Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 33

My sickness is all gone except a slight headache, today is a half holiday but I think, and I suppose you will agree with me, that it would be best to remain quiet. I am amusing myself indoors very much however by drawing and reading and pasting in stamps, I like collecting awfully.

There is a great shindy going on, half Stonyhurst says that England has declared war with Prussia—the other section say England declared for peace, which is true?

News of the Franco-Prussian War breaking out in July 1870 was so momentous that it ‘made a ripple even in our secluded backwater’. He took France’s side, while he and his schoolmates waited eagerly to see if Britain would be drawn into the conflict. The school fostered great respect for the military: many students went on to serve in Britain’s armed forces, and to distinguish themselves in combat, with Conan Doyle later noting an unusually large number of Stonyhurst boys receiving the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. ‘In spite of a large infusion of foreigners and some disaffected Irish, we were a patriotic crowd,’ he recalled, ‘and our little pulse beat time with the heart of the nation.’