When David fought Goliath, what if the big guy was just ill-equipped and poorly trained? Frances Coppola reflects.
As I mulled over what I was going to write for this column, my eye fell on a battered copy of “Asterix in Britain”. I’ve loved the Asterix cartoons since I was a child, and this one is probably my favourite – not least because of the French authors’ sharp lampooning of hallowed British customs such as an afternoon cup of tea.
Despite their French origin, the entire premise of the Asterix cartoons is, in a way, very British. The story starts with the famous opening line from Caesar’s Gallic Wars: “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres” (Gaul is entirely divided into three parts). ” No, wait, it’s FOUR parts. There’s what we might call a holdout. A tiny little village that successfully resists Roman occupation. So successfully, in fact, that the Roman soldiers are terrified of it. Plucky little Gaulish village, standing alone before the might of the Roman army…
Plucky little Britain, standing alone before the might of the German Luftwaffe… it’s our national myth.
British people like plucky little villages that stand up to mighty armies. Indeed, you could say it is how we see ourselves. Plucky little Britain, standing alone before the might of the German Luftwaffe… It’s our national myth.
Like all myths, it has a kernel of truth. In 1939, Britain did indeed fight Germany alone. And British people did display enormous fortitude in the Blitz. But that’s where the myth ends. The Britain of 1939 was anything but a plucky little village. It was a mighty empire that controlled a quarter of the globe – though it was smaller than it had been in the early 20th century, and its power was declining. Really, it was much more like the Roman Empire than a Gaulish village.
Nonetheless, the myth of the “plucky little village” is persistent. And we don’t just apply it to ourselves. We are enormously supportive of states that we see as bravely resisting a brutal occupier. Ukraine, for example.
Ukraine is certainly plucky. The creative resistance it has demonstrated since the Russian invasion reminds me of the board game “Hedgehog’s Revenge”, in which brave and determined hedgehogs devise cunning schemes to fight back against the cars that slaughter them on the roads. But Ukraine isn’t a little village, even one with a superpower (of which more shortly): after Russia, it’s the largest country in Europe by land area. Though it’s poor, and it has previously suffered grievously under a brutal occupation. An estimated 30 million people died of starvation in the 1930s under Stalin’s rule, when Ukraine was part of the USSR. We are enormously sympathetic towards people who have suffered under Communist regimes.
Israel is one of the most powerful military states on earth, but right from the start, it has been a notable beneficiary of the myth of the “plucky little village”.
We are much less sympathetic towards people in Communist regimes who bravely resist attempts by Western powers to undermine or overthrow them. There’s not much sympathy for the people of Cuba who have endured decades of poverty due to American sanctions, for example. And our double standards don’t just apply to people in Communist regimes. We’re pretty unsympathetic towards people from Islamic countries unless they are actively trying to overthrow an Islamic regime. No one is commending plucky little Iran for bravely standing up to the combined might of Israel and the United States last summer.
Israel is one of the most powerful military states on earth, but right from the start, it has been a notable beneficiary of the myth of the “plucky little village”. In 1948, so the story goes, the newborn state of Israel bravely stood up to the combined forces of five Arab countries. Despite being massively outnumbered, it won a decisive victory. It forced the invaders to retreat from most of what had been the British Mandatory territory of Palestine. Only the area now known as the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and the area now known as the Gaza Strip remained in Arab hands.
No one is commending plucky little Iran for bravely standing up to the combined might of Israel and the United States last summer.
As with the myth of “plucky little Britain”, it contains a kernel of truth. The Arab League countries – Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – did invade the newborn State of Israel immediately after its creation in May 1948. And the Israeli forces did defeat them decisively. But that’s where the myth ends. There was never a combined Arab force. There were only individual armies, which were for the most part inadequately equipped and badly trained – not least because Syria and Lebanon had almost no military forces after decades of French occupation, and Jordan and Egypt were entirely dependent on the British for weapons and materiel. And the Israeli forces were not outnumbered. The historian Avi Shlaim found that there were more of them than Arab forces throughout the war, and they were far better organised and equipped. Like Britain in 1939, they were more like the Romans. And in their quest to conquer most of Mandatory Palestine, they destroyed over 500 plucky little villages.
Plucky little villages rarely survive invasion by a well-organised, well-equipped military force. Asterix’s village did so because it had a superpower – a druid with a magic potion that gave all its warriors superhuman strength. And in Asterix in Britain, the British villagers beat off the Romans because they believed they had taken the magic potion, though in fact all they had drunk was tea. So when we see a small state (or a village) successfully fighting off a far better armed and equipped force, we should ask what its superpower is.
Usually, the superpower is something much larger and more powerful standing behind the plucky little village. Ukraine, for example, has thus far been supported by the combined might of Western powers, who have supplied it with arms and imposed sanctions on Russia. But that is now changing.
Europe looks distressingly similar to the Arab League of 1948: badly equipped, badly trained, disorganised, and reluctant to accept the cost of supporting the plucky little village.
The US’s President Trump clearly wants the war to end on any terms, however bad for Ukraine, so he can pursue lucrative deal-making with Russia. And Europe looks distressingly similar to the Arab League of 1948: badly equipped, badly trained, disorganised, and reluctant to accept the cost of supporting the plucky little village. Great Powers are fickle and self-centred. They are a poor substitute for a magic potion. I fear this might not end well for Ukraine – or Europe.
Is there an example of a plucky little village that successfully stands up to a much larger and better-armed military force without the backing of an empire? This may seem bizarre, but perhaps the best example right now is Gaza. Israel has reduced the place to rubble, and the Palestinian people are suffering terribly. But they are still resisting. The superpower of the Palestinians of Gaza is their resilience in the face of terrible adversity.
It’s hard to say what the future holds for the plucky little village of Gaza. The US and Israel are both hell-bent on removing the Palestinians and taking the land for themselves, which is an interesting dynamic in itself – will Israel give in to the US or vice versa? But as Israel agitates for wars against ever more states, and the US pursues its imperial ambitions, the pair look increasingly isolated. Thanks in part to the determination of Palestinians to draw their suffering to the attention of people around the world, world opinion is turning against Israel and the US. Revulsion at Israel’s brutality may not be enough to bring the carnage to an end – but fear of Israeli and US warmongering might be.
Let’s hope that in 2026, plucky little villages will win the day.
