I mean, you're a wonderful writer, you're a wonderful historian, but the four chapters that you devote to the Falklands War in your most recent history of Britain, Who Dares Wins, Britain 1979 to 1982, I genuinely think is one of the great pieces of of british 21st century writing oh it's it's it's as good as anything in any novel that i've that i've read it's absolutely fantastic and i think you remember

that i i was letting you know how much i was enjoying reading um who dares wins when it came out but the honestly if you haven't read it listeners go and get it but actually you won't need to because dominic you're basically going to do it now for us. I am. I am. I'll tell you. I mean, it is a kind of dramatic story. It's a story of military prowess, naval prowess, lots of stuff that's been written about it, focuses on the kind of the military exploits, the technical wizardry that enabled the task force to go all the way from Britain and recapture this kind of rocky outcrop in the middle of the South Atlantic.

But it is also amid the horror and the tragedy in the bloodshed. I mean, it is often a deeply comic story too, and full of extraordinary characters. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. So Jorge Luis Borges, the brilliant Argentine writer, said it was two bald men fighting over a comb. And, um, Do you know, I've never quite understood what that meant. So, so he basically was arguing that the Falklands were completely useless and trivial and that, um, two sort of spent, shallow opportunistic sort of governments were fighting over them and

sacrificing people's lives, um, for nothing. And I think that's actually, I mean, he, he had this sort of joke about, you know, the Bolivians have always been crossed because they don't have access to the sea. So why don't we give them to Bolivia to make up for it? But of course, the thing was, there were almost 2,000 people living on those islands, you know, whose future was at stake. Well, who thought themselves to be British.

And were they British? They were. I mean, they were. There were no... So they're British passport holders? Yeah. Well, I mean, they are subjects of the crown. So they're British passport holders? Yeah. Well, they are subjects of the crown. So it's kind of like the Channel Islands or something.

Exactly. Exactly. We can go into the whole saga. So let's start at the beginning. So what are these islands just off Argentina? I suppose they're not just off Argentina, are they? I mean, but let's say they're closer to Argentina than they are, to Southampton yeah so so what what is the basis of the British claim all right Auckland Islands let's get into the whole so the Falkland Islands is for those people who don't who have no idea

what we're talking about it's it's a war fought between Britain and Argentina in the spring of 1982 it's a decisive moment in the history of Argentina its transition to democracy in the spring of 1982. It's a decisive moment in the history of Argentina and its transition to democracy, in the history of Britain and the survival of the Thatcher premiership and in Britain's sense of itself. But as you say, at the center of it are these islands that are just miles from anywhere.

And that's one of the things that gives this this sort of slight comic opera aspect. So the Falklands, you said they're just off the coast of Argentina and that is what most people think, Tom, if they think they're not in Scotland, which is what everybody thought in 1982. And we'll maybe come back to that issue of whether or not they were in Scotland. So they are 500 miles from Rio Gallegos, which I think is the nearest Argentine city,

the nearest sizable port. So they're not off the coast of Argentina. They're quite a long way off the coast of Argentina, but they're closer to Argentina than to anywhere else. So basically what happens is in the 18th century, these islands which are uninhabited, which are very cold, which do look like Scottish islands or like the Faroe Islands. Except they've got penguins, right? Yeah, they do have penguins, but they're very cold cold they're more more land um they have lots of sheep um but yeah there's there's nothing there's

no natural resources miles and miles of bugger all dennis thatcher said dennis thatcher miles and miles of bugger all so dr johnson talked of their bleak and gloomy solitude charles darwin who who went to the falkland island said was struck by their desolate and wretched aspects their peaty soil and wiry glass of one monotonous brown color so they're not desirable at all but what happens in the 18th century the english arrive first the british rather they see the british discover them the british discover them they basically sail past them so is it is it a lord falkland or somebody who's Admiral Falkland who's leading this expedition? Well, Lord Falkland never goes there. So the first person to go there, I think,

or the first person to give their name is a guy called John Strong, who's an English captain. So I said 18th century. Actually, it's late 17th century, 1690. And he names them in the honour of the treasurer of the Navy who sponsored his journey, who was Viscount Falkland. Oh, right. So hence you get the Falkland Islands.

But the English, or rather the British, they don't kind of permanently settle. And actually what happens in the 18th century is the islands just keep changing hands. So the French, I think, have the first real permanent settlement, and they change hands several times. It's a very confusing and actually not an especially exciting story. But they end up with spain um which

makes sense because of course spain has lots of colonies in south america so there are lots of spanish ships passing so they end up with spain but then what happens in the napoleonic wars is that spain abandons them so there's no sort of large-scale settlement there why would there be you know if you're spanish and you're going to the New World, you'd go to Argentina or Europe. So there's no gold or anything. There's nothing there. So the Spanish leave in the Napoleonic Wars, but they leave a plaque.

And that is very important in the sort of the talk of the claim of the islands, because the plaque says these islands are Las Malvinas and they belong to the Spanish crown. Now, what happens after that is that in 1816, the Argentina, the vice royalty of the River Plate or whatever, declares independence from Spain because the Spanish empire in Latin America is breaking up.

And when Argentina is basically formed, the new Argentine government say well we get all the possessions of the spanish empire um in this area and that includes the falkland islands and they establish a very small colony i mean we're talking about literally a handful of people on the islands so in the 1820s the people on the islands the spanish colony i think they're always falling apart among themselves, the three men and a dog who were there. And in 1833, very important day because 1983 will be the 150th anniversary of this.

So in 1833, the British move in. They basically think this would be a tremendous spot for us to have a sort of base you know refueling all this sort of stuff um and they establish permanent control and what do they do with the spanish people who are on it i don't think it makes a much a really substantive difference so there isn't some kind of diplomatic protest from spain or from argentina from argentina oh the argentines don't like it but there's nothing that much they can do about it i mean the argentines argentina's politics in the 19th century is very turbulent. So the Argentines, it's not number one on the Argentine government's kind of to-do list.

And also, isn't it right that in the 19th century, and in fact, right the way into the 20th century, Argentina is a kind of unofficial colony of Britain? Exactly. So the whole history of the relationship between Argentina and Britain is really, really interesting. So Argentina is a kind of informal colony of Britain. It's got all kinds of links to British business interests, shipping. Obviously, the export of beef is massively important for Argentina. And that's how they learn football. Football, rugby.

And they did cricket. Polo, cricket, gentlemen's clubs. Buenos Aires has them all. So at the end of the 19th century, if you are an English gentleman, public school educated English gentleman, you can go to Buenos Aires and feel completely at home as you would do if you went to India or Australia or somewhere like that. There are gentlemen's clubs, there are people playing polo, there are people watching rugby, there are, as you say, you know, River Plate.

I mean, the very name of the football club one of the two great football clubs of um of buenos aires is is in english um which tells its own story so argentina has this relationship with britain that is not uncommon and is very similar to the relationship the countries have now with the united states so on the one hand it's it it feels britishness is a sort of it connotes status and prestige and people want to have their British style suits and they want to play polo but there's also a bit of resentment

at the same time especially as you go lower down the social spectrum and I think you don't understand what happens with the Falklands if you don't understand what happens with the history of Argentina so right, the Falkland Islands there are very few people on them. I think the population peaks at about 3,000 in the interwar years, and they're all sheep farmers. That is all there is

to do. But in the context of the British Empire and Britannia ruling the waves, is it significant, strategically significant, while Britain has an empire because there's also also uh there's an island called south georgia right which is even further out into the atlantic and that also plays a part in this story yeah there's also southern thule which is even that's a such a romantic name which is even further away southern thule is 1200 miles south of stanley and i think south georgia is about 800 miles east of stanley i mean south georgia is famous for the role it plays in shackleton um the the great antarctic explorer but i mean is it are these islands really anything more than a forward base for antarctic exploration not really not really but they they play a role in the first world war don't they uh there's a

battle yes and yes exactly so so in the event of of a war of a naval war so yes these are important there's all kinds of you know um sort of uh shenanigans in the first world war sort of searching for german ships and all this kind of carry on but that only really matters in the event of a war generally you know if you're into whaling then south georgia is very good if you're into antarctic exploration if you want you want to have it there possibly you want to have a base to refuel and stuff but you can live perfectly well without it i mean it's not like this is a central part of some colossal geopolitical game of risk so going going into the post-war years as the british empire fades, as colonies get given up,

as British naval power retreats, the Falkland Islands are a kind of geopolitical appendix or coccyx. They're a kind of… That's exactly what they are. So they don't really serve any purpose. They're the remnants of a prehistoric tale. That's exactly what they are. so and that's not uncommon tom i mean the pacific is littered with islands the french have a lot of them the french have lots of them the americans do i mean guam or whatever i mean you could argue hawaii is is a much bigger well we talked about

hawaii didn't i mean that should probably be british it should we were playing anglicans yeah i mean what's basically happened is if you uh it's no need to to delve too deep into imperialism for this what's happened is the human race has expanded massively of every corner of the earth and in the 19th century european colonial powers have basically taken every little sort of two-bit atoll they've established if they can planted a flag a little planted a flag in the falklands they they've done that and then some people have turned up to farm sheep now some people have been there for generations they are hundreds of miles from anywhere um i mean they don't want independent

they can't have independence because they're not self-sufficient everything has to be imported okay so we so we let's say we get to 19 1980 right that's a big leap. Yeah, go on. I guess we do have to get through this in less than 10 podcasts. There are about 2,000 people. Yeah, 1,800. All of them British, who are going back generations. So I mean, they've been there since 1833, some of them. Some of them are, not all of them. So there's nothing to do on the Falkland Islands so if you're young you know you can't often you want to get out so yeah there's a there's a famously what happens is that sort of there's a very small Royal Marine garrison and so the girls marry the girls marry the Royal Marines and go off because they they're the bright lights of you know

Chelmsford or whatever in in your book you you quote the bbc latin america correspondent talking about the falklands and he says a lot of drunkenness a high divorce rate and a shortage of women which doesn't yeah no it doesn't really okay but dominic would i mean it is it is nevertheless when we look at the politics of this the geopolitics of this i mean it is a fact that these people have been there and that these islands have been British for almost 150 years. So that's older than many countries. Yeah, of course. So,

um, there's also, there's no minority. So there's no indigenous people and nor is there, nor is there any sort of, you know, this is not kind of, um,

Northern Ireland or something. There's no, there's no community that wants union with Argentina. Yeah. The, I mean, as we'll, we'll see in just a second, the Islanders are dead against any union with Argentina. Yeah. I mean, as we'll see in just a second,

the islanders are dead against any union with Argentina. Now, for the Argentines, the Falklands have loomed larger and larger as the 20th century has gone on, not for any strategic reason, not because any Argentine really has ever visited the Falklands, but it's this kind of symbol. A totem.

And does it specifically serve as a totem of casting off britain so so that kind of legacy of of oppressive british cultural and economic influence that and so in a sense you know and we see the same with iran or with russia that britain has a notoriety above its straightened station. Agreed. Agreed. I think the resentment of Britain is a kind of shorthand in and of itself for something else, which is that Argentina, it's got an extraordinary history because it had entered the 20th century as one of the world's 10 richest countries

and a country that appeared set fair to be a real player in the 20th century. I mean, it's got this beef industry that is incredibly lucrative. And it's got Buenos Aires, which is a massively expanding European-style city. Italian immigrants pouring in. Everything seems set fair. And Argentina then has an awful 20th century, which nobody had really expected. Because the industry in which food prices collapse because of the first world war and they never really recover and it becomes torn apart by all kinds of instability

so from about the 1940s and 50s when you had juan perron the sort of populist nationalist you know husband of evita he had brand he had waved the flag with the Falklands, and he basically sort of said, Argentina has been mutilated. You know, we have been part of our birthright has been taken from us by these. They always would call us pirates. So like Drake or something. Yeah, by these English pirates who have stolen that Las Malvinas. And we will never be whole until they are returned. And there would be billboards or posters in the late 1940s and 1950s

in Buenos Aires saying, you know, English pirates, give us back the Malvinas. And so it sort of, as you say, it becomes a totem. Argentina then has this absolutely hellish, hellish 1970s. So Perón, who had been kicked out, he comes back in 73, 74. He's a bit of a wreck he dies his wife isabel becomes um leader of argentina she's then kicked out by the army and then they have the junta and the the argentine military hunter so they are presiding over a dirty war against

their own people they are kind of throwing people out of helicopters over the atlantic ocean they're shooting and torturing poets and dissidents and this is the backdrop um to uh to jorge bergoglio who later becomes pope francis yeah he's head of the jesuits there and he is indeed relations are kind of much debated i think you've you've done well to get christianity in tom i just well i thought it was important but um dominic, could I read a top historian on the generals of the junta, the officers of the junta? Yeah, do. They were very good at launching coups, wearing sunglasses and murdering dissidents. But in some cases, their only experience of combat had been to apply electrodes to the genitals of left-wing poets. And Dominic, that top historian was none other than yourself. It was myself.

Yeah, it was me. Who dares win? And so, I mean, that basically sums them up. They're not good guys. They're not good guys. And one of the themes that you bring out brilliantly in your book is the way in which, I mean, if you wanted to have a colonial war in the 1980s, a period where it would seem that colonial wars are not the kind of thing that

you go in for, the Argentine junta is basically ideal. I mean, they're terrible. They're terrible people. They torture and maim, as you say, left-wing yeah um they're not very good at fighting are they i mean they haven't had a huge amount experience of it they have never really fought anybody other than their own people um and they're kind of grotesque they have that kind of grotesque comic comic quality they do but sinister at the same time yeah very sinister yes so so they have been in since the mid 70s and they're presiding over a country where there's basically an urban, you could almost call it a low-level civil war, this kind of guerrilla movement, the Montoneros, who are setting up bombs and kidnapping people and all this kind of stuff. They also have inflation that is, I mean, crazy levels. So, you know, three digits. And so that's impoverishing the middle classes.

Exactly. But also, I mean, also it's impossible to, for the working class, it's impossible to buy anything because the prices are going up all the time. There are constant problems with strikes. So they've got this kind of economic basket case. And they have an ideology, which anybody familiar with Latin American post-war politics will know, which is quite fascistic. So it's all about kind of the nation manhood

threatened by you know poets and and left-wingers and communists and the americans of course are right pouring money in to keep those because they're terrified of communism and they have this kind of operation condor which is all about you know training their secret police training their intelligence services in in suppressing dissent and all this. It's very dodgy. I mean, the Dirty War label is well-deserved. And so General Galtieri, who becomes head of the Junta in early 1982. Yeah, the turn of 1982, exactly.

So he's the head of the – what's happened in the Junta, by the way, is they have inter-service rivalries. So the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, they kind of hate eachservice rivalries so the army the air force navy they kind of hate each other and that adds to the chaos yeah so galtieri who's um of italian descent but trained at west point i learned trained at west point and he they're all very pro-american so one of the subtexts for the balkans war the argentines are absolutely convinced that the americans will back them it is it doesn't occur to them that the Americans will not back them. So Galtieri is coming in at the beginning of 82.

And so actually what the Argentine armed forces, I didn't really go into this massively in my book, but this is such a fascinating aspect of the story. The Argentine armed forces wanted a war at the end of the 1970s, but actually Britain wasn't their first choice. Their first choice was Chile chile yeah they hate the chileans don't they and the chileans hate them and that's going to be an important part of the story too to outsiders those regimes look pretty much identical so you've got general pinochet in um in chile and you have galtieri and his chronicronies in argentina but they absolutely despise each other and the

argentines really wanted to have a war with Chile about the Beagle Islands and the division of the border in Tierra del Fuego. I mean, that really would be the definition of... So, but it's kind of American-backed fascists wanting to fight one another. So they can't back the American-backed fascists in Chile, so they choose the American-backed fascists in Britain, right?

Oh, very good, Tom. Okay, right. Very good. That's the young ones style it unless so we've got galtieri at the head he's trained at west point he's american-backed and then we have um admiral jorge anaya who is head of the navy yeah he's galtieri has no brain at all so they're pals aren't they they've been pals since their days at military college and anaya who is the um he is the uh he's the brains of the hunter and he basically says to galtieri at the beginning of 82 you know the regime is a shambles the economy is a mess in argentina what we need to do is we obviously need a very crowd-pleasing gesture

and in any one year from now it will be the 150th anniversary of the moment when these pirates stole the Islas Malvinas. So we can get these islands back before them. The reason he thinks that is because he looks at Britain and he sees a country basically in chaos. Yeah, well, this is the other aspect, isn't it? So we've done Argentina, we've done the Falklands and we should... So let's take a break now. And when we come back, we will look at the political context in Britain in the build-up to the invasion of the Falklands. I'm Marina Hyde.

And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

Hello and welcome back to The Rest Is History. And we are talking about the Falklands War, which happened exactly 40 years ago as we record this in late March 2022. This miniseries will stretch out over four episodes, with episode two coming tomorrow, that's Tuesday, episode three on Thursday, and then the final episode next Monday, so next week, on the 4th of April. Although of course, if you can't bear to wait for that, and you're a member of the Restless History Club, you can listen to the whole thing already. Restlesshistorypod.com to join. Now let's look at Britain. It's not in a happy place in 1982. No. Why do the Argentines choose, why do they think they can get away with invading

the Falklands or snatching them from Britain? Well, they look at Britain, as everybody else does, and they think Britain's a complete basket case. So what's happened in Britain has been, let's say, 14 years of tremendous political and economic turbulence. I mean, I know people have different views about whether the 70s were brilliant or whether they were terrible. But Britain has devalued the pound. It has had a series of governments that have fallen after conflict with the trade unions. It has had a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. It has had endless problems with strikes and trouble between the governments and the unions. It has got the issue of Northern Ireland and the IRA bombing campaign and so on. Mrs. Thatcher was elected in the summer of 1979, first woman prime minister, conservative, on this sort of promise of radical medicine to cure the disease. And what's actually happened is that the first sort of two and a half years, everything has just appears to have got immeasurably worse. So we did a podcast. One of our early podcasts was about 1981.

1981 in Britain is a pretty awful year. Unemployment through the roof, riots, inner city riots, IRA hunger strikes in Northern Ireland. Although the ashes. We did beat Australia together. It was Botham's ashes, exactly. But by and large, it's been politically a time of enormous turbulence. Margaret Thatcher, to most people, appears an aberration, an anomaly.

You know, this mad woman whose popularity has reached depths unprecedented in polling history. So she's the most unpopular prime minister since records began at the end of 1981. The Conservatives are in third place in the opinion polls. There's a new party called the Social Democratic are in third place in the opinion polls. There's a new party called the Social Democratic Party, which is leading the opinion polls. And I think if you're an Argentine general, you look at Britain and you say, well, Britain is weak. It lost its empire. It's had a shambolic last 10 years. It has this mad woman. I mean, a woman as prime minister, unthinkable. There is obviously no way that the British

will do anything. And even if they try to, who cares? No one will back them. They're just a dead, you know, busted flush. One of the things that obviously that Mrs. Satcher and her government are trying to do is to claw back on spending. And the Ministry of Defence, this is the Cold War, so there's quite a lot of spending on defence. Mrs Thatcher has initiated a review, am I right, that particularly targets the Navy? Well, they have to cut something. So she's desperate to cut spending because of her political

and economic agenda and to sort of cut Britain's deficit. And in January 1981, she has brought in this guy called John Knott, who I know you like this line, Tom. He looks like a man who should have been a Bond villains accountant. I do like that line. But had been in Malaya. Is that right? In the Gurkhas. He'd been an officer in the Gurkhas.

As I learned yesterday from Twitter when I put this out, Tony Hart, who was on Vision On. Yes. I mean, nothing to lots of listeners. No. The guy who would instruct children on how out. Tony Hart, who was on Vision On. Yes. That would mean nothing to lots of listeners. No, the guy who would instruct children on how to draw Tony Hart programs. How to paint and draw. I felt that it was very, even at the age of sort of four or five,

I felt that it was too worthy. And I really wanted to be watching, obviously, Paddington, Tom. Well, I was a big fan and his best friend was a a plasticine man called morph called morph yeah but anyway this we're slaloming off off piste here yeah so let's so but one of the reasons why i mentioned john not who i mean he absolutely does look like a kind of villainous accountant you're completely right and a lot of the kind of tory grandees in mrs thatcher's cabinet

do they you know thick glasses yeah kind of balding spindly uh you feel you know they wouldn't be be a good hand in the fight but almost all of them have won the military class or something right in the second world war I mean they so so lots of the people with Mrs Thatcher in Mrs Thatcher's government are are war heroes they are decorated war heroes Willie Whitelaw Lord Carrington all the sort of lord carrington is lord carrington is foreign secretary willie whitelaw is home secretary so we'll come to carrington in a second because he's really important but on not so john not has been told i mean this by the way will be music to the to the ears of argentina's government if they'd sort of been following if they've been reading all this so not basically is told cut defense

spending they have the choice of cutting the army in west germany the british army in the rhine or the navy and their basic attitude is precisely as you say tonkis is the cold war well we need the army on the rhine but the navy is neither here nor there so he says well let's get rid of most of the fleet we'll shut the dockyards we'll get rid of we've got three aircraft carriers we'll get rid of two of them hermes and invincible we'll close the dockyards in Gibraltar. We'll shut a lot of the stuff in Portsmouth. Get rid of it. You know, just close it all down.

And one of the things that they say, well, let's get rid of, is this ice patrol ship, very important, called the Endurance, which is basically like an antique that just sort of potters around by the Falkland Islands. It's this sort of – It's barely a deterrent. It's a totem of deterrence rather than a deterrent in itself. But Lord Carrington, who is the Foreign Secretary, he does understand that this might signal a certain degree of weakness to Argentina.

And he does kick up a fuss. And you say about this that the decision to scrap endurance which mrs satchel goes ahead with was one of the most expensive she ever took because effectively it serves to green light the invasion is that is that right yeah so i suppose the um the analogy that i give is um that it's like getting rid of a burglar alarm on your house. If there are burglars on the other side of the road watching, and you come out and very publicly start to dismantle your burglar alarm. Now, you could say, I mean, the burglars are still at fault,

and you still have the right not to be burgled. But you would argue it's foolish. That's basically what Lord Carrington, the Foreign Secretary, says. We shouldn't get rid of it, even if it's a bit – it's not that expensive. He says it's cheaper than having the Argentines invade. Now, the thing is, Lord Carrington, since he became Foreign Secretary in 1979, has been saying to his government colleagues, I think the Argentines, they're rattling their sabres a little bit too loudly. I don't think deep down he really believes the Argentines, you know, they're rattling their sabres a little bit too loudly. And I don't think deep down he really believes the Argentines are going to invade because that would

just be such a lunatic thing to do. But he sort of says, they could, you know, we should be on our guard. Now, some listeners will, especially overseas listeners, and if we have Spanish speaking listeners, will be saying, oh, the Brits, they just, you know, they're dyed in the wool imperialists just clinging on to their colonies this is absolutely not the case with the falkland islands they're desperate to get rid of them we have we were desperate to get rid of them because they're expensive you have to keep sending them stuff they're miles away and they don't really you know we don't need more sheep and we don't need wool isn't there a plan to to give all of them a million pounds well Well, that comes later on. To persuade them to leave.

That comes later on, yes. One of Mrs. Thatcher's key economic advisors, Alan Walters, did say later on, it'll be much cheaper if we give them each a million pounds and get them to leave than fight to get their islands back for them. So Britain wants to do business with Argentina. So the foreign office is – when the foreign office looks at this, they say, listen, we want to trade with Argentina. So the foreign office is, when the foreign office looks at this, they say, listen, we want to trade with Argentina.

They're actually a friendly country because they're on our side in the Cold War. The Falklands issue is getting in the way and it's much better. Persuade the Falkland Islanders who rely on Argentina anyway. If you need medical treatment, you're flown to Buenos Aires.

The flights go through there. They get stuff from Buenos Aires. Why don't we just persuade them that it's in their interests to have a relationship with Argentina? And they basically cook up this plan in about 1980. And the plan is they know that the islanders don't want to just be handed over. So Mrs. Thatcher sends one of her junior ministers, a guy called Nicholas Ridley, very famous for smoking

and not liking the Germans. Yeah, and the grandson of the architect is Edward Lutyens. Edward Lutyens, exactly. So very aristocratic. They sent him over to the Falkland Islands, and he's got to sell the islanders this thing, which is basically they'll do a deal with Argentina where Argentina will get sovereignty over the Falklands, thing which is basically they'll do a deal with the with the with argentina where argentina will

get sovereignty over the falklands but they'll basically rent them out to britain to administer for them so that the islanders can still feel that they're being run by the british and that the union jack is flying and stuff and that'll be like a 99 year lease or something so argentina yeah like hong kong but argentina will be able to say oh we've got them back they're as yeah and and ridley goes over and he has this sort of public meeting and people say no you know they don't like it um we don't want to be argentines we hate the argentines we hate you and he's fabulously rude he is very rude he says kind of a posh nicotine smoker. So he basically says, at one point, there's an amazing exchange. So somebody shouts from the audience and he says,

what are you going to do if the Argentines invade? And Ridley says, I'll kick them out. And they all laugh at him mockingly. And he says, well, we would kick them out if they invaded. But then he goes on to say, he says, well, that's not the issue. He says, the problem is, do you want the Argentinians invading you and us kicking them out in a state of perpetual war it's all very well sitting here saying someone else must come and kick the argentinians out of course we would but is that good for sheep farming for fishing for looking for oil for your futures for your children

for your grandchildren or great-grandchildren is that the way you want to live this is what you've got to think about so he explicitly says this to the islanders and the islanders basically say get out we hate you we want to stay british and when he leaves do you know what they do as his as his plane is leaving they have a they mount a loud speaker land of hope and glory this land is our land and we shall not be moved right so a triumphant diplomatic foray do you think it might have worked out differently if he'd been more of a diplomat because he's i mean he's notoriously i mean he gets sacked he gets sacked later on doesn't he for insulting chancellor cole yeah calling him a nazi yeah he does um he said the the european union was a german racket to take

over europe um i think i know i actually think even if they'd sent someone more emollient the falkland islanders would have eaten them alive i mean the falklanders are farmers and they are they're sort of plain speaking but also here's the thing it's not just atavism and sort of you know prejudice that the falklanders don't want to be argentinian the argentines at the moment that ridley is speaking are kind of electrocuting you know folk singers and kicking people out of helicopters into the atlantic ocean so the infallible say what the hell why would we want to be part of by the have that regime in charge okay okay so so um the the the aspiration of the british government to save money

by getting rid of the um the naval forces in the South Atlantic and trying to persuade the Falklanders to go over, I guess, again, must kind of add to the sense in Buenos Aires that the British are not going to, they don't really care. They're not going to fight over this. The British are getting rid of their ice ship. And so they start to prepare an invasion. But then there is, and this is kind of where the element of the comic and the farcical intrudes.

We've mentioned South Georgia. What happens there? Just as the Argentinian Navy is preparing its invasion. This is so weird. This really is so weird. So the Argentine Navy basically construct this plan in the early months of 1982. What they want to do is they want to attack in the latter part of the year.

So when the weather is so bad, because obviously the seasons are reversed in the South Atlantic, they want to do it when the weather is so bad. And obviously British defence cuts will start to be kicking in. So the British cannot send a task force to retake the islands. And had they done so, Tom, I would say that probably would be it.

Because what would happen is that such a long time would elapse before the British could then get a task force together, that there'd be some sort of diplomatic fudge. Well, but also the islands would be so strongly fortified by that. Yeah, of course. So it's a no-brainer from the Argentine point of view. But completely bizarre, and they'll do it in time for the 1983 anniversary, so they'll have crowds on the streets. It'll be great. From the completely bizarrely, a sort of separate part of the Argentine Navy

decides that they'll also mount this sort of stunt on the island of South Georgia, which is, as we said, hundreds of miles away, and is the base of the British Antarctic Survey. Because they decided they'd like that as well. And what they'll do is, South Georgia was always very big for whaling. And there's a sort of whaling station and oil processing stuff just lying about, loads of scrap metal. At the end of the 70s, an Argentine guy called Constantino Davidoff basically applied to the British Foreign Office and said,

can I come and take away all this scrap metal and sell it in Argentina? They were like, yeah, great. So he makes one trip with all his scrap metal men, and they behave very badly on the islands. They make a mess, and they put graffiti everywhere, and they just, you know, the people of the British Antarctic Survey complain about it. And they make a mess and they put graffiti everywhere and they just you know the people the british antarctic survey and they waste a reindeer right well that's the second that's the second group that's shocking behavior taffy actually went to the british embassy and he

complained and he formally apologized said we behave very badly that won't happen again can we come back and get the rest of the scrap metal yes so back they come to get the rest of the scrap metal now in the interim what seems to have happened is the Argentine Navy got hold of the fact that he was going and said, we'll give you ships. You can take some of our men with you, you know, in sort of paramilitary uniform, and then they can just seize the island.

And that's great. That'll be a great hoot. There's nothing the British Antarctic Service can do. So as you say, Tom, they go along in March, disguised as scrap metal dealers, and they barbecue a reindeer. And this draws the attention of the British Antarctic Survey, who are sort of open university men with beards,

studying penguins or whatever they're doing, who come over the ridge and see these blokes in military uniforms eating reindeer and they then send a message back initially to the Falklands and then to London saying absolutely disgraceful behavior even by the standards of Dominic I was reading your book yesterday and I you know I've done a lot of podcasts with you so I'm very well attuned to your verbal rhythms and idiosyncrasies. When I read this sentence about the roasting of the barbecuing of local reindeer, which was a protected species, even by the standards of South American scrap metal dealers, this seemed pretty poor form.

And I thought only... That is such a Sandbrook sentence. Well, it is poor form, Tom. It is, indisputably. Yeah, you can't go around roasted barbecuing reindeer. Okay, so that's bad. And that snarls up. The art of time plan, completely.

Yeah, so they have to go early. So basically what happens is news of this South Georgia fiasco gets back to London. And a lot of Tory MPs, but also the Labour Party, are absolutely berserk, absolutely disgraced by the show on Earth. Yeah. So there's an awful lot of shouting in the house of commons get rid of these scrap metal dealers they're stealing our rock um

all that's doing our reindeer right exactly and they have and and the the foreign office put up some feeble minister who gives a speech and and everybody shouts at him and in the gallery is a man from the argentine embassy and he sends a report back to Buenos Aires saying, oh my God, the British have found out what's going on in South Georgia. This is going to absolutely mess with our plan to invade the Falkland Islands. And so the Argentine military have a big meeting on the 26th, I think it is, or 25th, 26th of March. They have a series of meetings.

They basically say to the people planning the operation you know that operation you're going to do in the autumn can you do it in basically three days and they say sure so on the 26th of march the hunter make the decision fine we'll invade it now because if we leave it any longer the british will send you know they'll be in they'll be dealing with south georgia there be lots of ships. It'll be a mess. We've got to do it right away. And so it's very Russia and Ukraine. On the 28th of March, they tell all their troops who are conscripts,

you're going on a very big exercise. They load them all onto these troop ships, and they've crates of Argentine flags for them to hand out to the islanders, who some of the conscripts believe will be delighted to be liberated from the British because that's what they've been told. The British yoke. Yeah. The British yoke.

And off they go sailing. And the British have no idea that this is coming. The representative of the British government on the Falklands is a man called Sir Rex Hunt. He's a splendid fellow. I love Rex Hunt. He's a splendid fellow. I love Rex Hunt. Who you describe in your book, again, quotations are so good I can't help but cite them, a bluff, jolly, stocky fellow as if playing a British colonial governor in a Peter Sellers comedy.

Yeah. So Rex Hunt is this, right, so Rex Hunt is in his mid-50s. He's a sort of short fellow. Exactly that, Tom. He looks like a man who plays the governor of some some you know godforsaken island that no one's really that bothered about carry on the falkland island yeah because he's played by sid james paid by sid he would be played by sid james so rex hunt is not a star of the foreign office by any means and somebody has some said at some

point what will we do with old rex no well send him to stanley send him to the falklands he'd love it out there and rex hunt likes flying and he thinks well i can do a lot of flying amateur flying and he goes to the falkland islands to be the governor with his wife mavis and um and they live in this sort of victorian it looks like kind of victorian farmhouse which is the kind of governor's house and he's very very good at it, isn't he? He's brilliant. He drives a red taxi, a London taxi, which is his official vehicle. It's just basically all he has to do is judge sheep drug trials and kind of have groups of the islanders over for dinner and just sort of shake people's hands and be a sort of friendly guy, drink cups of tea. So it's like being kind of local laird in a...

Exactly. Borders. The borders or something. That's exactly what it is. And he's very good at it. The foreign officer said to him, yeah, it'd be very good if you could tell these chaps their future lies with Argentina.

And actually, when he gets there, he is completely converted to the Falklands. So he goes native. So he goes native. And the foreign officers are very displeased with him. So, I mean, the story is incredible so on the the on the wednesday night so i think that's the the last night in march the local magistrate had retired and rex hunt had had the bigwigs such as they are of the falklands over for dinner. And they'd watched a film about the Falklands,

an ITV documentary about their own islands, called More British Than the British. And they loved it. They thought it was absolutely brilliant. It was all about how they had tins of spam flown in and they had Mars bars and all this sort of stuff. So he's had a big night. He gets up. His son Tony is home from boarding school,

and they finally got tony to do his project or his work so that's good news and he does a bit of paperwork it says thursday he has lunch you know mavis tony rex coronation chicken um and then at 3 30 um the radio operator whose office is in government house comes and knocks on the door and he says, we've just had this telegram. And the telegram says, we have apparently reliable evidence that an Argentine task force will gather off Cape Pembroke early tomorrow morning, 2nd April. You will wish to make your dispositions accordingly. And is that coming from, that's coming from British? That's coming from London.

Yeah. So that's basically like, oh, by the way, you're about to be invaded tomorrow morning. You know, do what you have to do. And Rex Hunt, who up till this point has never had, he has his sort of Zelensky moment. This is what this is. So he basically says, right, burn all the classified papers. He rings around. He says, cancel the schools for tomorrow. There's a Royal Marine garrison of 69 people. And he tells them, they say, well, we'll mount our defense here in government house in this sort of big Victorian house. So he sends Mavis and Tony off to stay with some friends. Although not until they've had their dinner. So they still stay for dinner. They have dinner. So that's very carry on.

They have a family dinner. Then they go off to stay with friends the marines are now moving in moving in all their kit and rex uh goes off to get his shotgun and when he goes to get it he finds that his chauffeur the man who drives the taxi is there got there before him and is just loading it and the driver this driver says to him i've left the flag up tonight sir and i'll shoot any argy bastard who tries to take it down and rex hunt is so moved by this that he has to turn away to hide his tears he thinks this is such a splendid moment so but then this is the single detail the entire forum's epic that i find

most extraordinary he then goes to bed and has like a sleep and you would think that most people would be shaking with nerves but rex hunt no he has a sleep he wakes up again at sort of two o'clock in the morning or three in the morning the place is now full of royal marines and he's got his gun um he has another message from the foreign office the foreign office say we've tried to ask ronald reagan to intercede with the argentines but no joy the argentines are on their way. And then at about 5am, Rex hears these colossal bangs and explosions. The Argentines have clearly landed, and they've opened fire

on the Marines. And suddenly, there he is in the middle of it. There's all this shooting going on, and they're basically under siege. And on that literal bombshell, I think that we should take a halt. Continue this gripping, epic, heroic,

comic narrative tomorrow. So we will see you tomorrow and we will talk about how the Falklands fell and what the reaction was in London. Brilliant. See you tomorrow, everybody. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and