Arthur Hastings & the Battle of Messines

Recently, a reader wrote in to enhance my understanding of the setting for The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The clues she caught, but I had missed, set Agatha Christie's novel in 1917. Initially, this confused me, as Agatha Christie wrote her novel in 1916. She booked a room in the Moorland Hotel at Hay Tor in Dartmoor, and finished her novel. Unless she could hop into Doctor Who's TARDIS, and travel forward in time, how could she know what the next year would bring, and set the story, during World War I, in a specific month? 

But then I thought about the situation some more. Although she wrote the first draft of her novel in 1916, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was not published in the United States until 1920. (It wasn't published in her home country of England until 1921!) This means that, during 1917, 1918, or 1919, or perhaps even 1920, she could look back on WWI, how it affected her home town of Torquay, and decide when to "set" her story. 

So she wasn't envisioning the future when she wrote her first draft. Which is too bad, for those who are looking for more links between Doctor Who and Agatha Christie, aside from those covered in "The Unicorn and the Wasp," in which the Tenth Doctor encountered Agatha Christie during a crucial period of her life.

Agatha Christie, Donna, and the Doctor

Anyway, back to Captain Hastings, and how Agatha Christie's decision to set The Mysterious Affair at Styles means for his life.

In the TV production of "The Mysterious Affair at Styles", Captain Hastings watches Black & White Newsreel Footage of the "New Flanders Offensive." 

At first, I linked this footage with Battle of Passchendaele, or the Third Battle of Ypres, which occurred from late July until November 1917. But Christie (as Hastings) writes that Hastings leaves his English convalescent hospital and travels to Styles House on July 5, 1917. A review of the newsreel footage suggests that what Hastings was actually watching was the Battle of Messines, in which the British army set a series of explosives beneath German lines, and turned a defensive ridge into a series of craters. Although only lasting seven days, from 7 to 14 June 1917, it was one of those complicated, bloody land battles of WWI that caused thousands of injuries and deaths. 

Somehow, this makes it easier for me to imagine what Arthur Hastings is feeling. He's just spent seven months or so in this "rather depressing Convalescent Home," as he puts it. Now (in the TV adaptation) he sees all the deaths and injuries his fellow British soldiers are suffering. Surrounded by so many soldiers suffering, and presumably dying, this hits him hard. 

He's got to wonder how many more troops will be evacuated to stay in the place where he's been recuperating, and how many of those will die instead of getting better. And this is just from a little, preliminary battle, which involves getting British troops into better strategic positions, so that the real battle, The Third Battle of Ypres, (or, if you prefer, the slaughter) can begin.

Dragon Dave

Related Poirot And Friends entries
Arthur Hastings, a Beautiful Lady & the Battle of the Somme