Doyle was knighted for his service during the Boer War (1899-1902), in which he served as a medical doctor. Much of Doyle’s The Great Boer War was written in hospital tents where he treated the wounded and diseased. The memories are a nationalistic view of a war unpopular in Britain, making the case that war […] read more

Farrell’s picnic in The Siege of Khrishnapur siege is purposely mischaracterized as entertainment for local Indians watching Sepoys attack the official Residency of the East India Company’s residence. It’s a fictional addition to a historical siege lasting five months until the British army rescued the Residency, which had a fifty percent mortality rate. Inside the […] read more

Three soldiers picnicking on the grass lookup watching antiaircraft fire. Their easy postures belie their anxiety. This jarring juxtaposition of peace and war in 1940 is Edward Ardizzone’s record of the Nazi air force lightning attacks on the English and French armies. In 1940, Ardizzone was in Belgium, but with defeat imminent, all English forces […] read more

Gardener’s A Pic-Nic Party is set in a skiff on the shore of Antietam Creek. He thought it was an apt allusion to the cliché “War is not a Picnic,” but when published, no one noticed. It dropped from sight, lost in more dramatic images in Photographic Incidents of the War Gallery. Viewers today will […] read more

Even after zeppelin attacks on London in May and June, Brits are undeterred and cannot refrain from picnicking even under the threat of being gassed. Acid satire by F.H. Townsend. Featured Image: Even under threat of attack, Upper-class Brits cannot refrain from picnicking even under threat of being gassed. See Frederick Henry Townsend. “A Zeppelin Picnic.” Punch, no. […] read more

Lester’s The Three Musketeers  is a comic adaptation of Alexandre Duma’s novel. The halte de chasse on the royal hunt portrays the lavish preparation for an outdoor meal fit for a king.   Louis XIV spent many hours hunting, and there is a passing discussion of a stag hunting party in the park at St. Germaine, […] read more

Ernest Hemingway thought Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was trash. However, Americans still readjusting to World War Two and its aftermath thought made it a best-seller. Within a year of publication, Nunnally Johnson directed a faithful film adaptation. Without a reason, Ernest Hemingway thought Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit […] read more

With the Nazi army retreating, Churchill picnicked in Holland on the west bank of the Rhine River with Gen. Bernard Montgomery and Field Marshall Alan Brooke in February 1945. Allied armies had already crossed the Rhine and invaded Germany, and though the area was secure, German artillery and snipers were a threat. It is unclear […] read more

Attenborough’s Oh! What a Lovely War keeps the essential anti-war satire originally envisioned by Charles Chiltern and Joan Littlewood. New and effective, however, is the film’s final sequence, which begins as a picnic on the grass and ends with a panoramic view of four women meandering through a military cemetery, white crosses on a field […] read more

Grass’s mordant picnic satire describes five dwarfs, all Nazis, all entertainers in Bebra’s “Theater at the Front,” gathering for a picnic feast on a beach in Normandy. The irony of pleasure is lost on them. Living in the present, Oskar and his friends are happy to have a day off to eat, dance, and sing, […] read more