review

Armchair generals are having a good month. Last week, Timewatch gave us a rather unconvincing defence of Douglas Haig's combat strategy; last night, Secret History (C4) allowed viewers to refight the Battle of Goose Green, complete with computer-generated maps and a yomping camera tour of the terrain - one which occasionally dropped behind a gorse bush as an imaginary burst of machine- gun fire ripped overhead. Secret History began with Field Marshal Lord Bramall's description of the battle as "a feat of arms and gallantry, probably unsurpassed in the glorious history of the British army". A piece of gold- frogged hyperbole matched by a war-comic image of 2nd Paras' Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel H Jones, advancing grim-visaged into a hail of bullets. Jones was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions in the battle and provided bellicose tabloids with a useful hero at a time of some anxiety, but Secret History's argument was that both battle and death were unnecessary, evidence of political expediency and gung- ho recklessness rather than military skill.

They had some strong witnesses. General Julian Thompson, then commander of the land forces, opposed the attack on Goose Green as a distraction from the main assault on Port Stanley, but was overruled by his superiors, anxious to begin hostilities and forestall talk of a ceasefire. The Argentinian commander himself couldn't understand why the British bothered, and the soldiers who fought in the attack recalled a scene of some confusion. "There was some concern that this might turn into another Crimea," said one of the more historically-minded officers, describing the frustrating inaction that followed the landing. Jones's exasperation at those delays, coupled with a personal ambition which was only hinted at, seem to have provoked him into an ill-considered attack. "It's comic-book stuff," said one participant of Jones's lone charge on the Argentinian positions, "you've got soldiers to do that."

Secret History made its case - even after you'd allowed for the cosy simplifications of hindsight - but why the case had to be made at an hour's length remained slightly mystifying. Even if the accounts of the battle are a myth, they are hardly a very widespread or pernicious one. Before this programme, when was Goose Green last mentioned? What damaging beliefs does the airbrushed account currently underwrite? In the one sphere where it might have some consequence - the British army - it already seems to be universally accepted that his actions were courageous but wrong-headed, a text-book example of what a commanding officer shouldn't do. To make a film about it, then, is to distress those to whom his memory matters, without greatly enlightening anyone else. Just because a truth isn't widely publicised doesn't make it a secret.

There will no doubt be angry correspondence about Secret History's programme. Whether the letters will be interesting in 80 years time is a moot question, one provoked by Sir (BBC2), a new series based on the correspondence columns of the Times. The experience of the first episode suggests that it is a wonderfully literal example of the idea that was good on paper - not just because the ornaments of Edwardian epistolary style are sometimes confusing to the ear, but also because the well of collective wisdom which the Times letter page notionally represents, is not as brimming as you might have expected. There are pleasures - of musing that there's nothing new under the sun (letters about Ulster and Serbian atrocities) and, conversely, of reflecting how utterly the world has changed (letters on female suffrage and the dangers of hatpins). It was nice too, to hear Tennyson waxing indignant about the publication of Browning's letters. But too many of the letters baffle by their inconsequence, and the production takes not enough care to set these shards of controversy in a comprehensible frame.