DUHS Journal 2013 by History Society Durham University

DURHAM UNIVERSITY

HISTORY SOCIETY

JOURNAL

VOLUME SIX 2013

Durham University History Society

Journal

Volume Six, 2013

EDITORIAL BOARD

Chief Editors: Maddie Michie & Ivan Yuen

Lucy Darbon Jemma Ockwell Nicole Stirk

CONTENTS Editors' Introduction Maddie Michie & Ivan Yuen

Foreword: What does it mean to study history in Durham? Dr. Ben Dodds

PART ONE: SUBJECT ARTICLES Who was responsible for the sack of Constantinople in 1204? Joe Adams

How and why did a largely illiterate population convert to a ‘religion of the word’? Philip Kelvin 20 Did increasing Sunni orthodoxy have a positive or negative effect on Ottoman relations with the non-Muslim communities under their rule during the reign of Mehmed IV? William Vick 29 How important was the loss of the American colonies to the British Empire between 1770s and 1810s? James Callingham 37 Why has ‘shell shock’ been such a prominent aspect of the cultural representation of the war? Harriet Evans

How far did the Fuhrer-myth succeed in uniting the German people behind the Nazi war effort, 1939-1945? Daisy-Rose C. Srblin

Was the 1989 Tiananmen protest movement about ‘democracy’? David Bartlett

To what extent did UNITA’s capacity to fight a long civil war depend on appeals to Ovimbundu cultural authenticity? David Bartlett 79

PART TWO : FOCUS ARTICLES The ‘Superfluous Man’ and Russian Romanticism Rachel Powell

Zero Dark Thirty: The film of a memory too soon (review) Joe Strong

“Over the Sea to Skye” (excerpt) Antonia Goddard

PART THREE Presidential Address Ryan Cullen

106

History in our Backyard: The Annual Trip to Hadrian’s Wall Josh Hewson

108

About the DUHS Exec

110

About the Editors

112

About the Authors

113

Editors' Introduction By Maddie Michie & Ivan Yuen Reading history as an undergraduate can feel lonely. Yet the study of our subject has always been, from the days of the Durham monks, a collective endeavour. Knowledge is passed from generation to generation, just as scholars challenge each other's preconceptions and come up with innovative approaches to historical questions through discussion, debate and mutual-learning. Through this publication, we hope to provide a sense of the diversity and richness of the work undertaken by the Durham historical community, and allow the reader to (re)discover the joys of pursuing historical investigations. Whether you are using this journal as a revision tool or reading it for pure interest, we hope you will be able to benefit from the fruits of the authors' labour. In this volume, Joe Adams deliberates the responsibility for the Sack of Constantinople and gives his verdict on an issue which has perplexed historians since 1204, whilst Philip Kelvin takes a novel approach to Reformation history by attempting to resolve the paradox of the growth of Protestantism, the 'religion of the word', at a time of minimal literacy. Will Vick extends the debate of Ottoman relations with non-Muslims under Mehmed IV beyond the narrow confines of a religious context, as James Callingham re-evaluates the significance of the loss of the American colonies to the British Empire against the backdrop of the Industrial and French Revolutions. More preoccupied with cultural representations, Harriet Evans assesses contemporary portrayals of 'shell shock'. In the same vein, Daisy Srblin examines the construction and use of the Hitler myth. The last two essays in Part 1, both written by David Bartlett, critically explore, and try to make sense of, recent events that rocked China and Angola. This journal also offers a selection of lighter discussion articles, including Rachel Powell's comment on the place of the 'Superfluous Man' in Russian Romanticism, Joe Strong's review of Zero Dark Thirty (a recent film based on the capture of Osama Bin Laden), and a taste of Antonia Goddard's upcoming novel. Last but not least, Part 3 comprises of news from the society, with a few photos in colour for the entertainment of those who are reading this as procrastination.

We are extremely grateful to our team of editors, Lucy Darbon, Jemma Ockwell and Nicole Stirk for their time and effort, which made our task so much easier. Similarly, we are thankful for the advice given by our predecessor, Joel Butler, from St. Andrews. Huge thanks must also go to the authors, without whose contributions this journal would not have been possible. Dr. Ben Dodds has been most generous in providing us with a forewordâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;we hope you will be as inspired as we have been by his words of wisdom. Dr. Julian Wright and the department secretaries have also kindly aided our publicity, and we thank the Department for their continuing support for the society. This publication marks the end of another academic year and of our tenure as co-Editors. We have enjoyed being on the History Society Exec under the presidency of Ryan Cullen, whose enthusiasm and wisdom have proved invaluable to the ongoing vivacity of the society. We wish Ryan and our Vice-President, Josh Hewson, all the best as they depart from Durham. We would also like to thank Matt Williams, our Social Secretary, for organising so many memorable events, to our two secretaries for arranging an engaging speakers programme, and to Emma Russell, our Treasurer, for her efficient work behind the scenes. Lastly, we would like to dedicate a special thanks to our friends at Hatfield, whose company and support have helped us achieve our goals and kept us sane. We will particularly miss the tender loving care from Laura Baldwin next year. Best of luck to our successor, Siena Morrell, who we are sure will continue to build on the foundations laid by us and by our predecessors. We do hope you enjoy reading this journal, and that it might provide you with a sense of the standard of excellence and the level of creativity of Durham historians. It has been an honour. April, 2013 Durham

What does it mean to study history in Durham? By Dr. Ben Dodds All the readers of this Journal spend a lot of time studying history, and all of us, at one time or another, wonder why we bother? There are lots of answers to this: developing certain skills which are transferable to different walks of life; seeking to understand how our own society and others work; developing a perspective on the different ways in which societies operate. But most important, for me at least, is the feeling of connection which studying history brings us: a sense of the past and of our closeness to it. One of the pleasures of studying History at Durham, whether as an undergraduate or postgraduate student, or as staff teaching and researching in the department here, is the acuteness of this sense of the past in the city where we live and work. Not only is the city itself historic, but all of us connected to the History Department are the heirs to almost a thousand years of historical study on this rocky peninsula in the River Wear. The story goes that Durham was founded in 995, when the community of clerks looking after the body of Saint Cuthbert decided, after a period based in Chester-le-Street, to establish a new shrine for the saintâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relics in Durham. Those who transformed Durham into a cathedral city in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did so with a vivid sense of history. A church was constructed as a fitting resting place for an Anglo-Saxon saint who had long since enjoyed national and international renown. Sometimes the clerks of the Cuthbertine community seem to have gone a little too far. One particularly zealous historically-minded member of the community, a man named Alfred, secretly took the bones of Bede, the great Anglo-Saxon historian who had died in 735, from their resting place at Jarrow and deposited them in a little bag alongside the body of St Cuthbert in Durham. Following the Norman Conquest, and the Conquerorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brutal reprisals in northern England after the rebellion against his rule, the Cuthbertine community was adopted by the Normans as means of establishing their control in the region. An enormous building project was begun, in which the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was replaced with an up-to-date Norman edifice of unprecedented magnificence. We can only imagine the impact this building work must have had on Durhamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inhabitants: possible anger at the appropriation of a dear local symbol must have been silenced by awe at the scale of the construction on Palace Green.

Although in many ways, the Normans’ ‘Durham project’ was deliberately and self-consciously new – a departure from a past the conquerors were anxious to break with –there was a very serious attempt to appropriate the past for their own ends. Symeon, one of the early members of the Benedictine community which was introduced to look after the saint’s body in 1083, was pressed into service and wrote his ‘Tract on the origin and progress of the Church of Durham’. This piece of historical research drew on archival resources available in Durham in the late eleventh century. It was designed to present Norman Durham as the culmination of the long history of of the Cuthbertine community going back to the foundation of the bishopric of Lindisfarne in 635. Symeon’s interpretation of the history of the Durham underpinned the thinking of the hundreds of monks who succeeded him in the city: his work gave them a sense of their role in the unfolding of God’s plans for mankind. We see ideas similar to those of Symeon emerging in the work of later twelfth-century Durham monkish writers. Lawrence of Durham used William Cumin’s failed attempt to usurp the see of Durham in 1141-4 as a demonstration of the operation of divine grace in history. Reginald, who seems to have entered the monastic community around the time of Lawrence’s death in 1154, was a famous hagiographer who compiled, among other things, a collection of St Cuthbert’s posthumous miracles. We can never know for sure what went through the minds of Durham monks as they conducted their daily round of services, administered the house’s vast income, dined in the refectory, or drank spiced wine next to the fire on a winter’s afternoon in the warming house. If their writings are any guide, though, a sense of the past was an important part of their outlook and was never far from their thoughts. The miraculously-preserved body of a saint who died centuries earlier gave meaning to their daily lives, and they were, they believed, simply the present-day incarnations of a perpetual line of servants of the saint. But history, of course – for them like for us – was more than just a sense of the past. History was a powerful tool deployed by Durham’s later medieval monks to safeguard their house’s privileges and to maintain its income for their successors. We see this most clearly in the work of John Wessington, prior of Durham from 1416-1446. Wessington was an exceptionally able politician, manager and administrator, but he underpinned all these roles with a keen awareness of the history of his community and a commitment to both writing and commissioning works of historical research defending his monastery and sometimes the probity of himself and his colleagues.

The records left by the Durham monks have been the focus of much historical work conducted in Durham since the sixteenth century, and their continued preservation has meant that Durham Priory is one of the best documented medieval communities anywhere in the world. Serious modern historical scholarship on the Durham monastic records began in earnest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. James Raine, the son of a village blacksmith, and later master at Durham School and rector of St Mary the Less on South Bailey, did more than anyone else to tap these important records and to make them available to a wider public. Along with Alan Piper, until recently in charge of the Durham monastic records, Raine is one of only two people since the middle ages ever to have read through all the monastic records held in Durham. It is thanks to the work of Raine, Piper and many others that I was lucky enough to work on the Durham monastic records myself. This began when I was an undergraduate student in the department in the summer of 1997, trying to think of a topic for my dissertation. I remember clearly walking down Bow Lane towards Kingsgate Bridge, in the shadow of the Chapel of the Nine Altars, thinking that it might be interesting to do something on the monastery here. Not really knowing anything at all about medieval monks, I went to see Dick Lomas, an expert on the history of northeast England now retired, and he directed me to a series of account rolls from the nearby monastery of Finchale, a daughter house of Durham in the middle ages. As I began work on the printed accounts, I read somewhere that the transcriptions might be less than accurate, so I went to the archives behind the Cathedral and rang the bell beside the solid blue wooden door to find out for myself. After a few minutes, the door opened and Alan Piper appeared and listened to my question. He thought for a moment, smiled, and said “I think you’ll find they’re probably okay” before the wooden door slowly closed again. My second trip to the archive, over a year later, was longer but less conclusive. As a postgraduate student, I wanted to extend the range of my work beyond the printed accounts, and to examine some of those which had not yet been printed. This time, I managed to get beyond the wooden door and into the searchroom on the first floor. Alan Piper brought me a carefully preserved and rolled account, and I laid it on the desk before me. I had come too early though, before I had had enough training in medieval palaeography, and found I was not able to distinguish the words from the numbers. Anxious to conceal this ignorance, I spent a nervous hour copying out some of the faintly

recognisable capital letters in the document before me. Thanks to much generous help from Dick Lomas, Alan Piper and my PhD supervisor, Richard Britnell, I was finally able to make some sense of the medieval monastic records in Durham. After days spent working on the monksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; records, I walked home through the cloisters of the Cathedral, a route familiar with those who had written those same records several centuries earlier. I now know this sense of the presence of history can be found elsewhere. I remember, for example, scrambling under a motorway on the south coast of Spain, past a derelict mill building, to a secluded beach beyond and then, months later in a library in Madrid, being confronted with a photograph of the same spot (minus the motorway) in a description of the covert anti-Franco resistance movement in the 1940s. I have no doubt that those reading this Journal would be able to share many similar experiences of their own, but it seems to me that we are all exceptionally fortunate to operate in a place where such a feeling for the past is something so real, and so everyday, that we can almost take it for granted. April 2013, Durham

PART ONE

Subject Articles

Joe Adams

Who was responsible for the sack of Constantinople in 1204? By Joe Adams Despite a finite number of sources on the topic, there is still little historiographical agreement about who was responsible for the sack of Constantinople. Steven Runciman, a Byzantist historian, has taken the view of a preconceived plot by the Venetians to divert the Crusade. This view persists not only in popular literature but also in some scholarly literature, despite the publication of credible works that undermine it.1 An alternative view sees the diversion as a “series of mistakes, failures and accidents,” but removing all human agency seems an overly simplistic model. 2 Deterministic arguments citing a long history of suspicion, declining relations and mistrust between the West and Byzantium are, and have easily been disproved; they will be but briefly covered here. Furthermore, the decision to attack a Christian city (Zara) en route was not atypical in the context of earlier Crusades and thus need not necessarily be seen as part of a chain of events. 3 Less-well researched and more crucial issues are the Treaty of Zara and the Venetians’ decision to conquer Constantinople rather than continuing on to Egypt after they had deposed Alexios IV. By assessing the input of the various parties: Venice, Innocent III, Alexios IV, and the leaders and senior clergy; it can ultimately be demonstrated that the latter were primarily responsible for both the diversion and the sack of the city. Advancing a deterministic Venetian revenge theory relies largely on the view of declining relations with Byzantium. This can be observed most vividly in the 1182 massacre of the Latin residents of Constantinople, in which, according to Runciman, “the Venetians were the chief victims.” 4 However, 1

See T. Madden, “Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade,” International History Review 17

(1995) pp. 726-743 and John H. Pryor, “The Venetian fleet for the Fourth Crusade and the diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople” in Marcus Bull and Norman Housely (eds.), The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2 (Cambridge 2003) pp. 103-123 2

D. E. Queller and G. W. Day, “Some Arguments in Defence of the Venetians on the Fourth

Crusade,” American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), p. 719; J. Sayers, Innocent III. Leader of Europe 1198-1216 (Harlow 1994) p. 174 3

Queller and Day, p. 727

S. Runciman, “Byzantium and the Crusades,” The Meeting of two Worlds: Cultural Exchange

between East and West during the period of the Crusades, ed. Vladimir P. Goss and Christine Verzár Bornstein (Kalamazoo 1986) pp. 21-2

Sack of Constantinople 1204

not only had compensation been agreed in 1187, but Madden has demonstrated that the Venetians were expelled from the city before 1182, therefore the vast majority of those massacred must have been Pisan and Genoan.5 Furthermore, Dandolo’s desire for revenge, articulated only in the primary sources by the heavily-biased Byzantine Nicetas Chionates, has been overemphasized, given the very vague picture of him that can be constructed from the sources.6 Revenge, then, is difficult to posit as a motive, especially when it can be proven that the Venetians intended to sail for Egypt. The second major argument of the Byzantist camp is the Venetian desire for economic profit. Despite a wealth of evidence to suggest that Venetian Crusade motivations were as pious as their northern compatriots’, the characterisation of Venetian “rapacity” still pervades scholarly literature. 7 While one cannot doubt that Venice profited from the Crusade, especially after acquiring Zara and Crete, this ignores the argument that acquiring the original target, Egypt, would have been far more profitable. 8 Pryor demonstrates that, while in Constantinople Venice had trade dominance, tax concessions, and a malleable government, in Egypt her sailors were heavily taxed and denied access to the lucrative spice trade. 9 One reason to doubt this viewpoint is the greater difficulty of attacking Egypt over Constantinople; however, the presence of a large number of “uissiers…for transporting cavalry… with stern ports for embarking and disembarking horses”, a type of vessel useless against Constantinople’s sea walls but ideal for landing on the shores of the Nile delta, confirms that the Venetians intended to do so.10 Furthermore, Venice brought fifty war galleys: a costly and manpower-intensive force completely unnecessary to combat the ineffectual Byzantine fleet, which Nicetas Choniates describes as “rotting and worm-eaten small skiffs, barely twenty in number.”11 Doubtless the chronicler 5

Queller and Day, pp. 735-6; T. Madden, “Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade,”

International History Review 17 (1995) p. 730 6

Niketas Choniates, Harry J. Magoulias (trans.), O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas

Choniates (Detroit, 1984), Ch. 538; T. Madden, “Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade,” International History Review 17 (1995) p. 732 7

For example, see J. Sayers, Innocent III. Leader of Europe 1198-1216 (Harlow 1994), p. 175

Sayers, Innocent III, p. 174

Pryor, “The Venetian fleet”, p. 112

Ibid., p. 103

Ibid.; Choniates, Ch. 451

Joe Adams

was exaggerating the inadequacies of his native fleet, but the massive naval superiority enjoyed by the Crusaders, to the point that they could sail unimpeded to the mouth of the Golden Horn, verifies Choniates’ statement.12 Venice, then, must be absolved of plotting to divert the Crusade before its departure. Pryor’s research has shown that the diversion was not planned before the departure from Venice, so one must look to the principal actors after the departure to explain the diversion. The evidence available highlights Innocent III’s intractable opposition to a diversion. While his actions in England demonstrate his political will and skill, his only sin in the Fourth Crusade was failing to control it. This apology for Innocent’s laxity, however, can be attributed largely to the legate Peter Capuano and his reluctance to criticize the Pope. Much more useful as a source for Innocent’s actions and desires are his own letters. Although Donald Nicol asserts that Innocent was unaware of the Crusader’s intentions towards Constantinople, 13 this is easily disproved by reading the relevant letter: “Not one of you… is allowed to occupy or prey upon the land of the Greeks because it might be too little obedient to the Apolistic See and because the emperor of Constantinople [Alexios III] usurped the empire… it is still not your business to judge his crimes.”14 Furthermore, Innocent had already rejected Alexios IV’s overtures at the Papal Curia, and the contemporary chronicler Gunther of Parais reports that the Pope had encouraged his people to “sail directly to Alexandria.” 15

Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Marzials, F. T. (trans.), Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth

Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908) p. 37 from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/villehardouin.asp [accessed 18/02/12] 13

D. Nicol, “The Crusades and the Unity of Christendom,” The Meeting of two Worlds: Cultural

Exchange between East and West during the period of the Crusades, ed. Vladimir P. Goss and Christine Verzár Bornstein (Kalamazoo 1986) p. 172 14

Innocent III, A. J. Andrea (trans.), “Reg. 6: 101, Ca. 20 June 1203” in Andrea (ed.)

Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade (Leiden, 2008) pp. 62-3. 15

J. Powell, “Innocent III and Alexius III: a Crusade Plan that Failed,” Marcus Bull and

Norman Housely (eds.), The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2 (Cambridge 2003) p. 102;

Gunter

Sack of Constantinople 1204

Queller’s opinion that Innocent was “deliberately vague on the question of excommunication” over Zara can also be challenged. 16 He appears to be referring to Reg. 6:99, in which the Crusade leadership states “the Apolostic excommunication that we incurred at Zara (or fear we incurred)”, but he would be well advised to read the earlier Reg. 5:160, in which Innocent very clearly states “you should realize that you lie under sentence of excommunication and cannot share in the grant of remission promised you.” 17 The later letter from the Crusaders probably expresses confusion only as an excuse for their actions. Although Innocent was forced to have Capuano confirm the (uncanonical) absolution given by the clergy on Crusade, Innocent cannot be seen to be condoning Crusader actions. The shortage of money to fulfil the Venetian contract was certainly the prime cause of the acceptance of Alexios IV’s offer of support. While some have attributed this to an extortionate price, by comparing the price per man and horse to earlier Crusades, Queller has demonstrated that the contract was in fact cheaper than many.18 The high cost can instead be explained by a massive overestimation of numbers: the contract was for three times the number of men of the French army at Bouvines, and twice the annual revenues of the Kings of England or France. 19 Such an overestimation made the leadership particularly susceptible to any offer of aid. Alexios IV’s overestimation or fabrication of his future resources and thus inability to pay can be considered a major cause of his overthrow, which led directly to the sack. His offer could not be refused as it appeased all parties: 200,000 marks would more than pay off the Venetians, supplies would placate the rank and file, 10,000 troops would provide the missing strength to take Egypt, and the maintenance of 500 crusaders in the Holy Land would provide long-term security (for comparison, there were just 1200 knights at the Horns

of Pairis, Alfred J. Andrea (trans.), The Capture of Constantinople: The Hystoria Constantinopolitana of Gunther of Pairis (Philadelphia, 1997), Ch. 8, p 84 16

D. E. Queller, The Fourth Crusade (Philadelphia 1977), pp. 68-9

Counts Baldwin of Flanders, Louis of Blois and Hugh of St Pol, “Reg. 6:99, April 1203“, in

Andrea (ed.), Contemporary Sources. pp. 55-6; Innocent III, “Reg. 5: 160 (161), February? 1203” in Andrea, (ed.), Contemporary Sources, p. 45 18

Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 11

Queller and Day, p. 723

Joe Adams

of Hattin).20 Furthermore, his offer was supported by the Crusade leadership as they were informed by Alexios that he would be well-received. 21 The opposite would of course prove true: on arrival, Villehardouin states “not one person on the land or in the city made show as if he held for the prince.” 22 Whether Alexios believed his own rhetoric is, unfortunately, nearly impossible to tell. Once enthroned, he was caught between anti-Latin faction in his own government and his contract to repay the Crusaders before March 1204.23 After the hugely destructive fire, (which “devastated one-sixth of the city, making one-third of the inhabitants homeless”) stemming from an independent group of Latins attacking the Muslim quarter, he was overthrown. Once dead, his contract with the Crusaders became defunct, providing an excuse and motive for the conquest; the only alternative was to leave with minimal resources. 24 Because the envoys prevented the leadership from refusing Alexios’ offer, and the offer was too large for Alexios to pay, one might consider the Crusade leadership as victims of the Byzantine claimant's faults. However, this ignores the actions of the leadership. The duplicity frequently applied to Venice is more accurately applied to Boniface, Hugh and Baldwin. This is not to say they had a long-held plot to capture Constantinople, but merely that they, not the Pope or the Venetians, were the main directors of the events. Although Queller suggests the leaders were impotent in the face of “an inchoate mass of men moved unpredictably by enthusiasms, fears, ambitions, superstitions, lusts,” this is at odds with their influence over said mass; Villehardouin tells us that twelve nobles convinced the vast majority of the army to accept

For the composition of the army at Hattin, see Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A

History (London, 2005) p. 110; For a detailed account of the impact of supplies on the Crusade, see Thomas F. Madden, “Food and the Fourth Crusade: a new approach to the ‘Diversion Question’”, in John H. Pryor (ed.) in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, John H. Pryor, (ed.) (Brookfield, 2006), pp. 209-28; J. Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (London, 2004) pp. 127-9 21

Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 69

Geoffrey de Villehardouin, p. 36

T. Madden, “Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack

on Constantinople in 1204,” The International History Review 15 (1993), p. 442 24

T. Madden, “Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade,” International History Review 17 (1995)

p. 743

Sack of Constantinople 1204

Alexios IV’s offer to divert to Constantinople, despite vocal opposition. 25 A reading of the sources elucidates a pragmatic desire to maintain the unity irrespective of papal orders. While the Franks were absolved from excommunication following Zara, the Venetians were not. Boniface, however, concealed this from the Venetians to prevent a rebellion from the rank and file over the diversion. 26 This fact cannot be doubted, as not only does he admit it to the Pope himself but also his confederates do so in a separate letter. 27 This complete disregard for papal instruction forces one to agree with Queller when he states that Papal crusade leadership was “already anachronistic.” 28 This is not to say the leadership had a long-held plot to divert the Crusade, but that they were willing to take Alexios’ offer to ensure eventual success in Egypt regardless of protest from the rank-and-file. Proof of this is best found in Count Hugh’s letter. Written during the events in 1203, it is more accurate than Villehardouin’s account written several years later. Furthermore, it was addressed to a trusted vassal, and thus would not be inclined to falsehood.29 Hugh speaks both of returning and of the journey being to Jerusalem, which hardly suggests Constantinople as the Crusade’s ultimate objective. 30 Blame for the eventual sack can also be largely attributed to the leadership. Madden bases his analysis on the inviolability of sworn medieval treaties, as best demonstrated by the diversion made to pay the Venetians. A treaty was made with Alexios to help secure his empire in return for payment in March 1204, but the leaders demanded payment while the Emperor stalled. Madden, however, notes that they had no legal right to do this, even if Alexios did not actually intend to pay: 100,000 marks had already been paid according to Villehardouin, and he never refused to pay the rest. 31 By undermining the Emperor in front of his court, they contributed to his eventual downfall. More

Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 33; Geoffrey de Villehardouin, p. 24

Andrea, Contemporary Sources, p. 57

Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, “Reg 6:100, April 1203” in Andrea, (ed.), Contemporary

Sources, pp. 58-9; Counts Baldwin of Flanders, Louis of Blois and Hugh of St Pol, “Reg. 6:99, April 1203“, in Andrea (ed.) Contemporary Sources. pp. 55-6 28

Queller, The Fourth Crusade, p. 8

Andrea, Contemporary Sources, p. 183

Count Hugh of St Pol, A. J Andrea (trans.), “The Letter of Hugh of Saint Pol to R. Of

Balues”, in Andrea (ed.) Contemporary Sources, pp. 186-9 31

Madden, “Vows and Contracts” pp. 446-9

Joe Adams

immediately, the refusal of the ultimatum to pay immediately led the Crusaders to begin looting the outskirts of the city. Madden suggests “the Latins must have concluded that Alexius IV had refused to pay his debt, and therefore they were now freed from their allegiance to him,” although Alexios had technically made no such refusal. 32 The final indictment of the leaders must be considered their behaviour following the elevation of Alexios V. At this point, the agreement with Alexios IV was terminated by his death, but the Venetians had already received 100,000 marks needed to cover the transport fee. Instead, the objective of the Crusade was changed from Jerusalem to Byzantium by means of the complicit clergy: “this war is lawful and just, and that if you have a right intention in conquering this land, to bring it into the Roman obedience, all those who die after confession shall have part in the indulgence granted by the Pope."33

This was not without legal justification, as the Third Lateran Council had legislated that remission of sins could be granted for opposing heretics. 34 Madden further adds that “so many crusaders considered their vow fulfilled that the papal legate, Peter Capuano, released them from the burden of the cross,” which shows Capuano’s complicity with the Crusade leadership over obedience to his Pope.35 In conclusion, there were numerous parties to blame for the Constantinople, but none had so great a chance to avoid it than the leadership. Dandolo may be legitimately included in this group, provider of over half the manpower he may be said to have

sack of Crusade for as a wielded

considerable influence.36 His agency should not be limited to pre-departure. Tensions between Byzantium and Venice were in existence, but have shown to 32

Madden, “Vows and Contracts” p. 449

Geoffrey de Villehardouin, p. 56

See Canon 27, Third Lateran Council 1179 A.D., in Norman P. Tanner, (ed.), Decrees of the

Ecumenical Councils, from http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum11.htm [accessed 17/02/12] http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum11.htm 35

Madden, “Vows and Contracts” p. 463

P. S. Noble, “Eyewitnesses of the Fourth Crusade - the War against Alexius III,” Reading

Medieval Studies, 25 (1999) p. 76

Sack of Constantinople 1204

have little impact on the actual conduct of the Crusade. The idea of a long-held plot to divert the Crusade whether by the Papacy, Venice or the Frankish leadership has been disproved. The latter two parties, however, were forced by the ineptitude of the envoys into the diversion to Zara and Constantinople, so the blame must be shared. However, Alexios IVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible contract, combined with the diplomatic failures of the Crusader leadership in 1203-4 and their inability to control their troops and prevent friction with the local Byzantines, must be ultimately blamed for the sack of Constaninople.

Joe Adams

Bibliography Primary Sources Choniates, Niketas, Harry J. Magoulias (trans.), O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates (Detroit, 1984) Innocent III et al, A.J. Andrea (trans.), “Registers of Innocent III” in A.J. Andrea (ed.) Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade (Leiden, 2008), pp 5-176 Geoffrey de Villehardouin, Marzials, F. T. (trans.), Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, (London: J.M. Dent, 1908) p. 37 from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/villehardouin.asp [accessed 18/02/12] Gunter of Pairis, A.J. Andrea (trans.), The Capture of Constantinople: The Hystoria Constantinopolitana of Gunther of Pairis (Philadelphia, 1997) Hugh of St Pol, A. J Andrea (trans.), “The Letter of Hugh of Saint Pol to R. Of Balues” in A.J. Andrea (ed.) Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade (Leiden, 2008) pp. 177-202 “Third Lateran Council 1179 AD”, Tanner, N.P, (ed.) Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils from http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum11.htm[accessed 17/02/12]

Secondary Sources Madden, T, “Vows and Contracts in the Fourth Crusade: The Treaty of Zara and the Attack on Constantinople in 1204,” The International History Review 15 (1993), pp. 441-468 Noble, P. S., “Eyewitnesses of the Fourth Crusade - the War against Alexius III,” Reading Medieval Studies, 25 (1999), pp. 75-89 -----, “Outside and Inside the Fourth Crusade,” International History Review 17 (1995) pp. 726-743 -----, “Food and the Fourth Crusade: a new approach to the ‘Diversion Question’”, in John H. Pryor (ed.) in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, John H. Pryor, (ed.) (Brookfield, 2006), pp. 209-28.

Sack of Constantinople 1204

Nicol, D., “The Crusades and the Unity of Christendom,” in Goss and Bornstein, The Meeting of two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the period of the Crusades, ed. (Kalamazoo, 1986) pp. 169-180 Phillips J., The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, (London, 2004) Powell, J., “Innocent III and Alexius III: a Crusade Plan that Failed,” Marcus Bull and Norman Housely (eds.), The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2 (Cambridge 2003) pp. 96-102 Pryor, John H., “The Venetian fleet for the Fourth Crusade and the diversion of the Crusade to Constantinople” in Marcus Bull and Norman Housely (eds.), The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2 (Cambridge 2003) pp. 103-123 Queller, D. E.,

The Fourth Crusade, (Philadelphia 1977)

Queller, D. E. and Day, G. W., “Some Arguments in Defence of the Venetians on the Fourth Crusade,” American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), pp. 717-37 Riley-Smith, J., The Crusades: A History, (London, 2005) Runciman, S., “Byzantium and the Crusades,” in Goss and Bornstein, The Meeting of two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the period of the Crusades, ed. (Kalamazoo, 1986) pp. 15-22 Sayers, J., Innocent III. Leader of Europe 1198-1216, (Harlow 1994)

Philip Kelvin

How and why did a largely illiterate population convert to a ‘religion of the word’? By Philip Kelvin The last fifty years has seen the historiographical debate extend out of the erstwhile focus on the politics of the reformation, and, instead, to assess the Tudor Reformation on the ground. This essay intends to assay how a largely illiterate population converted to a religion, which had a great focus and respect for the written and spoken word. The answer is by no means clear-cut and it is indeed challenging to explain why the English population converted to Protestantism; it is difficult, as Elizabeth herself stated, “to make windows into men’s souls”. 1 Whilst it is difficult to assess why the population converted, one can examine how the population could have converted, despite low levels of literacy through gauging the reception of different mediums of religious indoctrination. This essay argues that an absence of literacy did not prevent access to Protestantism, as, whilst there was a focus on the written word, there was equally a focus on the spoken word, such as the sermon. Furthermore, with expanding education it was likely that there were some literate members of the community who extended the reception of printed works. This extension can be seen through Cynthia Zollinger’s model of ‘textual communities’, whereby the reception of ballads, broadsheets and other printed works were expanded through the interaction between speakers and listeners. 2 Meanwhile, the acquisition of pre-reformation metrical psalms and ballads allowed continuity in song, alongside new ballads, which were conceived for pedagogical instruction, aiding the conversion process. Historians such as Patrick Collinson have noted that, from 1577, the ‘popular’ culture of the Tudor Reformation in the form of godly ballads and moralizing plays declined due to incessant attacks from the ‘Puritan onslaught’.3 Whilst this decline may have occurred, by the 1570s and 1580s, one can argue that there existed a blurring of secular and

Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early

modern Europe (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 12. 2

Cythnia Wittman Zollinger, ’”The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence”:

Sixteenth-Century Literacy in Text and Context’ in Christopher Highley and John King (eds.), John Foxe and his world (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2002), p. 102. 3

Patrick Collinson, The birthpangs of Protestant England: religious and cultural change in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (New York, 1988), p. 112.

'Religion of the word'

religious culture that enabled Protestantism to become a religion of habit. The second generation of the Reformation had grown up in the Elizabethan settlement: their Queen was Protestant and so was England. The passive victimhood of Elizabeth and the consistency of threats from Catholics abroad and at home, allowed Englishmen to define themselves as English based on their religion. Asking ‘why’ the population converted to the ‘religion of the word’ is complex, but the substantial number of mediums through which an illiterate population could be converted, or at least encounter Protestantism, helps to explain the process. With the Reformation, a basic willingness to read scripture in the vernacular, which was once the mark of the heretic, became central to the new orthodoxy. The relationship between the individual and the text, between self and scripture, was recognised as a site of negotiation and the act of reading and interpretation became personalized and authorized by the tenets of a faith celebrating the Word above all. Yet, despite this, over two-thirds of men and nine-tenths of women were unable to sign their names at the time of the English civil war. 4 However, John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments suggests that that there was a great fluidity between orality and literacy encouraged by vernacular translators who made texts available to listeners as well as readers. 5 The solution to the problem of illiteracy was the creation of a textual community, an interaction between speakers and listeners situated around the knowledge and interpretation of a text.6 John Foxe’s martyrology also provides evidence that not all those persecuted were highly educated scholars and clergy but also those who listened and memorized -evidence of the further penetration of Protestant thought into the lower strata of society. Foxe gives the example of Rawlins White, an inspired fisherman, who encountered the Bible by proxy. While he began his spiritual journey within oral culture, a “diligent hearer, and a great searcher out of the truth,” he looked to the text of the Bible to continue his education through his son and he would “have the boy to read a piece of the holy scripture,” he also used his memory and “very often would cite the booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence: such was the wonderfull working of God in this simple and

Zollinger, ’”The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence”: Sixteenth-Century Literacy in

Text and Context’, p. 102. 5

Ibid., p. 103.

Ibid., p. 106.

Philip Kelvin

unlearned father.”7 Clearly, the word could not be read by all but it could permeate through society via an alternative route. Furthermore, through ballads, the first generation of Protestant reformers utilised aspects of pre-reformation melodies and metrical psalms alongside existing secular songs as their route to the people’s hearts. 8 Tessa Watt has estimated that an absolute minimum of six hundred thousand ballads were circulating in the second half of the sixteenth century and a maximum of four million.9 As Nicholas Bownde commented in 1595; “You must not onely look in the houses of great personages…but also in the shops of artificers, and cottages of poor husbandmen, where you shall sooner see one of these newe Ballades…than any of the Psalms, and may perceive them to be cunninger in singing the one, than the other.” 10 The ubiquitous nature of the ballad at all social levels is suggested by John Jewel’s letter to Peter Martyr, 5 March 1560: “Religion is now somewhat more established than it was…You may now sometimes see at Paul’s cross, after the service, six thousand persons, old and young, of both sexes, all singing together and praising. This sadly annoys the mass-priests and the devil. For they perceive that by these means the sacred discourses sink more deeply into the minds of men.” 11 Moreover, music became imbedded into Elizabethan life through another pillar of Elizabethan culture: the grammar school. Through educational reformers such as Richard Mulcaster, music was affirmed as one of “the chiefe principles, for training up of youth”. 12 Being particularly susceptible to music, young people and schoolchildren became a target of a range of pedagogic musical forms. One could even argue that Zollinger’s ‘textual communities’ included the exchange of music. While only a minority of children may have experienced religious music in an Elizabethan schoolroom, many more were exposed to Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in the home and wider community. It has been estimated that there were over 360 grammar schools in England by 1600, one for every 12,500 people, collectively educating 7

Zollinger, ’”The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence”: Sixteenth-Century Literacy in

Text and Context’, p. 104. 8

Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550-1640 (Cambridge, 1991), pp.

Ibid., p. 11-12.

40-41.

Ibid., p. 12.

Jonathan Willis, Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England (Farnham, 2010),

p. 164. 12

Ibid., p. 167.

'Religion of the word'

around 12,000 boys or one in 375 people. The impact on local congregations of a grammar school population fluent in music, and especially the metrical Psalms, could have been considerable. 13 While Zollinger and Willis have examined the transmission and potential interaction with Protestantism one might encounter in the sixteenth century, it has proven difficult to establish an accurate representation of the reception of Protestant ideas. Arnold Hunt’s study on preaching arguably bridges this gap by questioning the inevitability of a Protestant preacher creating a Protestant parish. Focusing on the two-way relationship between the preacher and his audience, Hunt argued that the preacher imbued the printed word with a warmth thtat it previously lacked. 14 Hunt argues that a sermon on the printed page was arguably not a sermon at all: it could not save souls, because it lacked the converting power of the spoken voice. 15 What made the sermon special was not simply its orality but its unique and unrepeatable nature that was addressed to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and was designed not merely to impart doctrinal information but to elicit an effective response from the audience. 16 Intellect was by no means a prerequisite for the penetration of the preacher’s message. Hunt’s evidence for this is plentiful, although the presence of ‘sermon-gadding’, where people travelled to different parishes to hear from their favourite preachers, suggests that the quality of preaching was not consistent throughout the parishes. Nevertheless, it is likely that the tailoring of a preacher’s sermon based on their audience and location, would have indeed helped people to convert to the ‘religion of the word’ and helps explain why one might convert. 17 The transition to print culture following the Reformation did not entail a full separation from visual imagery and early Protestantism arguably created a new religious and moral drama of its own for its own propagandist and didactic purposes. 18 Early Protestant drama became a tool to discredit previous papist practices and to introduce Protestant doctrine. Lewis Wager’s Life and repentaunce of Marie Magdalene is a theological play that

Willis, Church Music and Protestantism, p. 172.

Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing (Cambridge, 2010), p. 12.

Ibid., p. 10.

Ibid., p. 11.

Ibid., pp. 14-15.

Ibid., p. 102.

Philip Kelvin

centred on the themes of predestination and of salvation through faith alone. 19 The audience that saw the Magdalene play was left in little doubt that the heroine’s redemption was affected purely through unmerited grace: There was never man borne yet that was able, To performe these precepts iust, holy and stable, Save onely Jesus Christ. So by faith in Christ you have Justification Freely of his grace and beyond mans operation20

Furthermore, Peter Berek’s work on tragedy and title pages has shown how a large proportion of plays published and labelled as “tragedy” were used to characterize stories of martyrdom whilst works such as The stage of popish toyes: conteining both tragicall and comicall partes (1581) provided a collection about the wickedness of Roman Catholics.21 Thus, despite Collinson’s observation of a gradual iconophobia in England after the 1570s, religious themes were still able to shape plays despite the government’s insistence that the writer avoid doctrinal matters.22 This essay, thus far, has focused on the quantities and qualitative nature of tools used by Protestants to convert a largely illiterate body. It has demonstrated both how, and suggested reasons why such tools were successful. However, national secular culture and not just religious doctrine was deeply intertwined with the written and oral culture. From the 1570s especially, panegyrics fused anti-popery with fervent biblically flavoured patriotism.23 Many of the population were arguably converted, not solely out of habit, but because one’s national identity as English and one’s religious identity as Protestant, were one and the same. In her first speech to the House of Lords, Elizabeth declared herself ‘God’s Creature, ordained to obey his appointment…[and]….the minister of his heavenly will,” and in her 19

Collinson, The birthpangs of Protestant England, p. 104.

Ibid., pp. 104-105.

Peter Berek, ‘Tragedy and Title Pages: Nationalism, Protestantism and Print’ in Modern

Philology, Vol. 106, No. 1 (August, 2008), p. 9. 22

William A. Dyrness, Reformed theology and visual culture: the protestant imagination from

Calvin to Edwards (Cambridge, 2004), p. 120. 23

Alexandra Walsham, ‘’A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential

Monarch’, in Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman, The Myth of Elizabeth (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 144.

'Religion of the word'

Golden Speech of 1601 that she was an ‘instrument to deliver you from dishonour, from shame, from infamy, to keep you from…servitude and slavery under our enemies, from cruel tyranny and vile oppression.’ 24 Accession Day, on 17 November, also provides an excellent example of the fusion of religious and secular culture because the accession is presented as the day on which Elizabeth had ‘opened unto us the door of his Gospel’.25 Moreover, reflections on her rule on this day were occupied with both the religious and political success of England: Since which time [after Elizabeth’s accession] having taken progresse together with Gods manifold blessings… both to her royall person, sincere religion, and most blessed government, …it hath been oppugned by the Priestes and Iesuites, the enemies of her gracious peace and happy prosperitie…26

The inviolability of the English monarch was widely read as evidence of the nation’s own elect status and loyalty to the Queen was by nature conforming to the religious orthodoxy.27 In conclusion, whilst it is very easy prima facie to present illiteracy as an obstruction to the conversion of Englishmen to Protestantism, the evidence suggests that many who were illiterate were adept at finding alternative means to understand the key doctrines and Scripture or, indeed, others who were literate used tools and methods that illiterates could understand. The ubiquity of printed broadsheets, ballads, psalms and sermons alongside the strong culture of orality and focus on preaching, whether on secular occasion or on the Sabbath, meant that it was very difficult not to escape the trappings of Protestantism. The evidence presented in this essay has focused predominantly on the period after 1558 and more research is needed on the period after the break with Rome in determining a new model on the impact of literacy aside from Christopher Haigh’s study. Nevertheless, the fervour, 24

Walsham, ‘’A Very Deborah?’', pp. 144-145.

Ibid., p. 146.

John Howson, A sermon preached at St Maries in Oxford, the 17. Day of November, 1602. In

Defence of the festivities of the Church of England, and namely that of her Maiesties coronation. By Iohn Hovvson Doctor of Divinitie, one of her Highnes chaplains, and vicechancellour of the Vniversitie of Oxforde (Oxford, 1602), Preface. 27

Walsham, ‘’A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch’, pp.

152-153.

Philip Kelvin

passion and consistency of the written and oral culture after the accession of Elizabeth I led, over time, to the habit of Protestantism. Whilst Collinson’s argument holds strong regarding increased censorship and care taken over the publication of works after the 1570s, this also coincided with a further entwinement of religious and secular culture due to the threats on Elizabeth’s life. Thus, religion became a part of a Tudor citizen’s life by virtue of where they lived, their local government and their parish church. Interaction with the Word, especially in larger towns, was inevitable and the conversion to what they viewed English Protestantism, a prerequisite to residence within the Protestant island.

'Religion of the word'

Bibliography

Collinson, Patrick, The birthpangs of Protestant England: religious and cultural change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (New York, 1988) Dyrness, William A., Reformed theology and visual culture: the protestant imagination from Calvin to Edwards (Cambridge, 2004) Evenden, Elizabeth and Freeman, Thomas S., ‘Print, Profit and Propaganda: The Elizabethan Privy Council and the 1570 Edition of Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’, English Historical Review, 119 (2004), pp. 1288-1307. Howson, John, A sermon preached at St Maries in Oxford, the 17. Day of November, 1602. In Defence of the festivities of the Church of England, and namely that of her Maiesties coronation. By Iohn Hovvson Doctor of Divinitie, one of her Highnes chaplains, and vicechancellour of the Vniversitie of Oxforde (Oxford, 1602), Preface. Hunt, Arnold, The Art of Hearing (Cambridge, 2010) Peter Berek, ‘Tragedy and Title Pages: Nationalism, Protestantism and Print’ in Modern Philology, Vol.

106, No. 1 (August, 2008), pp. 1-24.

Walsham, Alexandra and Crick, Julia C., ‘Introduction: script, print and history’, in Julia C. Crick and Alexandra Walsham (eds.), The uses of script and print, 1300-1700 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 1-26. Walsham, Alexandra, ‘’A Very Deborah?’ The Myth of Elizabeth I as a Providential Monarch’, in Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman, The Myth of Elizabeth (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 143-171. Walsham, Alexandra, Church Papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern Europe (Woodbridge, 1993) Watt, Tessa, Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550-1640 (Cambridge, 1991) Willis, Jonathan, Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England (Farnham, 2010)

Philip Kelvin

Zollinger, Cythnia Wittman, ’”The booke, the leafe, yea and the very sentence”: Sixteenth-Century Literacy in Text and Context’ in Christopher Highley and John King (eds.), John Foxe and his world (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2002), pp. 102-116.

Sunni orthodoxy and non-Muslims

Did increasing Sunni orthodoxy have a positive or negative effect on Ottoman relations with the non-Muslim communities under their rule during the reign of Mehmed IV? By William Vick The ambiguous relationship between the Ottoman Empire and its multitude of religious communities is undoubtedly a most fascinating and relevant issue, and one that is still well under consideration. The advent of Islamist extremism and the prospect of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ have ignited debates in the Western world about the precise nature and doctrine of Islam and the degree to which it can tolerate the existence of other religious groups. 1 The Ottoman Empire has formed part of the battleground in this debate, providing the most significant recent example of a polyethnic and multi-religious community under an ostensibly Muslim state. Hence historians such as Madeline Zilfi, Marc Baer and Karen Barkey have analysed the discontinuity of Ottoman Islamic traditions, particularly the wave of Kadızadeli orthodox reformism that emerged over the course of the seventeenth century, and on the effects that this may have had on the religious minorities of the empire. 2 Indeed, Baer and others have suggested that military defeat and economic uncertainty led to a kind of identity crisis within the empire, which prompted a turn to Islamic orthodoxy and Islamization that inevitably led to tensions with, if not outright oppression of, Christians, Jews and other minorities. 3 Yet the rise of the Kadızadelis led to conflict within Islam as well as without, and indeed the essential thrust of Kadızadeli thought was anti-Sufi or anti-Halveti in nature, not anti-Christian or anti-Jewish. 4 How, then, do we make sense of these complex shifts in Ottoman religious positions and their impact upon minority religious communities at this time? 1

Karen Barkey, ‘Islam and Toleration: Studying the Ottoman Imperial Model’, International

Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 19 (2005), pp. 5-6. 2

Marc David Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam (Oxford, 2008); Madeline Zilfi, The Politics of

Piety (Minneapolis, 1988) and Karen Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, 2008). 3

Baer, ‘The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul’,

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36 (2004). 4

Madeline Zilfi, ’The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul’,

Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 45 (1986), and Zilfi, The Politics of Piety.

William Vick

First we can examine the nature of the ‘increasing Sunni orthodoxy’ that occurred over course of the seventeenth century and peaked in influence between around 1660 and 1680. The Kadızadeli movement originated in reaction to the growing influence of the Halveti sufi order in Istanbul, which had come to monopolise the most important religious posts in the major towns of the Empire. From the 1630s with the leadership of Kadızade Mehmed Efendi, the provincial preachers who competed with these sufis – the vaizan – began to form a coherent ‘puritanical movement’ that strongly opposed the innovation (bida) driven by sufi practice, which had led the Islamic community too far from the Sunna and into realms of disbelief. 5 Consequently they demanded the destruction of sufi lodges and prohibition of the reverence of deceased sufi leaders. 6 By the 1660s and 70s, Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Paşa had come to sympathise with the Kadızadelis, and even employed a leading Kadızadeli, Vani Mehmed Efendi, as his spiritual counsellor. But even if it produced a highly-charged religious atmosphere in affected Ottoman cities, the Kadızadeli movement clearly only saw itself as diametrically opposed to sufism; impacts upon Christian and Jewish communities were, in a sense, only collateral or incidental. Kadızadeli identity, to the extent that it existed, was defined against sufism, not against non-Muslims. Thus, we cannot simply assume that increasing theological fervour must lead to further persecution of non-Muslim minorities when intra-religious conflict was, at least at this time, far more prominent. That said, there are several useful case studies of interreligious interaction during the 1660s and 70s that would appear to indicate a new zeal towards Islamization and lesser tolerance towards religious minorities in some areas of the Empire, often coinciding and tied in with the height of Kadızadeli dominance. Marc Baer, for instance, has analysed the aftermath of the 1660 Great Fire of Istanbul and what he describes as the subsequent ‘Islamization of Christian and Jewish space in Istanbul’ through processes which clearly indicate a different attitude by the Islamic authorities in the capital to those in past eras.7 Whereas previously Ottoman authorities had usually allowed the reconstruction of destroyed buildings such as churches and synagogues, this 5

Zilfi, ‘The Kadızadelis’, pp. 253-4.

Jane Hathaway, ‘The Grand Vizier and the False Messiah: The Sabbatai Sevi Controversy

and the Ottoman Reform in Egypt’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 117 (1997), p. 667. 7

Baer, ‘The Great Fire’, p. 159.

Sunni orthodoxy and non-Muslims

was now restricted as Islamic laws prohibiting reconstruction were enforced. Although Christians were initially allowed to repurchase ruined buildings and reconstruct them as houses, this only lasted for two years; Jews from the outset were often expelled entirely from certain districts of Istanbul and mostly herded into Hasköy, an already-existing Jewish community. 8 Most significantly, this allowed for the construction of the New Mosque by the Valide Sultan in Eminönü, and later the Valide Sultan Mosque in Galata; key symbols of the radical transformation of Jewish and Christian space in Istanbul that followed the great fire. Moreover, this was not an exclusively Constantinopolitan phenomenon: in 1665, a remarkably similar process of Islamization took place upon the Ottoman conquest of Candia, in Crete.9 How then to explain this new Ottoman aggression towards the Christians and Jews? As Baer explains, we cannot underestimate the roles of individuals in this course of events. Indeed, he largely accredits the initial persecution of Jews to the Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan, since she was the most powerful political figure in 1660-1 (hence the Eminönü mosque bearing her name), while the emergence of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Paşa and Vani Mehmed Efendi in late 1661 engendered the wider anti-Christian policy of the subsequent years.10 Vani Mehmed Efendi, as leader of the Kadızadeli movement, clearly provides a direct link between the movement and the programme of Islamization in Istanbul. However we can question how far Islamization was really influenced by Kadızadeli theology; significantly, no previous Kadızadeli leaders had supported such a policy to any noteworthy degree. The idea that non-Muslims corrupted the political and social networks of the Empire was Vani Mehmed’s own contribution to the Kadizadeli movement. Moreover, even if we accepted that Vani Mehmed’s Kadızadeli beliefs instigated his persecution of Christians, how do we explain the Valide Sultan’s previous oppression of the Jews? A further significant episode in the relations between Jews and Muslims took place in 1665 in the form of the Sabbatian controversy, as Sabbatai Sevi’s claim to be the Jewish Messiah found a substantial following in Egypt and across the Ottoman Empire. Factors such as high taxation in Egypt, the aftermath of the Great Fire, and a general decline in the Jews’ political importance within

Baer, ‘The Great Fire’,, p. 170.

Ibid., pp. 173-4.

Ibid., p. 174.

William Vick

the Empire all added fuel to the fire of Jewish discontent with the Ottoman authorities. 11 Furthermore, the mystic nature of the Sabbatian movement was naturally opposed to the anti-mysticism of the Kadızadeli.12 But the nature and events of the controversy are not as relevant here as the government’s reaction to them: the movement was not simply crushed or censored, but the government made a point of converting Sabbatai Sevi to Islam. Not only did this completely undermine the movement’s religious and sectarian authority; it also brought a large number of Sabbatai Sevi’s followers into the Islamic faith. Notably, it was also Vani Mehmed Efendi who was primarily responsible for educating Sabbatai Sevi in Islamic doctrine. 13 In the Sabbatian controversy, therefore, we can see the complex interplay of religious groups that took place in the Ottoman Empire of the 1660s. A small degree of religious persecution, coupled with other economic and social factors, combined into a failed dissident movement that ultimately only legitimised past persecution and justified it into the future. From 1665 onwards Jews were considered ‘volatile and untrustworthy’ and denied positions of any political importance within the palace. 14 But the more important aspect of the affair was the highly successful attempt to effectively hijack it in the name of Islamization; again, Vani Mehmed was instrumental in enacting a programme of conversion. In fact, it is worth emphasising the limited nature of Jewish persecution that followed the controversy, which suggests that conversion was by far the primary goal. It is evident, then, that Vani Mehmed Efendi, and through his influence the Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Paşa and other members of the palace, undertook a deliberate programme of Islamization during the 1660s. However, the opportunistic nature of this process is worth noting; at no point did the Ottoman authorities attempt an empire-wide programme of conversion. Some religious groups were protected due to external circumstances. Catholics, for instance, were closely guarded by the French, and therefore did not suffer extensive repression, despite earning the Ottomans’ ire for supporting the

Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam (Oxford, 2008), pp. 124-5; Minna Rozen, ‘The Ottoman

Jews’, in Suraiya N. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 271. 12

Hathaway, ‘The Grand Vizier and the False Messiah’, p. 667.

Ibid., p. 667.

Baer, ‘The Great Fire’, p. 162.

Sunni orthodoxy and non-Muslims

Venetian invasion of Chios in 1695. 15 Orthodox Christians in fact benefited from the declining position of the Jews in Ottoman society, not only in supplanting them in those palace positions in which they were no longer welcome but also in wider society.16 Indeed, Karen Barkey suggests that, by the end of the seventeenth century, ‘Christians and Muslims allied to oppose Jews.’17 The anti-mystic nature of Kadızadeli teaching no doubt contributed to this animosity, when confronted with the evidently mystic Sabbatian movement within Judaism. However, we can hardly treat Kadızadeli teaching itself as a monolithic entity. The prominence of Vani Mehmed signalled a notable shift in emphasis such that the movement now became overtly anti-non-Muslim, whereas previously the question of non-Muslims had not been raised in Kadızadeli discourse or in the debate with sufism. We can then ask, therefore, what prompted this change – whether we can explain this new zeal towards Islamization as a simple continuation of the ‘increasing Sunni orthodoxy’ that had taken place throughout the seventeenth century, or as a peculiarity of Vani Mehmed’s take upon Kadızadeli thought. It is here that the Valide Sultan’s attitude towards the Jews following the Great Fire of 1660 is significant in indicating that the idea of Islamization, albeit perhaps in a weaker form, preceded the emergence of Islamising Kadızadeli-ism within the palace, instigated by Vani Mehmed Efendi and Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Paşa in 1661. The possibility that Vani Mehmed was prompted by external conditions to adjust his take on Kadızadeli positions, to encompass a degree of Islamization into his teachings, suggests that forces essentially unrelated to the growth of Sunni orthodoxy or the Kadızadeli movement were ultimately responsible for the appearance of Islamization as a means of advancement for the Ottoman state. In effect, the policy of Islamization was adopted and adapted into Kadızadelism, rather than originating as a Sunni orthodox principle in itself. To discover the root cause of Islamization, then, we can return to the wider geopolitical situation of the Ottoman Empire in the latter half of the seventeenth century. As we have seen, this was a period of identity crisis for the Empire: both economic difficulties and military stagnation were evident;

Bruce Masters, ‘Christians in a changing world’, in Suraiya N. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge

History of Turkey, Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 277. 16

Baer, ‘The Great Fire’, p. 162.

Barkey, Empire of Difference, p. 187.

William Vick

the ongoing Siege of Candia was an embarrassing sign of the latter. The Kadızadelis laid the blame for the faltering of the Ottoman state entirely at the feet of pernicious sufi heterodoxy, and thereby grew to prominence by offering a fundamentalist alternative. 18 In this debate between Kadızadelis and sufis – or more generally, heterodoxy versus Sunni orthodoxy – religious minorities had little to say, and played little role. The relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim here is perhaps more usefully viewed in a slightly different context: that of the expansionist, ghazi model of Ottoman statehood that had been predominant throughout the first centuries of its existence, versus a more internally-focused, converting model. In effect, with external conquest and conversion – a process ideally suited to sufi appeal and methods – no longer a possibility, the Ottoman authorities and elites found it beneficial to define internal enemies. In Islamization, they found a battle against these enemies which they could win, and thereby reassert their authority. Consequently, numerous groups within the Empire, including the Valide Sultan, Vani Mehmed and the Kadızadelis, came to a similar conclusion at a similar time. In constructing the New Mosque in Eminönü, the Valide Sultan created a powerful symbol of Ottoman power within the capital.19 In a sense, this could be presented as an expansionist victory for the Ottoman state, but simply one inside its own borders. The role of the Kadızadeli within this course of events is, therefore, incidental, in that they merely propagated and legitimised a religious process that can be seen as essentially political in cause. The indifference of the Kadızadeli towards religious minorities before the floruit of Vani Mehmed indicates that, in itself, their movement did not necessitate any worsening of relations with Christians or Jews. Instead, the Kadızadeli and Islamising movements formed distinct branches of the identity crisis that struck the Ottoman Empire at this time, and it was more for political expediency – particularly the reaffirmation of Ottoman power and expansionism – that Vani Mehmed Efendi intertwined the two by adapting Islamization into Kadızadeli rhetoric. True, the religious minorities – and, as we have seen, particularly the Jews – suffered as a result of this. But in this instance, it is more useful to blame political forces and a more general identity crisis within the Ottoman Empire than to reduce the conflicts of the 1660s to the business of religion alone.

Baer, ‘The Great Fire’, p. 162.

Ibid., p. 163.

Sunni orthodoxy and non-Muslims

Glossary Sufism - usually defined as Islamic mysticism. Owing to the significant role of sufi orders (turuq) in the expansion of Islam under the early Ottoman Empire, forms of sufism became predominant in the Empire and heavily influenced popular religion, incorporating mystic and syncretic aspects that deviated from strict shari'a law. Kadızadeli - originally taking their name from the Istanbul preacher Kadızade who expounded many of their beliefs, the Kadızadeli formed a more-or-less coherent religious movement throughout the seventeenth century. They were primarily defined by their opposition to religious innovation (bida), particularly the pantheistic and emotive aspects of the sufi tradition. Instead they supported a reversion to 'orthodox' holy or shari'a law. Halveti - the most influential sufi order in Istanbul in the 1600s. Along with the Mevlevi order, it opposed most of the orthodox reforms proposed by the Kadızadeli. Valide Sultan - the mother of a reigning Sultan in the Ottoman Empire. Valide Sultans often held great political influence within the Empire, particularly during their sons' infancy. Here the Valide Sultan referred to is Hatice Turhan, the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV, who was particularly powerful in the early years of her son's reign as he showed little interest in the affairs of state. Grand Vizier (sadrazam) - the Sultan's most important minister to whom, by the 1660s, most political and military power was delegated. In the late seventeenth century, this post was dominated by the Köprülü family.

William Vick

Bibliography

Baer, Marc David, ‘The Great Fire of 1660 and the Islamization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36 (2004), pp. 159-181 Baer, Marc David, Honored by the Glory of Islam (Oxford, 2008) Barkey, Karen, ‘Islam and Toleration: Studying the Ottoman Imperial Model’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 19 (2005), pp. 5-19 Barkey, Karen, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, 2008) Hathaway, Jane, ‘The Grand Vizier and the False Messiah: The Sabbatai Sevi Controversy and the Ottoman Reform in Egypt’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 117 (1997), pp. 665-671 Masters, Bruce, ‘Christians in a changing world’, in Suraiya N. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 272-279 Rozen, Minna, ‘The Ottoman Jews’, in Suraiya N. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 256-271 Zilfi, Madeline, ’The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 45 (1986), pp. 251-269 Zilfi, Madeline, The Politics of Piety (Minneapolis, 1988)

Loss of American colonies

How important was the loss of the American colonies to the British Empire between 1770s and 1810s? By James Callingham The loss of the American colonies had a variety of impacts across the British Empire, affecting some colonies more than others. Across the whole of the Empire, it evidently damaged Britain's reputation. 1 In economic terms, however, the impact seems to have been less important: a commercial decline did not follow American Independence; in fact, the opposite occurred : British trade experienced a period of expansion. 2 There certainly was some impact on the remaining colonies in British North America, later Canada, mostly due to the thousands of migrants which moved from the Thirteen Colonies. 3 Equally, it seems clear that the conflict in North America led to upheaval in Ireland, Britain’s oldest colony, as it seemed to be following America's footsteps at one point during the 1780s, prompting British legislation to incorporate Ireland into the United Kingdom.4 However, the impact on the West Indies is questionable and the impact on the Asian Empire, India and Ceylon, seems unimportant as the transition of British interests to the East was already happening before the outbreak of war in America. 5 Therefore, the importance of the American Revolution varied across the Empire, affecting some colonies more heavily than others, resulting in different forms of colonial development. There was undoubtedly an initial impact from the loss of the American colonies on the British Empire as a whole. Contemporaries feared for the Empire’s future: for example, Horace Walpole predicted that Britain would

1 2

H. M. Scott, British foreign policy in the age of the American Revolution (Oxford, 1990), p. 338. Brendan Simms, Three victories and a defeat: rise and fall of the first British empire,

1714-1783 (Cambridge, 2007), p. 681. 3

Peter Marshall, ‘British North America 1760-1815’ in P. J. Marshall, (eds.), The Oxford History

of the British Empire Vol. II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998), p. 382. 4

C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: the British empire and the world 1780-1830 (Harlow ,1989), p.

119. 5

Vincent T. Harlow, The founding of the second British empire, 1763-1793, v1. (London, 1952), pp.

10-11.

James Callingham

become no more than a province of France. 6 Equally, the damage to Britain’s reputation is shown by Joseph II of Austria’s comment that Britain would become a second rate power like Denmark and Sweden. 7 Brendan Simms regarded the deprivation of the American colonies to Britain as “a catastrophic defeat”, indicating that the loss was important to the Empire. 8 There was a change in attitude in Britain towards the Empire after the loss of the 13 colonies; there was a desire “for a more vigorous world empire”, which led in part to imperial expansion. 9 Therefore, the loss of the colonies revitalised expansion ideas, which contributed to the growth of the Empire worldwide. A successful administration would be necessary to do this and the American Revolution had “exposed inefficiencies… in the existing administrative system”, making the British government more aware of the need for reform.10 Notably, The American Revolution led to the establishment of the Foreign Office. This combined the North and South Secretaries and significantly led to less contrasting views, as one minister only was now responsible for Foreign Affairs.11 So there was an impact on the Empire as a whole, particularly with regards to the reputation of, and internal attitudes towards, British imperial rule. There were other factors and events which perhaps affected the British Empire more than American Independence. It seems that the American Revolution provoked “very limited changes in imperial governance after 1783”, since reformers were not prominent in the British government, and the governance of colonies was not altered significantly. 12 Furthermore, P.J. Marshall argues that there was not a shift away from the Atlantic because the Americas were still important to British interests economically and 6

R. Coupland, The American Revolution and the British Empire (1930), pp.12-14 in Denis Judd,

Empire: the British imperial experience from 1765 to the present (London, 1996), p. 26. 7

A. von Arneth, Joseph II und Leopold von Toscana (Vienna, 1872) in John Cannon ‘The Loss of

America’ in H.T. Dickinson, (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution(Harlow, 1998), p. 235. 8

Simms, Three victories and a defeat, p. 661.

Bayly, Imperial Meridian, p. 99.

10 11

David Mackay, In the wake of Cook: science and empire, 1780-1801 (Beckenham, 1985), p. 22. H.M. Scott, ‘Britain as a European Great Power in the age of the American Revolution’, in

Dickinson, (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution, p. 183. 12

P.J. Marshall, ‘The Case for Coercing America before the Revolution’ in F. M. Leventhal and

R. Quinault, (eds.) Anglo-American attitudes: From Revolution to Partnership (Aldershot, 2000), p. 16.

Loss of American colonies

strategically, and Britain remained prominent in North America and the Caribbean. 13 On the other hand, there were other reasons why a Second British Empire, featuring a shift to the East, developed apart from the loss of America. Helen Taft Manning suggests that the Second Empire was built on population growth, expansion of industry and naval supremacy, not the loss of America.14 Certainly the Napoleonic Wars played a prominent role in the growth of the Empire; arguably a more important one than the loss of the American Colonies. 15 The role of France was significant, particularly after the French Revolution and the resurgence of French imperialism. Revolutionary France and British “domestic disorders” unquestionably played an equally, if not more, important role in the expansion of the British Empire than American independence.16 Overall, the impact of the American Revolution on the British Empire is debatable, but it seems clear that it was not the only factor which led to the expansion of the British Empire. In economic terms, one would expect American independence to have a negative impact on the British Empire overall, as the Thirteen Colonies were among Britain's richest colonies. Britain’s National Debt rose from a £132.6 million in 1763 to £243 million in 1784, indicating that the war stretched British resources. 17 Whilst there was not an economic collapse in the British Empire as a result, the American Revolution did lead to economic changes, principally economic reform, as many in Britain quite rightly believed that heavy Parliamentary taxation had cost them America. 18 This led to a radical economic policy, starting with the Navigation Act of 1786 which aimed to solve the issues with the old colonial system. 19 However, there were other factors which led to economic change throughout the empire, which in turn 13

P.J. Marshall, ‘Britain without America – A Second Empire’

in P. J. Marshall, (eds.), The

Oxford History of the British Empire, p. 581. 14

Helen Taft Manning, British colonial Government after the American Revolution 1782-1820

( Yale, 1933), p. 15. 15

J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, ‘The imperialism of free trade’, Economic History Review 6

(1953), pp. 1-15. 16

Bayly, Imperial Meridian, p. 115.

Stephen Conway, ‘Britain and the Revolutionary Crisis, 1763-91’ in P. J. Marshall, (eds.),

The Oxford History of the British Empire, pp. 327, 345. 18 19

Bayly, Imperial Meridian, pp. 95-6. P.J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas,

I: the old colonial system, 1688-1850’, Economic History Review 39, (1986), p. 522.

James Callingham

led to expansion. The Industrial Revolution in Britain was happening during this period and altered the British economic make-up significantly; indeed, Ronald Hyam argues it had a more important impact on the Empire than the American issue. 20 Britain clearly maintained close economic ties with the newly created United States, and trade continued where it left off before the war.21 Thus, the American Revolution led to some economic changes but their importance must be questioned; the loss of America did not lead to the Industrial Revolution, an economic transformation that impacted the Empire hugely. Arguably the effects of industrialisation “swallowed up” the consequences of the American War.22 The American Revolution impacted some areas of the Empire more than others and British North America was affected by the Independence of the Thirteen Colonies hugely. The movement of 40,000 Loyalist refugees from America to this region, later Canada, altered the balance of the population significantly.23 The province had previously belonged to the French until the Seven Years War between 1754-63, and so the majority of the population were French Catholics; the increased presence of English-speaking settlers changed the situation. The American settlers had been accustomed to a constitutional assembly, which had not existed in British North America before. This led to the 1791 Constitution Act, which split British North America into Lower and Upper Canada, with the two different ethnic populations in different provinces, creating a representative assembly and diffusing tensions. 24 The loss of the Thirteen Colonies also led to a security risk for the British as the USA was determined to expand, and this led to the establishment of a militia service in Canada, which would defend against a potential US attack. 25 Therefore, the creation of an independent USA was important to the remaining British Empire in North America, as it led to constitutional changes and created defence issues. 20

Ronald Hyam, ‘British imperial expansion in the late-eighteenth century’, Historical

Journal 10 (1967), p. 124. 21

Judd, Empire, p. 26.

Cannon ‘The Loss of America’ in Dickinson, (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution, p.

243. 23

Ibid., p. 249.

Marshall, ‘British North America 1760-1815’ in Marshall, (eds.), The Oxford History of the

British Empire, p. 385. 25

Manning, British colonial Government, p. 322.

Loss of American colonies

The American Revolution also had an important impact on Ireland and contributed to Irish upheaval against their British rulers. Irish nationalism became “a British domestic problem” as a result of the precedent set by the Thirteen Colonies.26 The significance of the 4000 Irish troops sent to America to fight the rebels is important: it angered the Irish Parliament as they disliked British intervention in Irish affairs. 27 The subsequent demands for an independent Irish Parliament must be seen as a result of the war in America. 28 The British Government was reluctant to grant this and instead chose to fully integrate Ireland into Britain through the 1800 Act of Union. This was in part due to events in Ireland but also “part of the process of imperial consolidation and rationalisation” in the aftermath of defeat in America. 29 It is clear that the American War did have a significant impact on Ireland and its relations with Britain, because Ireland had always been “a thorn in Britain’s side” and the impact of the American Revolution meant that the British Government was determined to prevent Ireland going the same way as America, and so introduced the radical union Settlement, resulting in the loss of Irish independence.30 Arguably there was also an important impact in the Caribbean British Empire as a result of the American Revolution. The islands of Tobago and Florida were ceded to France and Spain respectively and so British dominance in the Caribbean was weakened. At the same time, the Bahamas were returned to Britain after French occupation, but the terms were “onerous” which suggests that the British Empire in the West Indies was affected by the American Revolution.31 However, the sending of troops to the West Indies from 1793-99 was not a direct result of the American conflict; rather it was to seize French colonies which the British Government believed would lead to French bankruptcy. 32 Equally, the economy of the West Indies, the “most important” American colonies, was not affected significantly by the American

Harlow, The founding of the second British empire, pp. 7,9.

Neil Longley York, ‘The Impact of the American Revolution on Ireland’, in Dickinson,

(eds.), Britain and the American Revolution, p. 217. 28

Ibid., p. 225.

Judd, Empire, p. 40.

Ibid., p. 43.

Simms, Three victories and a defeat, p. 659.

Manning, British colonial Government, p. 339.

James Callingham

Revolution.33 Indeed the Jamaican economy continued booming, with exports from Kingston alone amounting to £1 million. 34 Therefore, there was an important impact on the British Empire in the Caribbean from the American War in the sense that territories changed hands, but this was common throughout the period, and the French Revolutionary Wars seem to be more significant in that colonies changed hands permanently. It seems clear that the importance of the American Revolution on India and Britain’s Asia Empire was relatively limited. The British had already established a presence by the outbreak of war in America and their influence was growing.35 There were changes in the Asian empire, with the Indian Act 1784 increasing the cooperation between the East India Company and the British Government, but this was arguably “influenced by Indian precedents” not the war in America.36 It was the Indian Crisis 1775-83 which led to the stabilisation of the East India Company, not the American Revolution. 37 It is worth emphasising that the territorial concessions granted to France in 1783 did not really benefit French position in India, which meant that British dominance continued. 38 Thus, Harlow’s theory on a ‘swing to the east’ has largely been discredited, as there is little evidence for a connection between the growth of the Asian Empire and the loss of the American colonies. 39 The emergence of the Second British Empire may have happened anyway without the loss of America; there were developments before and they continued after. Ultimately, the loss of the American colonies did have an impact on the British Empire, but there were great regional variations. Britain gained a reputation “for weakness and arrogance” as a result of losing America, as the government appeared defeated and in crisis.40 Ironically, it was not Britain

T. R. Clayton, ‘Sophistry, security, and the socio-political structure of the American

revolution; or, why Jamaica did not rebel’, Historical Journal 29 (1986), p. 319. 34

Manning, British colonial Government, p. 283.

Cannon, ‘The Loss of America’ in Dickinson, (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution, p.

248. 36

Bayly, Imperial Meridian, p. 211.

Ibid., pp. 119-20

Scott, British foreign policy, p. 335.

David Mackay, ‘Direction and purpose in British imperial policy, 1783-1801’,

Historical Journal 17 (1974), p. 488. 40

Simms, Three victories and a defeat, p .648.

Loss of American colonies

which saw a radical regime change; it was France in 1789, so perhaps this condemning of Britain was too presumptive. Economic consequences were relatively limited, and Britain rapidly became the world’s leading economy due to the Industrial Revolution, so the American Revolution cannot have been that significant. It was other factors which allowed the British economy to flourish over her rivals: the availability of resources for example. 41 As a result of this economic prosperity, Britain had the financial ability to embark on a period of expansion, which was important for the Empire. Certain colonies in the existing British Empire were affected, Ireland and Canada in particular, but ultimately the Revolution did not lead to the disintegration of the Empire. Rather, it led to closer integration and British involvement, as exemplified by the Act of Union for Ireland in 1800. Furthermore, the American War of Independence was of little significance to the West Indies and the British Asian Empire and the subsequent loss of America did not change British involvement in these regions. Essentially, the British Empire expanded due to wars and the availability of finances, and there were more significant conflicts than the American Revolution. 42 Indeed, the French Revolution and subsequent wars arguably “overshadowed” the American conflict and its consequences.43 Therefore, whilst the loss of the American colonies did bring with it regional impacts, the Empire was altered due to other significant events: the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution principally.

Patrick K. O’Brien, ‘Inseparable Connections: Trade, Economy, Fiscal State and the

Expansion of Empire, 1688-1801’ in Marshall, (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, p. 74. 42

C.A. Bayly, ‘The first age of global imperialism, c. 1760-1830’, JICH (1998), p. 43.

Cannon, ‘The Loss of America’ in Dickinson, (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution, p.

255.

James Callingham

Bibliography Bayly, C.A., Imperial Meridian: the British empire and the world 1780-1830 (Harlow,1989) Bayly, C.A., ‘The first age of global imperialism, c. 1760-1830’, JICH (1998) Cain, P.J., and Hopkins, A.G., ‘Gentlemanly capitalism and British expansion overseas, I: the old colonial system, 1688-1850’, Economic History Review 39, (1986) Clayton, T.R., ‘Sophistry, security, and the socio-political structure of the American revolution; or, why Jamaica did not rebel’, Historical Journal 29 (1986) Dickinson, H.T., (eds.), Britain and the American Revolution (Harlow, 1998) Gallagher, J., and Robinson, R., ‘The imperialism of free trade’, Economic History Review 6 (1953) Harlow, Vincent. T., The founding of the second British empire, 1763-1793, v1. (London, 1952) Hyam, Ronald., ‘British imperial expansion in the late-eighteenth century’, Historical Journal 10 (1967) Judd, Denis., Empire: the British imperial experience from 1765 to the present (London, 1996) Leventhal, F.M., and Quinault, R., (eds.) Anglo-American attitudes: From Revolution to Partnership (Aldershot, 2000) Mackay, David., ‘Direction and purpose in British imperial policy, 1783-1801’, Historical Journal 17 (1974) Mackay, David., In the wake of Cook: science and empire, 1780--1801 (Beckenham, 1985) Marshall, P.J., (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998) Manning, Helen Taft., British colonial Government after the American Revolution 1782-1820 ( Yale, 1933)

Loss of American colonies

Scott, H.M., British foreign policy in the age of the American Revolution (Oxford, 1990) Simms, Brendan., Three victories and a defeat: rise and fall of the first British empire,1714-1783 (Cambridge, 2007)

Harriet Evans

Why has ‘shell shock’ been such a prominent aspect of the cultural representation of the war? By Harriet Evans ‘The Great War has resulted in the spilling of floods of ink as well as of blood’ - Cyril Falls, 1930.1 *** As a military historian and Captain of the British army during the First World War, Cyril Falls provides a highly perceptive summary of how post-war culture was notably re-shaped by the proliferation of written accounts of war-time experience. The notion of shell shock was often at the forefront of such accounts, both in contemporary journalism and in the works of authors such as Graves and Sassoon. These texts captured public interest for a variety of political and sociological reasons, and influenced attitudes towards both returning soldiers and the authorities seen as responsible for the war. Historians such as Norman Stone have argued that the concept of shell shock has been romanticised and misused to the extent that it presents an inaccurate depiction of war-time experience. 2 Similarly, Jay Winter suggests that shell shock became a ‘prism through which much of the cultural history of the 1914-18 war has been viewed’; however, this fails to acknowledge that ‘war neurosis’ became a prominent feature of historical studies not due to a skewed selection on the part of academics, but because it became a significant topic of debate amongst society as early as 1915, and exacerbated a range of pre-war concerns.3 Despite this, it is significant that shell shock was only diagnosed in a minority of British soldiers: with 65,000 soldiers receiving disability pensions for neurasthenia in 1920, this is approximately only 1 per cent of all the men who served.4 Whilst these figures are of limited accuracy due to factors such as a

Cyril Falls, War Books: A Critical Guide, (P. Davies, 1930), p. 8.

Michael Trimble, Somatoform Disorders: A Medicolegal Guide, (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2004), p. 209. 3

Jay Winter, 'Shell-Shock and the Cultural History of the Great War', Journal of Contemporary

History, 35/1 (Jan., 2000), p. 7. 4

Ted Bogacz, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War

Office Committee of Enquiry into 'Shell-Shock'’, Journal of Contemporary History, 24/ 2 (Apr., 1989), p. 227.

'Shell shock'

lack of consistency within definitions of shell shock and an unwillingness to make these diagnoses, shell shock was undoubtedly far from a majority experience. Thus the question of how war neurosis became such a prominent aspect of the cultural representation of the war is highly significant. Tracey Loughran suggests that for “myth and memory” revisionist historians only the experiences of the majority are significant and able to provide a ‘typical’ narrative of events. However, this argument is undermined in the instance of shell shock, which provides an example of minority experience becoming highly significant within the culture of the majority.5 For example, post-war debates regarding whether the 3000 soldiers court-martialled for cowardice could be pardoned on the basis of insanity indicate one of a number of factors which promoted shell shock to the forefront of public discourse. 6 Joanna Bourke contends that ‘the emphasis on emotional breakdown and psychiatric illness has obscured the fact that most men coped remarkably well with the demands being made upon them in wartime’ and this is substantiated by Ferguson’s explanation that 'many men simply took pleasure in killing'. 78 However, it is arguable that coping strategies, such as optimism and humour, employed by soldiers whilst fighting became redundant once they returned to post-war society and acknowledged the reality of events, expanding trauma into a common experience. Consequently, it is significant that Graves uses the phrase ‘The inward scream, the duty to run mad’ in a poem entitled ‘Recalling War', emphasising how even for those not diagnosed with shell shock whilst fighting, later recollections were capable of producing similar levels of distress.9 Therefore, whilst shell shock was a minority experience during the years of fighting, it became a focal point in cultural representations of the war because the majority were able to relate to the associated feelings of suffering. This consequently undermines assertions that an unjustified fixation on shell 5

Tracey Loughran, ‘Shell Shock, Trauma, and the First World War: The Making of a

Diagnosis and Its Histories’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 67/1 (Jan. 2012), p. 98. 6

Bogacz, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War

Office Committee of Enquiry into 'Shell-Shock'’, p. 228. 7

Joanna Bourke, ‘Effeminacy, Ethnicity and the End of Trauma: The Sufferings of

'Shell-Shocked' Men in Great Britain and Ireland, 1914-39’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35/ 1 (Jan.,2000), p. 57. 8

Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London: The Penguin Group, 1998), p. 358.

Robert Graves, Collected Poems (Cassell, 1958), p. 130.

Harriet Evans

shock has distorted the history of post-war experience. Since 1918, shell shock has gained prominence both culturally and scientifically, with conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder gaining medical recognition. However, it is significant that in the immediate aftermath of the First World War the concept of shell shock as a genuine medical condition was resisted by both those in positions of authority and by the general public. Lord Moran’s statement: ‘fortitude in war has its roots in morality… war itself is but one more test of character’ reflects a common argument that shell shock emerged from pre-existing mental faults.10 The initial government position on shell shock stemmed from similarly disparaging beliefs and there was a general reluctance to fully address the needs of traumatised soldiers. Lloyd George had promised that Britain would be a ‘home fit for heroes’; however, in 1919 there were numerous strikes led by war veterans campaigning for greater assistance from the state and, by 1920, 250,000 soldiers remained unemployed. 11 Winter argues that ‘a political discourse was unavailable for the expression of the soldiers' point of view’ and thus it is evident that official resistance fuelled the emergence of more popular forms of cultural dissent; 12 for example, Owen’s lines of protest: ‘If in some smothering dreams you too could pace/ Behind the wagon that we flung him in/ And watch the white eyes writhing in his face… My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est’ were published in 1920 and represent the developing cultural revolt against an official stance that glorified the war. 13 Thus, through the emerging literature and popular forms of protest, shell shock became more culturally significant and the government was forced to react. For example, in 1920 the War Office Committee published an enquiry into shell shock which aimed to determine possible methods of government intervention. Peter Leese is partially correct in arguing that ‘it resolved little, but did serve its purpose by officially shelving the subject’, because no firm

Bogacz, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War

Office Committee of Enquiry into 'Shell-Shock'’, p. 231. 11

Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939

(University of California Press, 2001), p. 11. 12

Winter, ‘Shell-Shock and the Cultural History of the Great War’, p. 8.

Wilfred Owen, Poems of Wilfred Owen (Forgotten Books, 1949), p. 15.

'Shell shock'

conclusions were reached. 14 However, instead of ‘shelving the subject’ the report actually drew further public attention to the matter and unintentionally sparked widespread debate in national newspapers. 15 The impact of this discourse is evident in the doubling of the number of treatment centres in 1921 and the introduction of 1,356 additional hospital spaces.16 Therefore, grass roots campaigns from those with direct experience of shell shock helped to centralise the debate within contemporary culture, and government actions should largely be considered a reaction to the resulting growth in pressure from an increasingly sympathetic public. Although the State required a certain amount of pressure to act on the issue of shell shock, it did eventually introduce numerous reforms to ensure greater rights for ex-serviceman, including employment assistance and pensions, leading Fiona Reid to suggest that the war was a turning point which revoked the “stiff upper lip” of British society.17 More accurately, however, it should be concluded that these acts arose from pre-existing shifts in the Edwardian period towards greater state intervention, as demonstrated by the liberal reforms. For example, an article published in the Times in 1915 stating: ‘As it now stands the law is unintelligent in its attitude to the victims of severe shock’ demonstrates the existence of liberal attitudes early on in the war, again implying greater continuity from the pre-war period.18 Similarly, in his 1918 analysis ‘War Neuroses’ MacCurdy partly attributes the condition to ‘some degree of resentment at the State which has sent him to fight’, suggesting that pre-existing disillusionment with the authorities made the war seem more futile, exacerbating the likelihood of developing shell shock.19 Therefore, whilst Kent argues that post-war sociological and political changes, such as the vote for women and the general strike, result from ‘aftershocks’ in a ‘shell shocked’ society, it is more accurate to suggest that these shifts

Peter Leese, Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War

(Basingstoke, 2002), p. 126. 15

‘The Wounded Mind’, The Times, Issue 40837 (Apr., 24, 1915), (London, England), p. 5.

Leese, Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War, p. 124.

Fiona Reid, Broken Men: Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain 1914-30 (London,

Continuum UK: 2010). 18

‘The Wounded Mind’, The Times, Issue 40837 (Apr., 24, 1915), (London, England), p. 5.

John T. MacCurdy, War Neuroses (State Hospitals Press, 1918), p. 13.

Harriet Evans

pre-date 1914 and were merely accelerated by the war.20 Thus, shell shock became such a striking cultural focus point because the condition evoked pre-war concerns with the role of the state, and created the opportunity for debate which would eventually resolve wider issues. Indeed, the numerous variations in the definition of ‘shell shock’ parallel the disparate attitudes of the authorities and those sympathetic with sufferers. John Collie, the head of the army’s medical branch in the Ministry of Pensions remained adamant that shell shock was the result of concussion from explosives, thus denying the idea that the war could traumatise psychologically and removing the need for long-term government aid. 21 Those who did accept shell shock as a medical condition often viewed it as a sign of personal weakness or as restricted to the lower classes, with Lieutenant Gort declaring that shell shock 'must be looked upon as a form of disgrace to the soldier'.22 Thus, the issue of shell shock became a microcosm of pre-war debates on mental illness between those who viewed it as a moral flaw and those who accepted psychological disorders as non-discriminatorily occurring medical conditions requiring appropriate treatment and state support. For example, an article in The Times on ‘The Ministry of Health Bill’ perceptively argues that: ‘It was framed with the humane and very natural intention of dealing with shell-shock cases arising from the war, but we can now see that these cases are being made a pretext for a fundamental basis of our Lunacy Laws.’ 23 Similarly, issues concerning women’s rights are frequently associated with shell shock, with Showalter arguing that the condition was ‘a disguised male protest not only against the war but against the concept of ‘manliness’ itself’.24 Woolf’s ‘Mrs Dalloway’ provides a feminist critique of post-war society, and it is notable that she links issues of sexuality with the condition of shell shock in the character of Septimus. 25 However, 20

Susan Kingsley Kent, Aftershocks: politics and trauma in Britain, 1918-1931 (Palgrave

Macmillan, 2009). 21

Leese, Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War, p. 131.

Bogacz, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War

Office Committee of Enquiry into 'Shell-Shock'’, p. 239. 23

‘The Ministry of Health Bill’, The Times (London, England), Issue 42579 (Nov., 27 1920), p.

11. 24

Michael Roper, ‘Between Manliness and Masculinity: The “War Generation” and the

Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914–1950’, Journal of British Studies, 44/2 (April 2005), p. 343. 25

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (Oxford University Press, 2008).

'Shell shock'

Showalter’s argument is largely invalidated by the fact that those suffering from shell shock fought hard to distinguish themselves from the ‘insane’ or ‘hysterical’ and, instead, both arguments highlight an appropriation of the condition for the feminist movement, which had pre-dated the war. Thus shell shock was adopted as a focal point for a variety of causes, elevating the disorder to a position of cultural pre-eminence through the resulting debates and public discourse. Despite this, it is important not to over-exaggerate the direct impact of shell shock: it is more accurate to relate its significance to wider issues concerning the cultural memory of war. For example, it is notable that in the initial aftermath of the war those suffering from the condition were not accepted immediately by society. The frustrations of sufferers are evident in this Father’s letter in 1920, where his statement: ‘After much careful nursing he is becoming quite normal, but he is eternally harassed because of his non-settlement in the economic machine’ reflects a common inability of soldiers to reintegrate successfully within society. 26 Furthermore, in Carrington’s memoirs the words: ‘in this disillusioned nineteen-thirties the ex-soldiers at last could speak and out came tumbling the flood of wartime reminiscences in every country which had sent soldiers to the war’ imply an initial inability for those who suffered through the trauma of war to communicate their experiences to non-combatants.27 Significantly, Carrington also insinuates that it is only many years after the war ended that such accounts came to cultural prominence, emphasising the fact that the emergence of shell shock as a representation of war-time experience was a gradual process. For example, Barker’s trilogy ‘Regeneration’ sold over 1 million copies in the 1990s, suggesting that the cultural obsession with war neurosis is partly generated by modern concerns over how society should depict the First World War. Indeed, it was only in 2006 that those executed during the war were officially pardoned. Therefore, shell shock emerged as a prominent aspect of the cultural representation of the war through a grass-roots process in which a minority of sufferers and sympathisers brought the issue to the forefront of public attention, predominantly through the gradual proliferation of literature on the

‘The Ex-Soldier's Dilemma...Harassed Father et al.’, The Times (London, England), Issue

42495. (Aug., 21 1920), p. 11. 27

Charles Carrington, Soldiers from the Wars Returning (London 1965), p. 252.

Harriet Evans

subject. The committee investigating shell shock regarded the term as ‘wholly misleading’, but argued that ‘the alliteration and dramatic significance of the term had caught the public imagination’. 28 However, with hindsight it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that the notion of shell shock caught the public imagination not because of its emotive term, but because it symbolised the traumatised state of post-war society and also evoked a variety of pre-war debates. Indeed, the efforts of a minority to gain aid for shell shock sufferers by bringing the condition to cultural prominence would not have succeeded had the general public not readily appropriated the condition as a means through which to prompt debate on pre-war issues relating to the wider role of the State. However, it is important to question whether more recent cultural representations of shell shock share the same purpose, as it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that the issue has evolved to mirror society’s growing preoccupation with the role of collective memory and the determination to present a suitably critical illustration of the First World War.

Anthony Richards, Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry Into "Shell-shock" (Imperial

War Museum, 2004), p. 5.

'Shell shock'

Bibliography Bogacz, Ted, ‘War Neurosis and Cultural Change in England, 1914-22: The Work of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into 'Shell-Shock'’, Journal of Contemporary History, 24/ 2 (Apr., 1989), pp. 227-256 Bourke, Joanna, ‘Effeminacy, Ethnicity and the End of Trauma: The Sufferings of 'Shell-Shocked' Men in Great Britain and Ireland, 1914-39’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35/1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 57-69 Carrington, Charles, Soldiers from the Wars Returning (London, 1965) Caruth, Cathy, ‘Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and the Possibility of History’. Yale French Studies, No. 79. (1991), pp. 181-192 Cohen, Deborah, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, (University of California Press, 2001) Falls, Cyril, War Books: A Critical Guide, (P. Davies, 1930) Ferguson, Niall, The Pity of War (London: The Penguin Group, 1998) Graves, Robert, Collected Poems, (Cassell, 1958) Hatherly Pear, Tom, Shell Shock and its Lessons, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1917)

Kingsley Kent, Susan, Aftershocks: politics and trauma in Britain, 1918-1931, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) Leese, Peter, ‘Problems Returning Home: The British Psychological Casualties of the Great War’, Historical Journal, 40/ 4 (Dec., 1997), pp. 1055-1067 ------, Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the First World War, (Basingstoke, 2002)

Harriet Evans

Loughran, Tracey, ‘Shell Shock, Trauma, and the First World War: The Making of a Diagnosis and Its Histories’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 67/1 (Jan. 2012), pp. 94-119 MacCurdy, John T., War Neuroses, (State Hospitals Press, 1918) Mandler, Peter, Review of ‘Susan Kingsley Kent, Aftershocks: Politics and Trauma in Britain, 1918–1931.’, The Journal of Modern History, 82/ 4 (Dec., 2010), pp. 940-942.

Meyer, J. (ed.). 2008., British Popular Culture and the First World War [Online] -------, ‘Separating the Men from the Boys: Masculinity and Maturity in Understandings of Shell Shock in Britain’, Twentieth Century British History, 20/1 (Jan. 2009), pp. 1-22 Owen, Wilfred, Poems of Wilfred Owen, (Forgotten Books, 1949) Reid, Fiona, Broken Men: Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain 1914-30, (London, Continuum UK: 2010)

Richards, Anthony, Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry Into "Shell-shock" (Imperial War Museum, 2004), p. 5 Roper, Michael, ‘Between Manliness and Masculinity: The “War Generation” and the Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914–1950’, Journal of British Studies, 44/2 (April 2005), pp. 343-362 ------, ‘Re-Remembering the Soldier Hero: The Psychic and Social Construction of Memory in Personal Narratives of the Great War’, History Workshop Journal, No. 50 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 181-204 Stevens, George Warrington, The Times History of the war, (London: London Times, 1914-1915)

'Shell shock'

Trimble, Michael, Somatoform Disorders: A Medicolegal Guide, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Winter, Jay, ‘Shell-Shock and the Cultural History of the Great War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35/1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 7-11 Woolf, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway, (Oxford University Press, 2008) ‘The Ministry of Health Bill’, The Times (London, England), Issue 42579 (Nov., 27 1920), p. 11

‘The Wounded Mind’, The Times, Issue 40837 (Apr., 24, 1915), (London, England), p. 5

Daisy-Rose Srblin

How far did the Fuhrer-myth succeed in uniting the German people behind the Nazi war effort, 1939-1945? By Daisy-Rose C. Srblin In histories of the period, the trajectories of the Hitler-myth, general morale and the war itself are often inextricably linked. For Detlev Peukert ‘the Fuhrer-myth was dead before Hitler physically took his own life’, while for Ian Kershaw, the myth ‘collapsed almost completely’ towards the end of the war, exposing what David Welch has described as the image’s ‘hollowness’.1 Yet there remains consensus that the myth was still capable of inspiring mobilisation, even after the defeat at Stalingrad. Michael Geyer’s review of The Hitler Myth suggested Kershaw and others had failed to appreciate the myth’s potential independence from other factors and had ‘fallen into one of the traps of the Hitler mystique: that the Third Reich would come and go with Hitler’.2 Further, while histories of the period often emphasise Goebbels’s production of the propaganda construct, the power of the myth lay in its potential to resonate among the people to whom it was targeted, indicating the need to avoid tying the myth too closely to ‘external’ factors.3 The essay is structured according to the limitations of any conclusions. Firstly, the methodological problems regarding the assessment of opinion in the Third Reich will be considered. The Fuhrer-myth will then be examined as a propagandist construct: how the myth changed and its inherent contradictions will highlight the complexity of judgements regarding its ability to unite. Next, the role of popular consumption and projection will be considered before tracing the myth’s trajectory throughout various contexts of war. The early years of war, usually presented as the myth’s peak, will be reassessed to highlight the contradictions that existed. The development of the myth after Stalingrad will be examined, applying Nicholas Stargardt’s

Detlev J. K.Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1982), p.75; Ian Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (OUP, Oxford, 1987), pp. 152-7; David Welch, ‘“Working Towards the Fuhrer”: Charismatic Leadership and the Image of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Propaganda’, in Anthony McElligott and Tim Kirk (eds.), Working towards the Führer: essays in honour of Sir Ian Kershaw (MUP, Manchester, 2003), pp. 93-118, here pp.113-114.

Michael Geyer, review of Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, in The Journal of Modern History, 54:4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 811-812.

Welch, ‘Working Towards the Fuhrer’, p.94.

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‘sharply oscillating’ patterns of hopes and fears, in the context of the ‘psychological adjustment’ in the latter stages of war.4 In light of this, it is clear that the myth was at its most potent when need for it was greatest. Though no sweeping statements regarding the extent to which people were unified behind the myth are possible, by plotting the parameters within which conclusions can be made, we come closer to appreciating the complexity of popular engagement with the myth. Further, as a result of the ‘profoundly dissonant qualities of individual subjectivity’ the myth was always subject to change and was often contradictory in nature. 5 The methodological problems at the heart of any exploration of opinion in Nazi Germany limit the scope of potential conclusions. The first issue concerning the definition of ‘opinion’ is central for historians seeking to understand popular identification with, and the success of, the Hitler-myth. ‘Public opinion’, openly expressed and characterised by plurality, was formally dissolved after 1933 as opposition was crushed and opinion verticalised, in the spirit of Gleichschaltung. As such, according to Kershaw, historians may only speak of ‘popular opinion’ in the Third Reich which, though potentially undermining the propagated image of ‘monolithic unity’ was ‘inchoate…spontaneous [and] unorchestrated’. 6 In having the potential to undermine the required outward conformity, popular opinion in Nazi Germany is particularly hard to measure as it was rarely openly articulated, posing obvious methodological challenges in the absence of reliable quantitative data. However, as Marlis Steinert has identified, though the Nazi state sought to homogenise opinion it also adopted a complex apparatus through which opinion was monitored, most notably through the intelligence agency, Sicherheitsdienst (SD).7 Use of the SD reports as indicators of opinion, like those at Gau or ministry level, poses the problem of reliability. Often these

Nicholas Stargardt, ‘Beyond ‘Consent’ or ‘Terror’: Wartime Crises in Nazi Germany’, History Workshop Journal 72 (Autumn, 2011), pp.190-204, here p.199.

Ibid., p.202.

Ian Kershaw, ‘Popular Opinion in the Third Reich’ in Jeremy Noakes (ed.), Government, Party, and People in Nazi Germany (University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1980), pp.57-75, here p.57.

Marlis Steinert, Hitler's War and the Germans: Public mood and attitude during the Second World War (Ohio University Press, Athens, 1977), trans. Thomas de Witt, pp.1-2.

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were far too generalised and optimistic in tone, particularly in the early years of war, such as the ‘unanimous…inner unity’ described in one report after the fall of France. Such optimism was soon targeted in a directive later that year calling for reports to present the public mood ‘frankly, without embellishment…as it is, not as it could or should be’.8 Yet reports were also reprimanded for their negativity, particularly as prospects in war began to deteriorate. In March 1943 when Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated the need to distinguish between mood (Stimmung) and attitude/bearing (Haltung), the ‘unpolitical’ grumblings of the former seemed obvious in the context of air warfare, distracting from the ‘main issue’ of morale.9 Further, reports were subjective and may reflect the opinions of reporters and what they anticipated superiors might want to hear, rather than popular opinion. 10 Since sources are open to considerable interpretation, conclusions regarding the potency of the myth at any one time rely on subtleties in emphasis, or reading ‘between the lines’. 11 The difficulties in using the main sources available for identifying opinion in the Third Reich combined with the absence of openly-expressed and measurable public opinion indicate that attitudes towards the Hitler-myth can only ever be ‘impressionistically represented’ rather than accurately identified with any certainty.12 For Goebbels, the production of the Hitler-myth was one of his greatest propaganda achievements, serving as the ‘central motor for integration, 8

SD report of 24 June 1940, document no. 1278, in Jeremy Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Nazism, 1919-1945: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 4 (University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1994), p.528; Directive of October 1941 quoted in Steinert, Hitler's War and the Germans, p.14.

Conference notes of 10 March 1943, in W.A. Boelcke (ed.) and Ewald Osers (trans.), The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1967), p.338; see also Goebbels’s diary entry for 17 April 1943 recording dissatisfaction with SD reports: ‘it is unnecessary for the political leaders to know if here or there someone damns the war or curses it or vents his spleen’, in Louis P. Lochner (ed. and trans.), The Goebbels Diaries (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1948), p.258.

Ian Kershaw, ‘The Fuhrer Image and Political Integration: The Popular Conception of Hitler in Bavaria during the Third Reich’, in Gerhard Hirschfield and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), The ‘Fuhrer-State’: Myth and Reality, (Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1981), pp.133-163, here p.137.

Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’, p.216.

Kershaw, ‘Popular Opinion in the Third Reich’, p.58

Fuhrer-myth

mobilisation and legitimation’ in the Nazi state.13 By 1939 it seemed as if Hitler’s power knew no bounds and his considerable achievements could be personally attributed. As he announced to the Reichstag, ‘I have managed this from my own strength’.14 Additionally, Hitler’s ‘infallibility’ in his separation from the party, meant that one could support the Fuhrer without identifying with Nazism. This separation from ordinary politics was linked to explicitly religious themes where Hitler could be found only through ‘the strength of your hearts’.15 Through constructing vertical unity in ‘One People, One Reich, One Fuhrer’, Hitler’s position in this hierarchy was strengthened through solitary presentations in portraits and film. 16 However, upon the outbreak of war his position shifted, from ‘Leader and Prophet’ in peace, during the consolidation of power, to ‘Fighter and Commander’. 17 At the heart of this new construct, a commitment to Hitler was presented as synonymous with a commitment to the war effort, to mobilise a nation ‘united in thought and will’, a core theme running throughout Goebbels’s speeches celebrating the Fuhrer’s birthday. 18 Faith in Hitler’s embodiment of national unity was now the ‘sharpest and best defensive weapon’ in war, particularly after the failure of spiritual mobilisation in 1918.19 Hitler embodied the people more than ever, and the nation was ‘tuned to his will’ in its battle for ‘national existence’.20 This demand for mobilisation was strengthened through Hitler’s own sacrifice: the people could be reassured as ‘there is one who stands above all’, despite individual difficulties, carrying all burdens like Atlas, meaning ‘we need only follow’. 21 Finally, Hitler’s leadership and omnipotence carried with it the 13

Entry for 12 December 1941, in Rudolf Semmler, Goebbels: The Man Next to Hitler (Westhouse, London, 1947), pp.56-57; Ian Kershaw, ‘The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich’, in Crew, Nazism and German Society, pp.197-215, here p.202 and p.198.

Speech of April 1939, quoted in Kershaw, ‘The “Hitler Myth”’, p.202.

‘Our Hitler’ speeches of 1936 and 1938, in http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm (accessed 28 January 2013); Rudolf Hess, ‘Der Eid auf Adolf Hitler’, Reden (Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Munich, 1938), pp.10-14, excerpt trans. Randall Bytwerk.

‘Our Hitler’, 1939; for the propaganda of the Fuhrer-myth see Welch, ‘Working Towards the Fuhrer’, pp.103-110.

Welch, ‘Working towards the Fuhrer’, p.93.

‘Our Hitler’, 1942.

‘Our Hitler’, 1940.

‘Our Hitler’, 1941.

‘Our Hitler’, 1942.

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assurance of victory which relied upon the mobilisation of the German people: ‘if they are loyal Germany will be unbeatable’.22 Clearly, in war, Goebbels’s propaganda construct was multi-faceted and complex in order to appeal to the German people in its breadth. Whilst there were common themes in the myth’s propaganda, these were often contradictory and changed throughout the course of war. One of the most powerful paradoxes was the simultaneous emphasis of Hitler being one of the ‘broad masses’ and his increasingly lofty status, culminating in his ultimate transcendence of the corporeal in 1945: ‘we feel him in and around us’. 23 Similarly, as his deified ‘omnipresent will’ was being stretched in 1944, people were reminded that ‘his day too has only 24 hours and he is human’, paradoxically seeking to strengthen faith in an increasingly unlikely victory and rationalising what people could reasonably expect from Hitler.24 These concurrent and contradictory themes, not least the image of the peace-loving Fuhrer at war, served multiple functions in appealing to as broad a demographic as possible. Similarly, not all elements of the myth were emphasised at all times: for instance, the theme of ‘omnipresence’ became more noticeable towards the end of the war as Hitler himself retreated, while his role as the guarantor of final victory shifted with the definition of victory itself, from material triumph to ‘the greater victory of souls’.25 As such, the myth is not best understood as a consistent construct to be unified behind, but rather a constructed zone within which existed a variety of complex and often contradictory themes, perhaps reflecting the ‘chameleon-like’ nature of Nazism itself, containing ‘something for everyone’. 26 Indeed, the myth’s power lay in its confusion. Combining this conclusion with the absence of public opinion, a complex problem emerges where the myth’s varying themes were projected onto a public, under a veil of ‘monolithic unity’, who may have identified with some areas but not others and whose identification changed over the course of war. Goebbels certainly believed in the power of the myth on the German people.

‘Our Hitler’, 1942.

‘Our Hitler’, 1939 and 1945.

‘Er ist der Sieg’, Das Schwarze Korps, 20 April 1944, pp.1-2, trans. Randall Bytwerk.

‘Our Hitler’, 1945.

Ian Kershaw, ‘Hitler and the Germans’ in Richard Bessel (ed.), Life in the Third Reich (OUP, Oxford, 1987), pp. 41-56, here p.44; and Kershaw, ‘Popular Opinion in the Third Reich’, p.74.

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Writing of Hitler’s speech at the Sportpalast in January 1942, he recorded ‘the Fuhrer has charged the entire nation as though it were a storage battery’, betraying Goebbels’s assumption that his propaganda was being accepted by the people just as he intended, or, in other words, that the myth’s production was synonymous with its consumption. 27 A more accurate approach would be to examine propaganda’s ‘penetrative capabilities’ through popular consumption of and even projection onto the myth. 28 If successful propaganda was only ever ‘an indicator of what people sincerely hoped to be true’, then the hopes of the people and their projections onto the myth are both crucial in understanding the extent of its appeal.29 The Hitler-myth’s strength derived from this role of popular participation which gave it real legitimacy and potency, beyond propagandists’ intentions. The years prior to 1941 are commonly seen as the peak of support for the myth. Kershaw has gone so far as to claim that up until the defeat at Stalingrad ‘almost every Volksgenosse was a believer in Hitler’ with support apparently reaching around 80%.30 Certainly, despite Hitler’s image as a man of peace, propaganda successfully persuaded the people that war had been forced upon an innocent Germany.31 The protection of the Fuhrer-myth was documented by US-journalist William Shirer who noted in August 1939 the ‘blind faith’ in the Fuhrer in Danzig where people believed that they would be returned to the Reich peacefully.32 Certainly, there were many who adopted this propagated image of the Fuhrer. The author of a poem sent to Hitler in April 1941 described how, upon Germany’s victory, the Fuhrer would solve problems ‘not with weapons, with good, not evil …then there’d be no more war in this world’. 33 27

Entry for 31 January 1942 describing the speech for the ‘Day of the Seizure of Power’, in Lochner (ed. and trans.), The Goebbels Diaries, p.27.

Kershaw, ‘The Fuhrer Image and Political Integration’, p.133.

Lothar Kettanacker, ‘Sozialpsychologische Aspekte der Duhrer-Herrschaft’, in Hirschfeld and Kettanacker (ed.), The ‘Fuhrer-State’, quoted in Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (OUP, Oxford, 2001), p. 259.

Kershaw, ‘The Fuhrer Image’, p.159 ; Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’, pp.151-168.

Kershaw, ‘The Fuhrer Image’ p.154.

Entries for 10 and 11 August 1939, in William L.Shirer, Berlin Diary, 1934-41 (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1941), p.140.

Letter received April 1941, by an unknown writer as the cover letter has been lost, in Henrik Eberle and Victoria Harris (eds.) and Steven Rendall (trans.), Letters to Hitler (Polity

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However, this assumption of unity, based on supposed high morale, ignores the complexity of public opinion at any point. Indeed, Shirer recorded jokes being made about Hitler as early as 1940, though SD reports only started noting their prevalence from 1943. Though the jokes cited specifically refer to Hitler in their punch-lines, the question remains of just how widespread such humour was. 34 These jokes were not of the most subversive nature; however, they certainly uncover a public who were perhaps not absolutely convinced by the Hitler-myth, even in late 1940, after the apparent elation following the fall of France. Such tensions within morale were also indicated in the ‘mistrust, annoyance and frustration’ spawned from the invasion of the Soviet Union in mid-1941.35 As such, upon the outbreak and first years of war there existed a confused and complex mood and attitude towards the war and Hitler. The myth was not necessarily at its strongest simply because the beginning of the war resulted in comparatively few casualties. Although regard for Hitler’s military skills was perhaps at its peak, the potency of faith and hope that made the myth quite so intoxicating, and could divorce people so much from reality, was not to come until the war’s prospects began to deteriorate significantly. Within his framework of deteriorating morale, Kershaw saw Stalingrad as the turning point, after which there were only ‘short-lived upsurges of support’ for the myth as it entered a period of irrevocable decline.36 Welch has pursued the same argument, demonstrating that by the end of 1943 the Hitler-myth had ceased to develop as a propaganda construct, as few new slogans and images were produced. 37 However, according to Stargardt, 1943 is better understood as a ‘mid-war crisis’, ‘plural, dynamic and transformatory’ in its potential, and subsequent years should not be seen as deterioration, but

Press, Cambridge, 2012), pp.210-213. 34

The joke related to advice in Berlin advising people to get to bed early to get some sleep before the air raids started: those who said ‘good morning’ had just been to sleep, those who said ‘good evening’ had not been to sleep, whilst those who said ‘Heil Hitler’ had ‘always been asleep’. Entry for 9 November 1940, in Shirer, Berlin Diary, p.440.

Stuttgart SD report of 29 July 1941, document no. 1286, in Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Nazism, 1919-1945, p.536.

Kershaw, ‘Hitler and the Germans’, p.54; Kershaw, ‘The Fuhrer Image and Political Integration’, p.158.

Welch, ‘Working Towards the Fuhrer’, p.112.

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rather ‘psychological adjustment’. 38 Such a conclusion is supported by Robert Gellately who, in repeating the argument of Hartmut Mehringer, that air attacks and destruction served to turn a ‘community of people’ into a ‘community of faith’, justified his own conception of morale shifting in the context of war which had ‘revolutionised the revolution’, redefining the meaning of the Nazi war effort once again, from the initial optimism to the tough realities and resigned defeat of the latter years. 39 Though discussed in terms of morale, this framework can be applied to the Hitler-myth to demonstrate not only that it was still ‘mobilisable’, but also that it formed part of this ‘adjustment’ and changed in its consumption among the people. As Weber argued, charismatic authority is strongest in times of ‘extraordinary need’ which was exactly the circumstance after 1943; increasing faith in and projection of hope onto the Fuhrer developed in the increasing absence of alternative sources of faith.40 As such, contrary to Welch and Kershaw’s conclusions, we might actually see the years following Stalingrad as a high point of the Hitler-myth, at least in terms of potency among the people if not actually as a propaganda construct. Stalingrad might often be seen as a total disaster in terms of morale, yet there is much to support the conclusion that regardless of the impact on morale, the Hitler-myth did not specifically falter, though it did experience some of Stargardt’s ‘troughs’. 41 Recording reaction to the Wehrmacht communique carrying the news of the destruction of the sixth army, an SD report described the nation as ‘deeply shaken’ demonstrating ‘acute symptoms of depression’, with people asking why the army had not been evacuated earlier. 42 However, 38

Stargardt, ‘Beyond ‘Consent’ or ‘Terror’’, p.197 and p.199. This sense of strengthened morale was specifically noted in a special report to the Party Chancellery of 27 November 1943 which stated that while distinctions were made between the party, which was often blamed for air raid devastation, faith in the Fuhrer remained ‘virtually unshaken’ as he was now ‘the only guarantee of a successful end to the war’. Document no. 1321, in Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Nazism, 1919-1945, p.550.

Hartmut Mehringer, Widerstand und Emigration (Munich, 1997), p.233, quoted in Gellately, Backing Hitler, p.224 and p.261.

Max Weber, ‘Charisma and its Transformations’, in Gunther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds.), Economy and Society, Vol.2 (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978), p.1111.

Stargardt, ‘Beyond ‘Consent’ or ‘Terror’’, p.199.

SD report of 28 January 1943, document no. 1297, Noakes and Pridham (eds.), Nazism, 1919-1945, p.543.

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even if this did demonstrate a lowering of morale, there is little evidence that this equated to loss of trust in the Fuhrer, despite his personal responsibility as Commander. Rather, the same report recorded the people turning towards the Fuhrer in an hour of need and urgently awaiting a speech to answer their questions, demonstrating the level of faith directed to Hitler.43 This theme of sustained or even strengthened faith in the Fuhrer is also well-demonstrated by the example of faith in retaliation. As Gerald Kirwin has argued, after Stalingrad and the destruction of air raid attacks Vergeltung became one of the few remaining sources of hope, eventually becoming the ‘sole decisive chance of victory’. 44 However, as promises increasingly fell short of action, there existed a sense of serious discontent surrounding the issue of retaliation. Yet Hitler still seemed able to command a powerful level of faith. His radio speech of September 1943, his first since March of that year, was anticipated by the ever-confident Goebbels who asserted that hearing Hitler’s voice would ‘do the work of several divisions at the Eastern Front’.45 An SD report a few days later depicted the ‘unconditional’ belief in Hitler as people considered it impossible ‘that in this darkest hour of the war the Fuhrer would feed them with cheap hopes’, while Goebbels described the effect of the speech on Berliners as acting ‘like champagne’.46 Further, though Kirwin has argued that such faith in retaliatory weapons was lost by mid-1944, letters were still being sent to the Fuhrer’s office in 1945 with suggestions of new technologies that might ‘conquer for the future beautiful Germany’.47 Though we might reasonably question the intentions of those writing to the Fuhrer, such examples, particularly in a period commonly noted for weakening morale, demonstrate continued faith in him. This links with the adjustment Stargardt described, as people were projecting their own hopes and faith regarding the possibility of victory onto the image of an increasingly-absent Hitler. Beyond demonstrating the desperate need to 43

Ibid., p.543.

Gerald Kirwin, ‘Waiting for Retaliation: A Study in Nazi Propaganda Behaviour and Civilian Morale’, Journal of Contemporary History 16:3 (July 1981), pp.565-583, here p.565; SD Berichte zu Ingandsfragen report of 18 October 1943, quoted in Kirwin pp.572-3

Entry for 11 September 1943, in Lochner (ed. and trans.), The Goebbels Diaries, p.357.

SD Hauptaussenstelle Schwerin 14 September 1943, quoted in Kirwin, ‘Waiting for Retaliation’, p.571.

Kirwin, ‘Waiting for Retaliation’, p.579; Letter of 22 February 1945 from a Corporal in Hanau reprinted in Eberle (ed.), Letters to Hitler, p.255.

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believe in something in the later years of the war, the examples also indicate the role of projection in the power of the myth. The remarkable endurance of the Hitler-myth, years after the fall of the Third Reich, can be seen in 1952, when 25% still had a ‘good opinion’ of Hitler while one third opposed the assassination attempt of July 1944.48 With this in mind, and returning to the methodological difficulties, any generalisations about unity or disunity behind the Hitler myth are necessarily flawed by virtue of the myth’s complexity and the varying levels of ideological penetration amongst the people. Indeed, a key issue was perceptively identified by Jewish academic and diarist Victor Klemperer in 1939 who asked in exasperation ‘who can judge the mood of eighty million people…?’ 49 The contradictions that can exist within popular opinion itself are often related to the perspective of the individual while ‘uncensorable’ aspects of opinion as in humour and rumour remain unknown and uncaptured in the limited reliability of SD reports.50 Such an assessment indicates the limitations of any conclusions. Nevertheless, we can say with confidence that the myth was characterised by contradiction and tension in its production as well as its consumption, and that at times of difficulty the myth was still strikingly powerful. Not all aspects of the myth were popular at all times, and just as emphasis within the propaganda construction of the myth changed so too did popular responses. These were characterised by dissonance, and were often contradictory, ‘sharply oscillating’ between hope and fear, between faith and criticism as the German people sought strength in an increasingly difficult situation. Perhaps the complexity of responses is best captured in Hitler’s own understanding of popular opinion, which identified three types of people: the ‘criminal elements’, the ‘idealists’ and finally, and by far the largest, ‘the broad masses which are in constant doubt whether to sway one way or another’. 51 Generalised though it is, the comment captures something of the difficulty of making any sweeping statements regarding ‘the people’ as well as pointing to the polarised tensions that existed within this ‘broad’ group. Perhaps the extremities of the first and second group may well be what were most noted

Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’, p.264.

Entry for 29 August 1939, Victor Klemperer and Martin Chalmers (trans.), The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1933-1945 (Phoenix, London, 1999), p.293.

Stargardt, ‘Beyond ‘Consent’ or ‘Terror’’, p.202.

Entry for 22 May 1942, Lochner (ed. and trans.), The Goebbels Diaries, p.172.

Daisy-Rose Srblin

in intelligence reports as these were usually the most coherent expressions of faith in the Fuhrer, or lack of it. It is the shifting and often contradictory opinions of the final, middle group which still proves so elusive. Such a cautious conclusion is testimony to the power of the myth, behind which the opinion of many in Hitler’s ‘broad masses’ has been obscured.

Fuhrer-myth

Bibliography

Primary Sources Monographs Boelcke, W.A. (ed.) and Ewald Osers (trans.), The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1967) Cameron, Norman and R.H. Stevens (trans.), Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941-1944 – His Private Conversations (Phoenix Press, London, 2000) Eberle, Henrik and Victoria Harris (eds.), Steven Rendall (trans.), Letters to Hitler (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2012), Klemperer, Victor and Martin Chalmers (trans.), The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1933-1945 (Phoenix, London, 1999) Lochner, Louis P. (ed. and trans.), The Goebbels Diaries (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1948) Maser, Walter and Arnold Pomerans (trans.), Hitler’s Letters and Notes (Heinemann, London, 1974), Semmler, Rudolf, Goebbels: The Man Next to Hitler (Westhouse, London, 1947) Shirer, William L., Berlin Diary, 1934-41 (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1941) Online material ‘Er ist der Sieg’, Das Schwarze Korps, 20 April 1944, pp.1-2, trans. Randall Bytwerk Hess, Rudolf, ‘Der Eid auf Adolf Hitler’, Reden (Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Munich, 1938), pp.10-14, excerpt trans. Randall Bytwerk The Fuhrer Makes History (NSDAP, 1938) d’Alquen, Gunter, Das ist der Sieg! Briefe des Glaubens in Aufbruch und Krieg (Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Berlin, 1941), excerpts trans. Randall Bytwerk Collection of ‘Our Hitler’ speeches by Goebbels, 1933-1945, found online: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm (accessed 28 January 2013)

Daisy-Rose Srblin

Secondary Sources

Gellately, Robert, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (OUP, Oxford, 2001) Geyer, Michael, review of Kershaw, The Hitler Myth (see below), The Journal of Modern History 54:4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 811-812 Kershaw, Ian, ‘The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich’, in Crew, Nazism and German Society, pp.197-215 Kershaw, Ian, ‘Popular Opinion in the Third Reich’ in Jeremy Noakes (ed.), Government, Party, and People in Nazi Germany (University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1980), pp.57-75. Kershaw, Ian, ‘The Fuhrer Image and Political Integration: The Popular Conception of Hitler in Bavaria during the Third Reich’, in Gerhard Hirschfeld and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), The ‘Fuhrer-State’: Myth and Reality, (Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1981), pp.133-163 Kershaw, Ian, ‘Hitler and the Germans’ in Richard Bessel (ed.), Life in the Third Reich (OUP, Oxford, 1987), pp. 41-56 Kershaw, Ian, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (OUP, Oxford, 1987) Kirwin, Gerald, ‘Waiting for Retaliation: A Study in Nazi Propaganda Behaviour and Civilian Morale’, Journal of Contemporary History 16:3 (July 1981), pp.565-583 Noakes, Jeremy and Geoffrey Pridham (eds.), Nazism, 1919-1945: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 4 (University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1994) Peukert, Detlev J. K., Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1982) Stargardt, Nicholas, ‘Beyond ‘Consent’ or ‘Terror’: Wartime Crises in Nazi Germany’, History Workshop Journal 72 (Autumn, 2011), pp.190-204 Steinert, Marlis, Hitler's war and the Germans: Public mood and attitude during the Second World War (Ohio University Press, Athens, 1977), trans. Thomas de Witt Weber, Max, ‘Charisma and its Transformations’, in Gunther Roth and Claus Wittich (eds.), Economy and Society, Vol.2 (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978)

Fuhrer-myth

Welch, David, ‘“Working Towards the Fuhrer”: Charismatic Leadership and the Image of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Propaganda’, in Anthony McElligott and Tim Kirk (eds.), Working towards the Führer: essays in honour of Sir Ian Kershaw (MUP, Manchester, 2003), pp. 93-118 Welch, David, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda (Routledge, London and NY, 1993)

David Bartlett

Was the 1989 Tiananmen protest movement about ‘democracy’? By David Bartlett The year 1989 witnessed a number of movements in Europe aimed at overthrowing authoritarian communist regimes and establishing democratic governments in their place. The Tiananmen protest movement in China has been placed easily within such a historical narrative. The only difference, it has been suggested, is that, in contrast to European autocrats who recognised the tide of history turning against them, the Chinese Communist Party was brutally determined to cling onto power. Consequently, the Chinese ‘democracy’ movement fell tragically short of liberating the Chinese people. This perspective, however, ignores not only established Chinese traditions of protest, but also the particular Chinese context of the Tiananmen protest movement. To gain a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the Chinese protest, it is necessary to investigate the movement from within. Understanding how and why the movement presented itself as it did is of fundamental importance. Equally, the composition of the movement, its motivations, and the social, political and economic contexts in which it emerged and operated demand analysis. Such an investigation holds the potential to reveal whether labelling the movement as democratic is helpful or harmful to our understanding of the protests of spring 1989. In establishing whether the movement was about democracy or not, it is crucial not to exaggerate the degree of consensus within the movement. In reality, the movement was neither uniform in its social composition nor in its objectives. The protesters gathered in Tiananmen Square, and their compatriots in Shanghai, Tianjin and other urban centres of unrest, were an ‘amorphous mass’ of students and, particularly in the later stages, of workers. 1 The students themselves were often divided, between ‘the older graduate students…who sought to ‘influence the internal politics of the CCP’ and the more exuberant, ‘politically and culturally radical’ undergraduates. 2 Moreover, the workers involved in the protest were often mobilised by different political and sectional concerns than those which motivated the students whom they supported. It is important, therefore, to consider the movement as a coalition of the discontented, rather than a rigidly coherent 1

Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After (New York, 1999), p. 504.

Ibid., p. 504.

Tiananmen protest movement

group when analysing its nature. Moreover,

it is imperative to discard ‘the Liberal-Western interpretation of

the Chinese crisis.’ 3 It is unsurprising that Western journalists, who were in China in unprecedented numbers during the protest to cover the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, perceived the mass protests as a parallel of the concurrent revolutions against Communism in Europe. Similarly, interpretative frameworks of the protest movement have been influenced by the temptation to explain Chinese history through the prism of a Western path of development: namely the notion that political liberalization must always follow economic liberalization. This conforms to an altogether teleological view of history in which the liberal-constitutional framework of the West is the endpoint to which all societies are moving. We must be cautious, therefore, before subscribing to the popular view of the movement as a pro-democracy protest because of how easily it satisfies Western ideological expectations and preoccupations. Nevertheless, the picture is clouded by demonstrators’ frequent use of a vocabulary of democracy and freedom. The demands in the petition presented by the students to the Party on 21 April, which included ‘abolishment of the unconstitutional ten-point restrictions against public demonstrations’ and ‘fair and precise reporting in Party and government newspapers on the current demonstrations’, seem to corroborate Svensson’s argument that ‘freedom of the press and freedom of association were the rights most frequently invoked’. 4 Moreover, Fang Lizhi, one of the most prominent intellectual supporters of the movement, wrote in January 1989 that ‘the May Fourth Movement slogan ‘science and democracy’ is being reintroduced’.5 The influence of such ideas is further testified to in Wang Dan’s ‘democracy salons’: discussion groups organised at Beijing University in order to study and debate ‘democratic theories and other heterodox ideas’. 6

Marie-Claire Bergère, ‘Tiananmen 1989: background and Consequences’, in Jeffrey

Wasserstrom (ed.), Twentieth Century China (London, 2003), p. 247. 4

Nan Lin, The struggle for Tiananmen: anatomy of the 1989 mass movement (Westport,

1992), p. 57; Svensson, Marina, Debating Human Rights in China (Lanham, 2002), p. 264. 5

Fang Lizhi, ‘China needs democracy’ 17 January 1989 in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R.

Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds.) Beijing spring, 1989: confrontation and conflict: the basic documents (New York, 1990), p. 164. 6

Meisner, Mao’s China and After, p. 500.

David Bartlett

Even workers, who were denied a central role in the movement by the students and who often had a different agenda to their co-demonstrators, were recorded to have made speeches on 20 April calling for ‘workers and students to work together for the introduction of a more democratic and less corrupt system’.7 Furthermore, the regime’s persistent refusal to recognize the movement as a legitimate expression of discontent radicalised the movement, leading to the dramatic hunger strikes of May which demonstrated a fierce commitment to maintain the protest. From such an analysis of the language and activities of the protest movement, it becomes possible to perceive the movement as the expression of popular democratic resistance against an ailing authoritarian system. However, simply acknowledging the existence of a discourse of democratic rights and freedoms is not sufficient to justify labelling the protest as a democracy movement. What the historian must do is to explore in more depth what the protesters were hoping to achieve through their protest. Firstly, the student protest was not rejecting the current system in favour of liberal democracy. The students, in fact, went to great lengths to present themselves as loyal subjects to the Party, imitating to an extent the demonstrations of 1976 in using Hu Yaobang’s death as a means of ‘mourning the dead to criticize the living’. 8 Thus, any suggestion that the movement intended to overthrow the CCP’s hold on power is misguided: ‘the most prominent anthem of the student demonstrators was ‘the Internationale’ while protesters themselves carried ‘pictures of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai’.9 Instead, the slogans and banners calling for democracy and freedoms of demonstration and the press reflected a desire to achieve official recognition of their organizations and for a ‘greater political voice’ through legitimation of political dialogue with the Party. 10 However, the concept of democracy (minzhu) which they advocated was highly elitist; only party members and the intelligentsia were entitled to ‘democracy’. As a result, workers were often prevented from joining the movement. It was only in late 7

Elizabeth Perry, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement: The Roles of Students,

Workers and Entrepreneurs’, in Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China (Boulder, 1992), p. 84. 8

Meisner, Mao’s China and After, p. 500.

Joseph Esherick and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, ‘Acting Out Democracy: Political Theater in

Modern China’, Journal of Asian Studies 49(1990), p. 836. 10

Ibid., p. 837.

Tiananmen protest movement

May, when military pressures heightened, that ‘student delegations were sent to the major factories to seek support’. 11 The undemocratic disposition of the student movement is encapsulated in a foreign observers’ encounter with students ‘horrified at the suggestion that truly popular elections would have to include peasants, who would certainly outvote educated people like themselves’. 12 Instead, what the students wanted when they called for democracy was to secure for themselves an elevated role within the existing system. Such a role would position them neither as electors nor as an opposition group, but as advisers guiding and correcting Party policy. The implication thus far has been that the movement’s self-labelling as pro-democracy is misleading: the students were not calling for political representation for themselves, and certainly not for the workers who were active alongside them. Womack, however, has fiercely contested such an argument, which he perceives as blatant Euro-centrism. He contends that it incorrectly places democracy as a cultural constant when in reality ‘if Chinese democracy implies the power of the Chinese people, then one must expect that it would differ from Western democracy’. 13 Womack’s attempt to emphasise the specific Chinese context of the movement is laudable. Evidently, the Chinese people proved able to exercise political pressure in sophisticatedly articulating their grievances in spring 1989. Nevertheless, if one perceives the students’ aims of ‘dialogue’ and ‘recognition’ as representing a pro-democracy agenda it ‘obfuscates more than it clarifies’.14 Instead, precisely because it proves difficult to separate democracy from its Western context and connotations, the ‘democracy label’ unhelpfully places the movement into a Western tradition of political development rather than underpinning a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the nature of the movement. Esherick and Wasserstrom have offered an alternative explanation of the Tiananmen demonstrations in which the protesters simply utilised a

Perry, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement’, p. 84.

Esherick and Wasserstrom, ‘Acting Out Democracy’, p. 837.

Brantly Womack, ‘In Search of Democracy: Public Authority and Popular Power in China’,

in Brantly Womack (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, 1991), p. 55. 14

Esherick and Wasserstrom, ‘Acting Out Democracy’, p. 837.

David Bartlett

‘historically established repertoire of collective action.’ 15 The evidence for such an interpretation can be seen in the petition of 22 April which was represented an ‘age-old manner of Chinese scholarly remonstrance’. 16 In this carefully managed display, the students, presenting themselves as honest and virtuous advisors, sought redress of their legitimate concerns through a humble petition made to the Party. The deference and patriotism with which the students presented their protest debunks the myth that they were alienated from the system itself. The reality was less radical: the movement was aimed at correcting the errors of Party policy rather than changing its structure. However, the movement became more than ‘just another wave of popular protest’ because the Party, its policy embodied in the 26 April editorial, failed to acknowledge the movement within such a tradition. 17 It was this refusal to engage with the protesters, as opposed to a wider democracy agenda, which intensified and radicalised the student movement. The extent to which the demands for democracy have dominated the preceding discussion testifies to the centrality of democracy within the historiography of the movement. Nevertheless, such a focus is unmerited: the movement clearly placed sectional economic concerns regarding the impact of economic reforms and, in particular, Party corruption at the forefront of its agenda. Huan Guocang asserted that ‘the heart of the crisis’ was ‘the leadership’s refusal to allow political reform to keep pace with economic reform’. 18 However, the main problem with economic reform was not its political implications, but its economic consequences. As a result of the liberalisation of the market, encompassing massive increases in industrial production (up to 20 per cent in 1985 alone) and the ending of price controls, there was serious overheating of the economy: inflation rose to 30 per cent in the autumn of 1988. 19 This inflation hit state workers, students and intellectuals dependent on fixed state salaries. Indeed, one of the demands of the petition of 22 April was for ‘increased stipends and salaries for students and teachers’. 20 The inflation crisis, moreover, provoked the government into a policy of retrenchment. In 1988, 400,000 workers were laid off from 700 15

Ibid., p. 139.

Bergère, ‘Tiananmen 1989’, p. 241.

Meisner, Mao’s China and After, p. 500.

Huan Guocang, ‘The Roots of the Political Crisis’, World Policy Journal 6(1989), p. 610

Meisner, Mao’s China and After, pp. 484-492.

Paul Bailey, China in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2001), p. 222.

Tiananmen protest movement

factories in Shenyang province for example. 21 Furthermore, one of the major complaints of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Union was, that ‘inflation is out of control and the people’s living standards have slipped’. 22 Evidently, economic grievances, although of a different nature for workers and students, were at least equal to vague demands for freedoms as a mobilising factor. The dissatisfaction with the Party’s economic reforms was greatly compounded by the endemic state of official corruption. It has been established that the Party’s modernising project had had negative social and economic consequences for the groups involved in the 1989 protest. Its participants feared that the Party no longer guaranteed the Chinese people a better future. Instead, rampant corruption made the Party bureaucracy appear to have only its own interests at heart; interests which it was advancing at the expense of the rest of the nation. This corruption was both high-profile, for example the 1985 Hainan Island scandal, and small-scale: ‘most of the 150,000 Party members who were punished in 1988 were convicted for economic crimes.’23 The root cause of the problem was that Party members, or their relatives, could buy goods at cheap state prices and then export them abroad at a much higher price. The workers and students consequently perceived that the Party had become a threat to their own opportunities for self-advancement. The Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Association, for example, issued a manifesto against official corruption, criticising ‘these bureaucrats [who] use the people’s hard earned money to build luxury’. 24 The students, moreover, mobilised angrily against corruption; a major target was Zhao Ziyang himself (‘Ziyang, Ziyang, xinge buliang’). 25 Evidently, as Fang Lizhi conceded, ending Party corruption represented the ‘focal point’ of the movement.26 There is, therefore, little to be gained by characterising the Tiananmen protest movement as a democracy movement. Such characterisation is an ahistorical distortion which tells us more about the biases of Western observers’ interpretative frameworks than it does about the nature of the movement

Ibid., p. 219.

Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China (Basingstoke, 2001), p. 82.

Bailey, China in the Twentieth Century, p. 220.

Perry, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement’, p. 85.

Esherick and Wasserstrom, ‘Acting Out Democracy’, p. 836.

Fang Lizhi as quoted in Perry, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement’, p. 80.

David Bartlett

itself. Whilst the students may have called for ‘democracy and science’, their conception of democracy was one in which only they, the ‘enlightened citizenry’, could participate. 27 The movement did not aim to change the existing system. Instead, the students wanted greater scope to influence Party policy within the existing one-party state. The kinds of policy changes they wanted, moreover, were not political but economic: both workers and students were mobilised by a resentment of official corruption and shared fears over their economic future and position in society. The fact that many workers desired a different resolution - a return to state socialism - is beside the point. The overarching intention of the movement was to force the Party to recognise their grievances; to adjust their reforms in order to protect the material interest and aspirations of the protesters; and to redirect the Party’s attention away from bureaucratic self-enrichment, towards securing the future prosperity of the Chinese people.

Perry, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement’, p. 76.

Tiananmen protest movement

Bibliography

Primary Sources Lizhi, Fang ‘China needs democracy’ 17 January 1989 in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds) Beijing spring, 1989: confrontation and conflict: the basic documents (New York, 1990), pp. 163-166 Lizhi, Fang, ‘Letter to Deng Xiaoping’ 6 January 1989 in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds) Beijing spring, 1989: confrontation and conflict: the basic documents (New York, 1990), pp. 166-67 Xinhua News Agency, ‘Students’ reasonable demands to be met through democratic legal channels’ in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds) Beijing spring, 1989: confrontation and conflict: the basic documents (New York, 1990), pp. 254-256. Ye, Wu, ‘What does the statue of the goddess of democracy which appeared in Tiananmen Square indicate’ 1 June 1989 in Michel Oksenberg, Lawrence R. Sullivan and Marc Lambert (eds) Beijing spring, 1989: confrontation and conflict: the basic documents (New York, 1990), pp. 341-342.

Secondary Sources Bailey, Paul, China in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2001) Bergère, Marie-Claire, ‘Tiananmen 1989: background and Consequences’, in Jeffrey Wasserstrom (ed.), Twentieth Century China (London, 2003), pp. 239-256. Dittmer, Lowell, ‘Tiananmen Reconsidered’, Pacific Affairs 64(1991-1992), pp. 529-535 Esherick, Joseph and Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, ‘Acting Out Democracy: Political Theater in Modern China’, Journal of Asian Studies 49(1990), pp. 835-865 Guocang, Huan, ‘The Roots of the Political Crisis’, World Policy Journal 6(1989), pp. 609-620

David Bartlett

Kristof, Nicholas D., ‘Prelude to Tiananmen – The Reasons Why China Erupts’ Winston L.Y. Yang and Marsha L. Wagner (eds.) Tiananmen: China's struggle for democarcy: its prelude, development, aftermath, and impact (Baltimore, 1990), pp. 33-42 Lin, Nan, The struggle for Tiananmen: anatomy of the 1989 mass movement (Westport, 1992) Meisner, Maurice, Mao’s China and After (New York, 1999) Oi, Jean C., ‘Realms of Freedom in Post-Mao China’, in William Kirby (ed.), Realms of Freedom in Modern China (Stanford, 2004), pp. 264-284 Perry, Elizabeth, ‘Casting a Chinese “Democracy” Movement: The Roles of Students, Workers and Entrepreneurs’, in Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China (Boulder, 1992), pp. 146-164. Polumbaum, Judy, ‘Making Sense of June 4, 1989: Analyses of the Tiananmen Tragedy’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 26(1991), pp. 177-186 Saich, Tony, Governance and Politics of China (Basingstoke, 2001) Svensson, Marina, Debating Human Rights in China (Lanham, 2002) Walder, Andrew G. and Xiaoxia, Gong, ‘Workers in the Tiananmen Protests: The Politics of the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation’ The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29(1993), pp. 1-29 Womack, Brantly, ‘In Search of Democracy: Public Authority and Popular Power in China’, in Brantly Womack (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, 1991), pp 53-90

UNITA and Ovimbundu cultural authenticity

To what extent did UNITA's capacity to fight a long civil war depend on appeals to Ovimbundu cultural authenticity? By David Bartlett Editor's note: ‘The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola’ (UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA was led by Jonas Savimbi from its foundation until his death in 2002, and fought alongside the ‘Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola’ (MPLA) in the Angolan War for Independence (1961–1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975–2002). There have been three main explanations of UNITA’s success in sustaining its capacity to fight a civil war over the course of three decades. Firstly, many historians have perceived the conflict in ethnic terms: UNITA’s support derived from its representation of the Ovimbundu, which deprived the MPLA of a large and ‘enormously important ethnic and geographical constituency’. 1 Consequently, it was essential for UNITA to assume the culture of the Ovimbundu in order to legitimise its claims of representation. However, for William Minter, UNITA were ‘Apartheid’s Contras’. 2 In this school of thought, it was the military support of South Africa and the United States that enabled both UNITA’s survival and its ability to project its political message. Finally, in the aftermath of the escalating violence of the 1990s, the role of the illicit diamond trade has been increasingly emphasised. Evidently, the importance of appeals to cultural authenticity must be analysed in relation to these factors over the course of the war, and perhaps may indicate whether single-factor explanations of conflict in Angola are sustainable. Appealing to Ovimbundu cultural authenticity, chiefly through the figure of Jonas Savimbi, was an important dimension of UNITA’s political strategy for tempting, but also coercing, the Ovimbundu population into proffering support for the party. Linda Heywood has argued that such appeals gave UNITA a ‘legitimacy amongst among the rural masses that guarantee[d] them

Norrie MacQueen, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa (London, 1997), p. 33.

William Minter, Apartheid's Contras: an inquiry into the roots of war in Angola and

Mozambique (London, 1994)

David Bartlett

staying power’.3 UNITA’s strategy was to work with existing local power structures — the sekulus, osomas and ocimbandas — and embedded institutions like the protestant church to present themselves as fighting on behalf of the Ovimbundu. Savimbi, moreover, would often use ‘local proverbs…cultural motifs’ and indigenous Angolan languages in his speeches in controlled territories to give his leadership local legitimacy. 4 Consequently, UNITA, and Savimbi in particular, were able to convincingly portray themselves as fighting as and for the people against the MPLA, who, within this political narrative, were caricatured as a distant urban minority propped up by foreign interests. However, there is evidence that Heywood romanticised UNITA’s connection with Ovimbundu culture. In reality, effective use of Ovimbundu ideology was intended to offer Savimbi coercive power as a tool for mobilisation. Through pre-colonial traditions such as cleansing communities of ‘witches’, Savimbi was able to conduct a ‘politics of fear’, allowing him rigid control of his party, as seen in the purging of Tito Chingunji. 5 By playing upon the notion that rulers were the ‘repository of the spiritual power of the community’, UNITA were able to create a cult around Savimbi, who became a god-like figure to be both loved and obeyed, evidenced in the UNITA slogan ‘God in Heaven and Savimbi on earth’. 6 Thus, Savimbi was able to both compel support from the Ovimbundu population out of fear and mobilise them through a political narrative in which Savimbi was one of them, against the other represented by the MPLA. That the conflict was only ended by Savimbi’s death in 2002 perhaps testifies to the importance of the cult created around Savimbi for UNITA’s capacity to prolong its struggle. It is imperative, however, to avoid creating a simplistic framework of analysis in which ethnicity is central as the determinant of political loyalty. Historians, foreign diplomats and UNITA politicians themselves have been far too ready to see the Angola’s civil war as an ethnic conflict. Instead, UNITA’s failure to 3

Linda Heywood, ‘Towards an understanding of modern political ideology in Africa: the

case of the Ovimbundu of Angola’, Journal of Modern African Studies 36, 1 (1998), p. 166. 4

Linda Heywood, Contested Power in Angola, 1840s to the Present (Rochester, NY, 2000), p. 214.

Heywood, ‘Towards an understanding’ p. 139; Assis Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers: Violence

in post-colonial Angola (Uppsala, 2007), p. 97; Heywood, ‘Towards an understanding’ p. 147. 6

Ibid., p. 156; Michael Wolfers and Jane Bergerol, Angola in the Frontline (London, 1983), p.

207.

UNITA and Ovimbundu cultural authenticity

win the 1992 elections, which astounded confident predictions within and outside Angola, should remind us that ethnicities are not pre-determined facts but negotiated identities, which political parties have to shape and manage if they are to be exploited. UNITA were successful in ‘ethnicising’ the conflict; Patrick Chabal is correct to emphasise that UNITA made ‘widespread’ the perception that the MPLA dominated politics to the exclusion of those outside Luanda. 7 Moreover, the actions of the MPLA in 1976, when a severe campaign of repression in the central highlands was undertaken to destroy UNITA, served to confirm UNITA’s narrative of the marginalisation of the central and southern population. Nevertheless, this reveals how Heywood’s emphasis on UNITA’s appeal to pre-existing Ovimbundu ethnic sentiments is misplaced. Instead, UNITA had to fashion a convincing narrative of marginalisation based not solely on cultural traditions but on perceptions of contemporary political events. Further undermining Heywood, moreover, is Justin Pearce’s finding that the conflict of identities was instead often between ‘UNITA people’ and ‘MPLA people’: loyalties forged during rather than before the civil war.8 Furthermore, many Angolans often had little choice of which party to support: one MPLA civil servant described how, upon capture, ‘of necessity one had to identify oneself as an adherent of UNITA...[or] you would be dead’. 9 Minter corroborated such a picture in describing how Angolans on the Namibian border, in close proximity to UNITA’s ally South Africa, revealed they felt they had little choice but to support UNITA. 10 Evidently, ethnicity played a less salient role in UNITA’s effort to secure the manpower and resources necessary for maintaining the war effort than many have realised. Instead, the strength of UNITA’s appeal firmly depended upon how far its narrative could exploit political and military opportunities. Indeed, much of UNITA’s capacity to extract support from the population was dependent upon the party’s creation of alternative state structures. By creating a ‘state-within-a-state’ in territories under their control, symbolised by its rival capital at Jamba, UNITA were able to give their claim to be fighting on behalf of the Ovimbundu greater credibility. Savimbi himself expounded this 7

Patrick Chabal, ‘E Pluribus Unum: Transitions in Angola’ in Patrick Chabal & Nuno Vidal

(eds), Angola: The Weight of History (London, 2007), p. 5. 8

Justin Pearce, ‘Control, politics and identity in the Angolan Civil War’, African Affairs 111

(2012), pp. 447. 9 10

Ibid., p. 454. Minter, Apartheid's Contras: an inquiry into the roots of war in Angola and Mozambique, p. 81.

David Bartlett

strategy: ‘our army is not just an instrument of power. It must above all protect our educational work and agricultural cooperatives’. 11 These initiatives were extensive: UNITA established 53 ‘secondary production centres…‘totalling approximately 25 thousand hectares’, while Savimbi promised ‘old men false teeth free of charge; the young men free cars and a university education’. 12 Evidently, UNITA presented itself as capable of protecting and providing for its supporters. We can see this in how many people interviewed after the conflict have justified their support for UNITA in terms of ‘common interest’.13 One man, for example, stressed that UNITA provided ‘teachers and nurses’ who ‘left the bases to help people in the villages’.14 UNITA were also able to strengthen their ties with the Ovimbundu through escalating an economic crisis by targeting infrastructure such as the Benguela railway. As a result of the $30 billion of ‘material damage to the infrastructure’ between 1980 and 1990, the population became even more dependent on UNITA’s parallel state structures. 15 Thus, UNITA did not simply appeal to pre-existing ethnic loyalties but sought to legitimise its anti-MPLA political narrative through assuming the functions of government and distributing patronage. However, it is important to avoid romanticising UNITA’s strategy. In reality, its liberated zones were tightly controlled areas in which ‘there was no possibility of expressing political choice’. 16 In other words, while its political narrative was reinforced by its creation of state structures, for many the simple fact of UNITA’s military control of their territory compelled them to support the party’s war effort. However, what gave UNITA the means to maintain military control of territories, to create parallel state structures and, on a more fundamental level, to even remain in existence as a guerrilla army was external support from the United States and South Africa. Without accommodation with the Portuguese military during the independence struggle and South African intervention in 1975, it is likely UNITA would have quickly been crushed by the MPLA, which had little difficulty eradicating the FNLA. Nevertheless, one has to be 11

James W. Martin, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola 1974-1990 (London, 1992), p.

97. 12

Ibid., p. 98; Wolfers and Bergerol, Angola in the Frontline, p. 207.

Pearce, ‘Control, politics and identity’, p. 442.

Ibid., p. 458.

Heywood, Contested Power in Angola, p. 206.

Pearce, ‘Control, politics and identity’, p. 455.

UNITA and Ovimbundu cultural authenticity

careful when placing such importance upon external intervention. It is important not to de-Africanise the conflict by suggesting it was merely a proxy war fought by Cold War powers or an extension of South Africa’s ‘total strategy’: the ‘dynamic domestic perspective’ discussed above should not be ignored. 17 Nevertheless, the domestic and the external can be integrated. South Africa invaded Angola 12 times after 1975, allowing UNITA to ‘liberate’ territory taken by the SADF and to defend such areas with MPLA weapons captured by the South Africans. 18 In addition, military supplies, fuel and financial assistance were routed to UNITA through Mobutu’s Zaire. These resources enabled the creation of the state structures essential within UNITA’s political narrative: external support gave UNITA both the means to fund agricultural and social welfare initiatives and the military capacity to take and control territory in which the population could be coerced or tempted into supporting the cause. Moreover, the temptation to see UNITA’s reliance on foreign support as a result of a lack of legitimacy amongst the Angolan population should be resisted. For example, Victoria Brittain, a journalist who travelled around Angola with the MPLA, suggested that ‘political choices at home’ (in favour of the MPLA) had been ‘sabotage[d] by powerful outsiders’. 19 This illustrates the methodological problems of fieldwork during a conflict; Brittain was evidently heavily influenced by both victims’ accounts of UNITA violence and by the MPLA political narrative sold to her because she neglected to consider that during the 1980s the Soviet Union delivered the MPLA ‘nearly $1 billion annually in arms’ while the Cuban military presence also expanded considerably. 20 Clearly, UNITA’s comparative military weakness therefore made foreign support essential, demonstrated at the battles of Mavinga and Cuito-Cuanavale in the late 1980s. Without US anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, alongside South African troops, artillery guns and tanks, UNITA would have been crushed by the sheer weight of MPLA’s military preponderance.21 Thus, not only was external support crucial for allowing UNITA to project and reinforce its political narrative, it was also imperative for UNITA’s military survival. 17

Heywood, Contested Power in Angola, p. 186.

Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, p. 93.

Victoria Brittain, Death of Dignity: Angola’s Civil War (London, 1998), p. 100.

Heywood, Contested Power in Angola, p. 203.

Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, p. 93.

David Bartlett

However, UNITA were able to maintain their capacity to wage civil war even in the 1990s when, after the peace agreement signed by South Africa and Cuba in 1988, and the end of the Cold War, there were vastly reduced opportunities for obtaining resources from external patrons. This was possible as a result of the control of the diamond trade which provided UNITA with an estimated $400-600 million a year in income.22 The role of diamonds poses a number of analytical problems. Clearly, UNITA’s capacity to wage war was not destroyed by the loss of foreign support. However, Global Witness’ belief that better control of the diamond trade would end the conflict proved wrong; it was only the death of Savimbi in 2002 which brought UNITA’s struggle to an end.23 Access to resources, both external and domestic, was not then the only factor prolonging war: Savimbi’s cult, based in part on authentic Ovimbundu traditions, evidently was a significant factor in holding UNITA together. Assis Malaquias has contended that UNITA’s reliance on diamonds in the 1990s transformed it into a ‘criminal enterprise’. 24 His suggestion that UNITA’s political strategy of appealing to popular legitimacy was subordinated in favour of a primarily military strategy is corroborated by the fact that UNITA even collaborated with MPLA soldiers, who received diamonds in return for smuggling weapons. The political education that had taken place in liberated zones was replaced by predation in diamond-producing territories, depicted in testimonies such as that of Maria Luhuma: ‘UNITA came and cut my brother with his own machete’.25 UNITA’s strategy in the 1990s therefore betrayed a willingness to use any available means to gain the military tools necessary to wage war. This was successful insofar that UNITA’s military capacity was maintained. Nevertheless, this came at the cost of political support: the abandonment of appeals to legitimacy in favour of a strategy of resource acquisition left UNITA without both the political support and the political will necessary to maintain the struggle without its charismatic leader and in less favourable military circumstances. The importance of UNITA’s appeals to Ovimbundu cultural authenticity should therefore not be overstated. Whilst they were vital for the creation of 22

Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, p. 106.

Global Witness, A Rough Trade: The role of companies and governments in the Angolan

conflict (London, 1999), p. 4. 24

Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, p. 91.

Brittain, Death of Dignity, p. 16.

UNITA and Ovimbundu cultural authenticity

Savimbi’s leadership cult and integral to UNITA’s political narrative of the marginalisation of the Ovimbundu, explaining UNITA’s popular support solely in terms of ethnicity oversimplifies the roots of conflict. UNITA’s political narrative was, in reality, dependent upon the resources of external actors: it needed foreign military assistance both in order to gain control of territories from the MPLA and to fund the alternative state structures essential for UNITA’s political message. Military strength and political legitimacy were therefore interdependent. Nevertheless, the experience of the 1990s reveals that military control obtained at the expense of political legitimacy left the organisation unable to sustain its war, except through the hegemonic cult of Savimbi. Evidently, one-dimensional explanatory models of UNITA’s capacity to wage war cannot be sustained. Both foreign support and domestic legitimacy, founded on a narrative only partly dependent on appeals to Ovimbundu cultural authenticity, were needed for UNITA to maintain its struggle. By 2002, both had disappeared.

David Bartlett

Bibliography Bates, Robert, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late-Century Africa (Cambridge, 2008) Brittain, Victoria, Death of Dignity: Angola’s Civil War (London, 1998) Chabal, Patrick, ‘E Pluribus Unum: Transitions in Angola’ in Patrick Chabal & Nuno Vidal (eds), Angola: The Weight of History (London, 2007), p. 1-18 Cooper, Frederick, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge, 2002) Global Witness, A Rough Trade: The role of companies and governments in the Angolan conflict (London, 1999) Heywood, Linda, Contested Power in Angola: 1840s to the Present (Rochester, NY, 2000) Heywood, Linda, ‘Towards an understanding of modern political ideology in Africa: the case of the Ovimbundu of Angola’, Journal of Modern African Studies 36, 1 (1998), pp. 139–67 Heywood, Linda, ‘Unita and ethnic nationalism in Angola’, Journal of Modern African Studies 27, 1 (1989), pp. 47–66 MacQueen, Norrie, The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa (London, 1997) Malaquias, Assis, Rebels and Robbers: Violence in post-colonial Angola (Uppsala, 2007) Martin, James W., A Political History of the Civil War in Angola 1974-1990 (London, 1992) Messiant, Christine, ‘The Mutation of Hegemonic Domination: Multiparty politics without democracy’ Patrick Chabal & Nuno Vidal (eds), Angola: The Weight of History (London, 2007), pp. 93-123

UNITA and Ovimbundu cultural authenticity

Minter, William, Apartheid's Contras: an inquiry into the roots of war in Angola and Mozambique (London, 1994) Mkandawire, Thandika, ‘The terrible toll of post-colonial rebel movements in Africa: towards an explanation of violence against the peasantry’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40(2002), pp. 181-215 Nugent, Paul, Africa Since Independence: A Comparative History (Basingstoke, 2004) Pearce, Justin, ‘Control, politics and identity in the Angolan Civil War’, African Affairs 111 (2012), pp. 442-465. Reno, William, ‘African weak states and commercial alliances’ African Affairs 96(1997) pp. 165-88 Spears, Ian, Civil War in African States: The Search for Security (Boulder, 2010) Strauss, Scott, ‘Wars do end! Changing patterns of political violence in sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs 111(2012), pp. 179-201 Wolfers, Michael and Bergerol, Jane, Angola in the Frontline (London, 1983)

PART TWO

FOCUS ARTICLES

The 'Superfluous Man'

The ‘Superfluous Man’ and Russian Romanticism By Rachel Powell The Russian Romantics were undoubtedly influenced by Western writers and philosophers. However, due to the time delay of cultural diffusion across Europe, pre-Romantics such as classicists were initially influential, with the main Russian Romantic era spanning the first half of the nineteenth century until the end of the 1840s. Due to the Russian Empire’s geographical expanse, backward political and social policies such as serfdom and the late development of art and literature, a certain group of Russian elites often perceived the West as a rational and fashionable muse. Contrastingly, Western Europe saw Russia as a savage, foreign and distant land – the ‘Other’ – its antithesis to a civilised nation.1 The French Revolution and the Patriotic War of 1812 were turning points for France’s cultural influence over Russia; the emerging intelligentsia increasingly rejected their ideology in favour of nationalism. British Romantics such as Lord Byron, influenced arguably the most ‘Russian’ aspect of Russian Romantic literature: ‘superfluous people’, an archetype evolved from the Byronic hero. Towards the second half of the Romantic period, a general disdain towards the West developed, and gave rise to conflicting and contradictory views regarding the retention of the conservatism of the 'old regime', which itself originated from the West. 2 During the nineteenth century, other distinct Russian principles emerged: narodnost, nationalism, autocracy, communal traditionalism Orthodoxy, which further distanced Russia from the West.

and

The classic Romantic hero of the Russian tradition was the ‘superfluous man’, a culmination of the Byronic hero and the Russian Intelligentsia. Such an individual possessed the intelligence and status of the Intelligentsia, but lacked the Slavophilic nationalism or determination to act upon their ideas. The intelligentsia were defined by Stavrou as the ‘by-products’ of the country’s goal of modernisation. The rise of secularisation, education and cultural development led to the establishment of institutions such as universities, art centres and printing presses, all of which encouraged critical 1

Rozaliya Cherepanova, ‘Discourse on a Russian "Sonderweg": European models in Russian

disguise’, Studies in East European Thought, vol. 62 (2010), pp. 315-329. 2

Theophilus C. Prousis, Review of Alexander M. Martin, ‘Romantics, Reformers,

Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I’, The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 43 (1999), pp. 238-240, p. 239.

Rachel Powell

thought and the emergence of the intelligentsia. 3 As with the exiles of the French Revolution, Russians returning to their homeland following a western European education in law, literature and individualism became disillusioned with their country and its values. The latter seemed incongruous and anachronistic with their own new philosophies, as the superfluous heroes belonged to neither the Russian nor the Western European camp, thus being in an ideological and geographical limbo. It was these sentiments that perhaps influenced Russia’s alternative take on the literary Byronic hero; the ‘superfluous man’ reflected Russia’s tragic approach to the Romantic Movement. Goethe’s creation of a bildungsroman differed in the sense that it allowed nonconforming individuals to return to the accepted social conventions. 4 In the case of the superfluous hero, his high intellect is hindered by his arrogance, self-destructiveness and pessimistic outlook on life which prevents him from conforming, often leading to tragic consequences. Brown claims that Alexander Pushkin ‘is another Byron […] but with a beauty in language and in music […] to which Byron rose only at his best.’5 Pushkin emphasises the importance and influence of literature on Eugene Onegin, as literature can significantly alter an individual’s character and philosophy. It is evident that Onegin has read Byron’s work, 6 which influenced both Pushkin’s writing and Onegin’s actions, to the point where Tatyana believes that his character is merely a literary construction. In a speech on Pushkin, Dostoevsky praised the author for portraying those individuals who were misunderstood and rejected from society, and that these were the Russian intelligentsia. He believed that the characteristics embodied by Tatyana, the ‘Russian soul’, were the requisites for the country’s salvation. In contrast, the characteristics of Pushkin’s westernised antihero were eroding. 7 This concept was ironically realised in the premature deaths of Pushkin and Lermontov in 3

Theofanis George Stavrou, Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Indiana University

Press, 1983), pp. xi-xii. 4

Ellen Chances, ‘The superfluous man in Russian literature’ in Neil Cornwell (ed.), The

Routledge Companion to Russian Literature (Routledge, 2001), pp. 111-112. 5

E. K. Brown, Review of Vladimir Nabokov, ‘Three Russian Poets, Selections from Pushkin,

Lermontov and Tyutchev’, Poetry, vol. 66 (1945), pp. 289-290, pp. 289-290. 6

Andrea Lešić-Thomas, ‘Focalization in Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" and Lermontov's "A

Hero of Our Time": Loving the Semantic Void and the Dizziness of Interpretation’, The Modern Language Review, vol. 103 (2008), pp. 1067-1085, p. 1070. 7

Chances, The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature, p. 118.

The 'Superfluous Man'

duels, considered tragedies for Russian literature, and demonstrating the catastrophic influence of Western literature in both reality and a literary context, in relation to preserving the Romantic notion of one’s dignity and honour. As Stavrou put it, Russia’s adoption of Western influences went ‘from imitation and imprudent assimilation to a critical evaluation.’ 8 There were conflicting beliefs among the intelligentsia whether Russian Romanticism should adhere or diverge from its Western origins. The movement was therefore highly contradictory due to the conflicting intentions of the Westernisers and Slavophiles. Despite Martin’s argument that there was more that divided these ‘romantics, reformers and reactionaries’, 9 revisionist historians have suggested that there was in fact more overlap between the two ideological camps. However, whether the Russians admired or abhorred western European philosophy, it undoubtedly influenced all notable writers and artists of the period. The Romantic period began with Russia’s new intelligentsia hoping to catch up culturally with the rest of Europe, and ended with the Golden Age of literature. Russia’s distancing from the West can be seen in the country’s growing pride, or narodnost, towards its increasing literary and artistic traditions: Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Gogol succeeded in becoming literary heroes of the Golden Age, displacing foreign writers as the muses of future Russian writers.

Stavrou, Art and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Russia, p. xiv.

Seymour Becker, Review of Alexander M. Martin, ‘Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries:

Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I’, Slavic Review, vol. 57 (1998), p. 657.

Joe Strong

Zero Dark Thirty: The film of a memory too soon A review by Joe Strong

Zero Dark Thirty: a 2012 action drama which chronicalized the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. The film has recently received five Academy Award nominations and received an Oscar for sound editing. Director: Kathryn Bigelow Cast: Chris Pratt, Edgar Ramirez, James Gandolfini, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong Runtime: 157 minutes Now that the awards season is over and the Oscars have made their irreversible dent into the history of film, this review might seem redundant. The greats of the film industry have spoken and critics everywhere have seen their words paled to worthlessness by a golden statuette. Nevertheless, a few words of inconsequence are required before trying to untangle what has become the dominant shadow surrounding this politically and topically controversial film. Kathryn Bigelow proves herself to be a director of masterful talent in this genre, following the success of The Hurt Locker in 2008. The film itself is excellent, a gripping and masterfully tense account of what may have occurred during the infamous hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Critics’ buzz over Jessica Chastain’s ‘strong depiction of a focussed and driven Maya’ may however have been misplaced. It felt as though critics and Hollywood alike were seeking to make a strong female role something of an exception, when it ought to be seen as anything but. Though Chastain was by no means weak, her performance did not sweep you off your feet. Anyone familiar with the tour de force that is Claire Danes in ‘Homeland’ will be unable to avoid drawing unfavourable comparisons with Chastain. Nonetheless, the cast was, on the whole, superb, and particular credit must be given to Jennifer Ehle (highly regarded and remembered by many of us, for her depiction of Miss Bennet in BBC’s Pride and Prejudice in 1995). With five-star reviews from the critics, production and actors alike were pinned for academy fame. And yet, the 85th Annual Academy Awards swept over the film with a dark tar brush. Beyond the film critics and the Academy, the film has sparked much debate. Families impacted by 9/11 have been central to this discussion. In a complex and in many ways antithetical discussion, members of these families (and many others) denounced the film critics as anti-patriots, against the capture

Zero Dark Thirty

of Osama Bin Laden, ‘international enemy number one’. However, opinion began to shift, most notably when controversy arose over the use of victim’s last phone-calls, from the September 11th attacks, reportedly without permission from family members. As the studio, firmly on the defensive, called the phone-calls a tribute, some have seen it as quite the reverse. The crux is thus: is it too soon, Bigelow? Have we separated ourselves from the constraints of memory and entered the realms of history as Maurice Halbwachs might consider it? Historical interpretations imply within them a certain separation from the historian and the history they work with, but can recent memory be interpreted, events that even we as young adults can remember? Whilst some have argued such phone calls are now part of a ‘war on terror’ vernacular and that the film is part of the history growing around events before and after 9/11, others have argued that they are private, personal memories, that do not belong in the public, commercial domain. For a historian, the debate that has raged around the film has been indicative of the debates that rage around history itself. For one, there is the contextual element of history and the critical evaluation of sources to uncover it. With regards to the historical reliability of the film, it has been accused from all angles. For example, whilst the Left says it advocates torture, the Right argues that it lies about it. In response to these paradoxically conflicting, yet uniting denouncements, Bigelow shot back, contending the film was never meant to be completely factual. It was meant to be a historical narrative; a representation, not a reconstruction. There is an enormous difference between the two, and the debate alone highlights the complications that can ensue when there is confusion. After the initial phone calls, the film opens with a torture scene, in which information is uncovered which aided in the eventual capture of Osama Bin Laden. This proved a historical representation too uncomfortable for the world to swallow. What became increasingly important, were not the cinematography, the picture or the art, but the historical accuracy. Arguably, this is redundant. An exact account of the (possible) use of torture is not information that is likely to surface at any point in the near future. When has history ever given us facts and figures when demanded? With this in mind, it would be difficult to conclude that the film advocates torture. There is nothing glamorous about what Bigelow portrays. There is nothing heroic, nor is there anything humane about it. Re-enactments of the horrific practice of ‘water-boarding’ were enough to make many of my fellow audience look away in disgust. To come out the cinema believing torture to be a benefit to society can only be paralleled to those who argued slavery was necessary for the enrichment of the South. Most reasonable viewers should

Joe Strong

be beyond that stage now and Bigelow tried her best to emphasise this. If anything, the film boldly enters an area of history that has remained almost completely silent. Then there is the murky issue of historical accuracy. Fundamentally, is it necessary? If the film purports to be a historical reconstruction, which in some respects it was felt to have done, are people entitled to the absolute truth, unconditional and without interpretation? Probably yes, or at least the film should be called up for the dismissal of facts. Conversely, the same is not true for historical narrative. Here, as in the case of historical fiction, the same facts do not need to be used. Shallow critiquing could otherwise ensue. We could highlight how the lead investigator was not only blessed with an unusual name (Maya) and hair colour (red), but also had the capacity, in the opening scenes, to wear a black suit in an extremely hot region of the world. These points do not arguably need to be highlighted. Unless a film is a documentary, it will always fall foul of these nuances, which are perhaps so much more distinctive than in literature. As such, whilst it is difficult to offer an answer to the critique of Zero Dark Thirty, it is easy to offer a critique of its critics. It has been stated that whilst torture has been used during the US wars in the Middle East, torture was not used specifically in the capturing of Bin Laden. This report comes from the CIA. It seems almost pedantic and arrogant to proceed in an evaluation of such a source in light of its authorship and the inability to substantiate facts either in support or as a counter-argument. One may solely highlight President Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s failure to end the use of torture, as promised during his first campaign, as an insight into American military tactics. Neither side can prove, one way or another, whether they told the truth about how Bin Laden was captured. The truth could only be revealed by the publication of a significant amount of military information; enough to make even Julian Assange weak at the knees. Thus, all that remains is to look at what these reactions tell us about society. Fundamentally, history and memory are inexplicably linked, for better or for worse. Zero Dark Thirty emphasises how people yearn for the truth when it concerns them. So the outrage directed towards the film by certain Academy voters should make us question why they did not do the same to the make-believe Tudor world of Shekhar Kapurâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Elizabeth, or even Spielbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lincoln, but instead showered them with nominations. Zero Dark Thirty suffered because it is an insight into our own, immediate past, a past that does not look pretty. Whether critics truly believe that the film advocates torture, or whether it is more that they find it an uncomfortable representation of history, all too close to home, is difficult to tell. At any rate,

Zero Dark Thirty

Bigelow can be commended for her efforts. Voices that were quiet have suddenly risen in cries against torture. The world has seen up close and personal the horrors of water-boarding; perhaps an insight into the extremes torture can be manifested into. If viewers choose to dispel this as pure fiction, or instead prefer to attack Bigelow, this is entirely their choice. However, an awareness of where in history these decisions place the viewer could certainly change their perspectives.

Antonia Goddard

“Over the Sea to Skye” An excerpt from a historical fiction by Antonia Goddard Defeated and wounded, Bonnie Prince Charlie is left to fight alone for his cause, his crown and his life. His only supporter is his devoted friend Sir George, a faithful royalist who is unafraid to stand up to him in times of necessity. Sir George enlists the assistance of a local girl, Flora MacDonald, to help him smuggle the prince to safety. However, his presence in her house soon attracts the attention of Hanoverian soldiers Marston and Clairborne, who will stop at nothing to arrest the prince, and kill all those supporting him. Clashing swords with personalities, the pair set off in hot pursuit. With danger lurking around every corner, the prince's only hope for survival is to leave behind Flora's loving care, abandoning her in favour of safety in France. Meanwhile Marston and Clairborne, closing in on the prince, can agree on only one thing: pistols at dawn. In an age where lives were dependent on who wore the crown, which church you attended and which boys you fell in love with, Flora is faced with a terrible, heart-wrenching decision. Despite being a work of fiction, the story this book tells is true. Thousands of Jacobites died, or risked their lives for the protection of their prince. Among them was Flora MacDonald, the bravest of women, whose loyalty and love for Charles should not be forgotten.

His eyes narrowed into slits in the onslaught of the bitterly cold wind and sleet, and Charles Edward Stuart turned his head to assess the field. Despite the harsh climate he was not cold, wearing two shirts so that shivers of cold might not be mistaken for fear. It was hard, however, not to think of his namesake who had done the self-same thing on the scaffold more than a hundred years before him, losing his head for his crown. But this Charles had no plans to lose his head. His grip on the reins strengthened, his knuckles white. Reacting to his tension, his horse shifted its weight beneath him - all too ready for action. With a guiding twitch of the reins, Charles steadied the nervous stallion. “We’re too far away,” he complained. “I cannot get a proper view of the field.” Beside him, his general sighed. “Your Highness knows the risks of approaching further. This moor is too exposed for a defensive position.” “You always were a coward, Murray,” snapped the prince, but he did not pursue the point. “Pass me the eyeglass.” The curved glass disk pressed to his right eye, Charles was able to study his army at close quarters, drawn up neatly holding defensive positions, their regiments distinguishable by their coloured tartans. Left to right he glanced, making quick and detailed mental notes of miniscule corrections and improvements that needed to be made.

"Over the Sea to Skye"

The drumming of hooves broke into his reverie and he glanced down at the man who, red-faced, had slid down the heaving flanks of his horse and knelt before him. “What is it?” “Government forces, Ye Highness,” the soldier gasped in his thick accent. “Spotted not two hours ago at Drummossie by one of our scouts. Estimated time of arrival at eleven o’clock, sire.” Charles snapped his pocket watch shut with a click. “That’s only an hour from now,” he said tersely to himself while feeling the familiar twist of excitement, pride and fear at the prospect of battle. “Should the men be prepared for charge, sire?” “Hmm?” He glanced down at the messenger as though only just aware of his presence. “No. Tell the men to hold their positions. We charge when I give the order.” “Yes, sire.” Wiping his dripping face with a handkerchief, the man gave a low bow before vaulting back into his saddle. Murray was fidgeting nervously with his own pocket watch, opening it and closing it again. He always had been obsessed with the time. “Your Highness should retreat from sight,” he said suddenly, snapping it shut almost viciously. “Best keep you safe.” “Have you lost your wits, Murray?” Charles was astounded. “I am no child to be hiding in the forest. These are my people, Murray, my forces. For honour’s sake, I fight with them today.” “Aye, and when they are slaughtered, will Your Highness die with them as well? For honour’s sake?” Charles’ glare was murderous. “To talk of my death is treason,” he growled. “I meant only that I am thinking of your safety, sire,” replied Murray smoothly. “Should the whole army be slaughtered, we will have much to fight for. But should Your Highness be among the casualties...” He didn’t need to finish. They both knew how much more precious his blood was compared to that of their whole army. “So Your Highness will withdraw?”

Antonia Goddard

Reluctantly he nodded. “But I will stay close. I must be in command of my troops. Send my retinue to join the front line; the forces outnumber us, and I confess I fear the losses we may make. You will stay here, Lord Murray, to carry out my instructions as we have discussed.” Murray inclined his head in agreement. “I will take Sir George with me, and the bare minimum of guards. A smaller group will be easier to hide. Besides, every man is needed here... put the rest of my escort with the troops. Now, where is George?” Fetched from his own horsemen, Sir George led the way westwards in the direction of Inverness, followed by Charles and the smallest number of the royal guards. Neither man spoke; Charles’ face was closed in thought, knowing what was at stake. Nestled in the scarp of a hill opposite, George dismounted, comfortable that they were hidden from prying eyes by the steep slope. He held his hand up to help the prince down, but Charles rejected him with a small but sharp shake of his head. George’s eyes flickered up to the guards. “Secure the area,” he instructed succinctly, and they twisted on their horses and trotted out of earshot. As comfortable in the saddle as anywhere else, the prince refused to move, nudging his stallion lightly with his calves until he sidled up to George. Bending low over the stallion’s neck so as not to attract the attention of the guards, Charles beckoned George closer. “What news?” he hissed urgently. “Murray is keeping things from me, I know it.” George rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “What has he told Your Highness?” “Very little,” the prince scowled. “I have that heard we expect the government’s forces at eleven. Any idea of their size?” “About eight thousand men to our seven thousand, sire. That’s not so bad, but from what I hear, morale is not in our favour.” “We have deserters?” “No sire, but the men have been on their feet for nearly twenty-four hours and are starving. Their eight thousand are fresh and lusting for our blood.” Charles nodded. “So Murray keeps informing me. With each hour that

"Over the Sea to Skye"

passes I receive another plea to return to France, head cowed and tail between my legs. But I will not withdraw on his account.” “If the odds are so poor –” “The odds are not poor, George. Against my better judgement I permitted Murray to retreat to this godforsaken wilderness of a country last year, and now I receive news that the French had an invasion force waiting for us! Damned if I shall follow his advice again... no, George, I will not risk my birthright due to a coward’s fears. Besides, we have God on our side – God, and my right to rule. He will support us, I know it. Believe me, George, He will not let us lose today.” This was the Prince at his best, and at his worst; determined, courageous and honourable, qualities blunted by arrogance and a chin which was as high as his confidence. Despite George’s warnings of a low morale among the soldiers, both men knew how well he could rally even the most stubborn and downcast of troops to his cause. Charles had a powerful voice, a fervent heart and a natural ability to convey both in inspirational speeches. But words would not win this battle. Now was the time for the strong arms and broad claymores, for it was a fight of blood and not wits. Charles angrily swore under his breath, nudging the stallion around. “I should be with them, not caged away here,” he muttered. “How can I command my men if I cannot even see them?” “Murray has promised he will send us word of any developments, sire,” soothed George, but his words were feeble and he knew it, not entirely surprised to see Charles’ raised eyebrow. “He’s hardly been the man of the hour,” replied the prince curtly. “At least Sullivan has not let us down so far. Have you seen him?” “Not since daybreak, sire.” Charles bit the inside of his cheek in a gesture that only George knew to be nervousness. He checked his watch again, cradling the engraved gold in his palm, the royal crest that was now his identity as Prince Regent. Subconsciously, almost instinctively, he placed his hand over his heart to feel the crackle of paper from his father, those black letters that promised him the crown. “It’s gone eleven,” he muttered suddenly, “We should be able to hear them now. Surely if they had attacked we would hear them from here?” He looked

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Antonia Goddard

towards George for reassurance. His bodyguard opened his mouth to answer, and then pressed his finger to his lips. “Hush. Listen.” Drums in the distance signalled an arrival. Then began the bagpipes, the war cries and the impatient snort of horses. They had arrived. Head bowed, Charles was forced to listen to the distant battle raging about him. George had turned away in an attempt to give the man some privacy, but there was no privacy from the ongoing battle being fought backwards and forwards inside the prince’s own head. Honour and royal pride were all very well, but secluded from the battle and forced to listen to the screams of those dying for him, Charles’ insides were clenched in internal agony. He had dismounted, remounted and dismounted again, pacing up and down with clenched fists, a useless waste of space unable to command his people. “I should be with them!” he growled, thumping his fist into the thick leather saddle. With a confused whinny, the stallion shuffled sideways, backing its hindquarters into George’s mount, looking at the prince reproachfully. Charles barely noticed, turning his murderous glare on George. “When will there be news?” he snapped yet again at his friend. George knew better than to respond to the prince’s agitation, contenting himself with holding the horses’ reins and soothing them. “We’ll hear if there’s anything to know,” he reassured him, the words sounding as false to the prince as they did to him. Charles muttered a string of abuse at all his commanders in turn which George didn’t even try to decipher. Whatever it meant, it was almost certainly deserved. “Your Highness! Sir! Your Highness!” A blood stained young man scrambled from the bushes, stumbling in his haste and rolling to the bottom of the valley, adding mud stains to the filth that smeared his Jacobite livery. “Message from Perth, sire!” “Well, get on with it!” Gasping, the man righted himself into a kneeling position, drawing his sleeve across his forehead and leaving a trail of red. “Our forces have been under heavy government fire, sire, and we have suffered many losses. We,

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"Over the Sea to Skye"

and many other clans, entreat Your Highness to order a charge with immediate effect, else all may be lost!” Charles swore and turned away, paling. “Tell me more.” The messenger looked at him blankly. “Our forces have been under heavy government fire, sire, and –” “Don’t repeat the same message, you damned fool. I have a brain in my head, which is more than you do, I’ll warrant. I want more information, not the same thing again!” The messenger just blinked in confusion. “Well, there have been heavy losses, sire, and His Grace the Duke of Perth requests an immediate advance.” Charles’ nostrils flared, the way they always did when he got angry. “That’s just the same words in a different order, you... oh, forget it.” He pursed his lips, running his tongue over the sharp edge of his teeth as he thought. “I cannot make a decision without knowing more of the events. George, will you take me back into the battle?” “Forget it,” George replied instantly. “I’m sorry, sire, but I cannot.” Charles’ eyes flashed. “You dare disobey me?” “Your Highness will be killed,” George said frankly, in a matter-of-fact voice. “It would not just be risking your life, it would be certain death. For both of us.” Distracted by anger and fear, the prince did not bother arguing, changing tack as quickly as he could. “What’s your name?” Surprised, the messenger looked up at him. “Halle, sire, Robert Halle,” he gasped. “Halle, you must tell His Grace that without knowledge of the field to order an advance would be suicidal. If the losses are so heavy at a standstill I dread to think what they should be in an advance. Besides, the ground is boggy and we shall lose men to it. No, Halle, I will not order a charge. The clans must stand firm in faith, their faith in God and their faith in me.” “Yes sire,” Halle nodded, his mind racing over the words. “I will tell His Grace, sire.” “Thank you.” He took the soldier’s hand. “God bless you, Robert.”

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Overcome with awe, fatigue and pain, Halle’s mouth hung open a little. With a snap he shut it, raised himself to his full height, and ran without another word. Charles swore aloud, grinding the heel of his boot into the sodden earth, digging up a little mound of dark brown clay and kicking it into the air. “How can they expect me to lead from here?” he shouted. “Murray will not obey my instructions. Sullivan will, but only because he has no brain in his head. How can I organise dozens of mismatched clans, half of whom speak a language I do not understand or worship a God I do not care for, when I cannot even see who fights for me and who fights against me?” With an angry grunt he swung himself into the saddle. Alarmed that he might be about to make a run for the battlefield, George leapt upon his own horse, but the prince merely tugged at the reins, turning his horse around to get a better view. “Hey!” he called to his guards, “Have someone send a messenger for Lord Drummond – at once!” “What message, sire?” Charles considered the phrasing for a moment. “Stand firm in the face of enemy fire. We shall not be moved. When the government forces are spent, then and only then are they to advance. I trust in His Lordship to make the correct decision as to when that may be, for I can see nothing from here. That is all.” “At once, sire!” The white hindquarters of the guard’s horse disappeared over the hill and into the rain. A useless command, and all knew it. How much influence the prince had when he was not amongst his troops, when the loyalty of the Jacobites was confined to keeping their weary feet still for a coat of arms emblazoned above their hearts, no-one liked to think. Instead, they huddled pathetically together under the light drizzle, the cold numbing Charles’ fingers and toes. Up and down he paced, chewing the inside of his cheeks and lips, his palms itching for action but unable to move. First the ground vibrated, and then the four-beat thud of hooves was audible in the distance. Tensing, George drew his sword but Charles placed a restraining hand on his arm, raising one finger and tapping his coat of arms. The meaning was clear: one horse, and it’s ours. George nodded, sheathing his weapon but keeping the hilt in his grip, wary

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"Over the Sea to Skye"

eyes darting here and there. “Your Highness!” The horse half-reared as the soldier reined him in violently, throwing himself from the saddle in his haste. “Go!” he gasped, scrambling to his feet, “Do not waste another second!” His torso heaved for a few seconds as he took deep, panting breaths. Finally he recovered, straightened up, and without a glance at the prince, snapped at his bodyguard. “Sir George, you are to take the prince and go.” “What?” Two voices echoed in shocked harmony. The soldier did not blink, still addressing Sir George. “There’s no hope for our army, sir, we’re lost. Take the prince and get out of here. We’ll retreat into the Highlands, and be given board and lodging where we can.” “No!” Charles’ command rang clear across the frosty ground. “Our only hope is to press on, to stand firm. I will not run away from my own men, and I most certainly will not countenance a retreat!” The soldier stared at his prince with grave, sorrowful eyes. “Your Highness,” he said quietly. “If you do not leave now there may be no Jacobites surviving to protect you. Cumberland is butchering them, one by one. He has already withdrawn one battalion to sweep the villages searching for you, and it is not just soldiers that are dying for you now, sire. Women, children, the sick and the old – he spares not one. He will continue until he has your head on a spike, Your Highness.” Charles’ hand involuntarily snatched at his throat. “Children too?” he whispered, horrified. The matter-of-fact tone that the soldier used made his words all the worse. “Children too,” he confirmed, flatly. “Tell me.” The soldier licked his lips nervously. “The fire was so heavy, they could not – they would not - stand firm. We tried to give your orders, sire, but the ranks broke and they charged... right into the musket fire. We had no chance.” Charles turned away, his head bowed, refusing to let any of them see the tears that filled his eyes. When he had blinked them away, he straightened up,

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afraid to speak lest his voice should tremble. “Where do we go?” he asked, bleakly. “Anywhere,” the soldier replied. “Leave, and quickly.” “Inverness is not so far,” added George. “We’ll send your bodyguards as a decoy, Your Highness, and make a break for cover. We’ll be hidden by the townspeople.” “That’s as good a plan as any,” agreed the soldier. “I will take His Highness’ guard south.” He whistled sharply to attract their attention and motioned for them to mount. “May God go with you, sire,” he said sincerely, one foot already in the stirrup of his exhausted horse, whose flanks were dark with sweat. “And with you too,” replied George, his hands more than occupied with two sets of reins. The soldier nodded grimly and tugged on his horse’s reins. “Come on, boys!” he called, and, digging his spurs into his horse, began the dangerous dash across the east wing of the battlefield, claymore in hand. He was barely out of sight before they heard his scream. Charles could only open his eyes when the echo of the man’s death had finished ringing in his ears. Slowly, he made the sign of the cross, and turned to meet George’s eyes. “What was his name?” he asked in a barely audible voice. But neither man knew.

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PART THREE DUHS

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Presidential Address By Ryan Cullen I have had the honour of being the President of the Durham University History Society for 2012-2013. It has been a privilege to serve the society in this way and to be able to give something back after it has given me so many opportunities during my time here at Durham. In terms of events, the History Society has been busier than ever. Last summer, the DUHS took several students to visit the Napoleonic British frigate, HMS Trincomalee, at Hartlepool Maritime Experience. This included a tour of the vessel itself from above the deck and inside the captain’s cabin to the bowels of the ship, in the bilges and powder magazine, as well as giving us the opportunity to explore the early nineteenth-century dock and its surroundings. Michaelmas term began with a stellar performance by Durham’s very own Ben Dodds, who gave an exciting and energetic lecture on Medieval Durham to start off our annual programme of guest speakers. The secretaries for 2012-2013, Andrew Guppy and Will Simmons, did an excellent job of creating a varied and interesting programme of guest lectures in both Michaelmas and Epiphany terms. Josh Hewson, the DUHS Vice-President, managed the website and organised a very enjoyable trip to Hadrian’s Wall, which was led by Dr John-Henry Clay and took us to Vindolanda, the Roman Army Museum, and the edge of the ancient empire… A personal highlight of Michaelmas term was the Elizabethan banquet at Lumley Castle, a five-course feast with dancing, singing and much revelry enjoyed by all. Being given the opportunity to lead proceedings as the ‘baron of the castle’ was an experience I shall not forget. Thanks to our Social Secretary and future President, Matthew Williams, for organising this event, as well as ‘Christmas at Beamish’, ‘college conquest’ and the end of term social in Michaelmas. He also deserves credit for organising a day trip to the battlefield of Flodden to mark the 500 th anniversary of the historic battle, as well as for the DUHS’s very popular and successful new event in Epiphany term, the Jazz Age Extravaganza. I am particularly looking forward to the Pirate Ball in the summer term, which will see the DUHS return to HMS Trincomalee as corsairs and brigands rather than as respectable Durhamites. Throughout the year, two other members of the executive committee have enabled the aforementioned events to run so smoothly. Greg Mazgajczyk, the Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary, ensured DUHS events were always well-advertised and, along with Josh, helped to manage and develop the society’s internet presence. Emma Russell, the Treasurer, performed the essential role of managing the society’s finances, without which none of this would have been possible.

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Finally, the two members of the exec committee who need thanking for producing this journal are Ivan Yuen and Maddie Michie, the chief editors for this publication. This journal is a testament to their hard work and dedication. I hope you enjoy reading it and find it informative, interesting, and a useful revision aid for the summer exams. I wish to thank my executive committee for all the work they have put in over the past year and it has been a pleasure to work with you all. Good luck to those continuing on to the exec in 2013-2014. I am confident that the society is not only in safe hands but looks set to build on the successes of this year and become an even bigger and better society than eve r before.

Trip to the battlefield of Flodden

1920s Jazz Extravaganza

Most of the Exec at Lumley Castle From left: Josh Hewson, Greg Mazgajczyk, Will Simmons, Ryan Cullen, Ivan Yuen & Matt Williams

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History in our Backyard: The Annual Trip to Hadrian’s Wall By Josh Hewson (Vice-President)

On a classic grey and dreary Durham morning, around 50 students dragged themselves to the coaches in front of the DSU at 9am. This is by all accounts an ungodly hour for us arts students. Battling hangovers and intermittent rain, we all ventured forth out of the bubble and into Northumbria for the annual Hadrian’s Wall trip. After a pleasant coach ride with a short introductory talk from our personal tour guide, Durham University’s very own Dr. John Clay, we were all ready and enthused for the day ahead. Vindolanda: Our first stop was the archaeological site at Vindolanda. After an informative chat from Dr. Clay about the site we wandered through the old foundations of the buildings which once made up this mighty Roman fort. We soon learnt that not only was this a fort, but also a functioning village where Romans lived for over 300 years. After looking at the amazing preservation effort that has gone into keeping these buildings and their foundations intact, we walked to the Vindolanda museum. This museum held an amazing collection of anything and everything excavated from the site, from combs and jewellery to the weapons and armour. Most impressive, however, was the collection of ‘writing tablets’ held at Vindolanda. Named Britain’s ‘Top Treasure’, the writing tablets were notes, letter and messages excavated from the site which have been invaluable in providing information about the Roman army and daily life at Vindolanda. From a personal perspective though, my favourite section of the museum was the amazing connection between Vindolanda and Durham University. Unbeknownst to me, Eric Birley, who started and ran the excavation at Vindolanda for many years, was also a professor of archaeology at Durham. Yearly excavations now occur under the guidance of Eric’s son Robin. Hadrian’s Wall: Our second stop was the eponymous Hadrian’s Wall. Echoing a Blackadder episode, upon arrival the very first question the chorus of students asked: “was it really that small?”

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Dr. Clay then proceeded to reassure us that no… it was much larger when it was built and that it has eroded over hundreds of years. After wandering down a length of the wall, we stopped at a few sections where Dr. Clay pointed out towers and informed us how the wall was built, why it was built and what it would have looked like originally. It turned out that not only was the wall quite huge for its time, but it was also built on cliffs and ridges to make it not only extra defensible, but also extremely imposing. As we all soon discovered, the wall was an amazing feat of Roman engineering, and unlike anything seen before in Britain. Roman Army Museum: Our final stop on the trip was the Roman Army Museum. This fantastic museum has a range of great interactive exhibits which show the progression of the Roman presence in Britain. Going through the museum we learnt the intricacies of the Roman Army formation while also getting a glimpse into what everyday life was like for a Roman legionnaire or citizen. The major highlight however, had to be the 3D movie called ‘The Edge of Empire’. This amazing short film was a realistic and interesting exploration of the entire Roman experience in the North East and it finished our day perfectly. As a final note I would just like to say a massive thank you to all the students who came along, and an even bigger thank you to Dr. John Clay for graciously giving up his Saturday to give us what was an unforgettable tour. After exploring what was just a small section of the North East, I’m sure DUHS will continue to venture out annually, finding many more interesting places to visit in years to come!

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About the DUHS Exec, 2012-2013 Ryan Cullen, President Ryan is just about to finish his final year at Durham. The three years have flown by but have been absolutely incredible. He has greatly enjoyed being the History Society president for the 2012/2013 academic year, having also been the secretary the previous year. He will take many fond memories with him from his time with the DUHS, including meeting Father Christmas at Beamish in his first year, exploring the limits of the Roman world at Hadrian’s Wall, and nearly being hamstrung by a billhook at the battlefield of Flodden. He will especially remember being the short-reigning baron of the Lumley Castle Elizabethan banquet, surrounded by happy subjects enjoying a night of feasting and revelry. Josh Hewson, Vice President Josh is about sit his final exams before finishing his degree in History. Since joining the Society in 2011, he has loved being Vice-President for 2012-2013. Out of a stack of amazing memories of both the Society and Exec, his favourite has to be leading his team through the pouring rain, attempting to beat other exec members in the Freshers’ Social Pub Crawl. This was particularly memorable as the combined creativity of the team came up with the original team name: ‘Team Josh’. Despite the deadlines, late nights and constant reading, Josh is venturing back into the world of history by applying for a range of Masters Programs in the UK and Australia. Andrew Guppy, co-Secretary Andrew is a second year historian at St. Mary's College and has enjoyed working with Will to provide the society with a structured programme of academic speakers this year. Will Simmons, co-Secretary Will is a second year History and French student at St Mary’s College. As a joint-honours student, he is about to move to Paris for his third year of study. He has thoroughly enjoyed being DUHS secretary this year, a job which he has described on occasion as the ‘genuine flame’ of his life. A particular highlight for him this year was the delicious meal served at the Lumley Castle ball – which was a far cry away from the burnt bacon he had eaten for lunch that day – and the questionable dancing that ensued from one too many glasses of port. Although he will be sad to leave Durham, he is excited about living and studying in Paris next year.

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Emma Russell, Treasurer Emma is about to start the final year of her degree in History. Having loved being treasurer on the exec for DUHS, she is excited about becoming the next Informals Secretary of St. Mary's College. Travelling around Beamish and seeing the President Ryan Cullen getting rejected time and again by the mature flirtatious singer was a definite highlight of her year on the history exec! The fresher's history social was a lot of fun and a great way to meet other people on your course. Greg Mazgajczyk, Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary Greg is coming to the end of his second year at Durham and his first year on the DUHS Exec. This past year has been a great one on the exec and as part of the society. Highlights have to include being on the head table at the Lumley Castle ball (mainly for the unlimited mead), meeting several interesting and entertaining academics, and dancing badly to the jazz band at the 1920s themed party. Conversing with our sponsors has sparked an interest in law, which he hopes to pursue this year. Matt Williams, Social Secretary Having reluctantly handed over the reins as Social Secretary, Matt is about to embark on his final year at Durham as President of the DUHS. The highlight of his year was the privilege of being Ryan's manservant at Lumley Castle Ball, which was only topped by the success of the DUHS Jazz Extravaganza Maddie Michie, co-Chief Editor Maddie is a second year historian at Hatfield and co-editor of the History Journal with Ivan Yuen. She hopes to have a career in journalism and has thoroughly enjoyed working with Ivan (who she also happens to live with!) on the History Journal. Maddie has found it incredibly rewarding to be part of the history society, comprising a team, which has devoted itself to making history infinitely more fun, exciting and accessible to all Durham students. It has been a pleasure for her to read the diverse array of essays published in this journal and she hopes that you will enjoy reading them as much as she has enjoyed editing them. Maddie wishes the next journal editor the very best of luck.

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Ivan Yuen, co-Chief Editor Ivan is approaching the end of his second year at Hatfield College, and will be attempting to write a dissertation on modern Chinese history next year. Having thoroughly enjoyed being on the DUHS exec this year, he is staying on in the capacity of Treasurer and is looking forward to being called 'My Lord' again at the next Lumley Castle Ball as well as journeying out to see more historical sites. He is grateful to all the editors and authors who have made this journal possible, not least his housemate and colleague Maddie, and sincerely hopes that everyone will be able to benefit, in whatever way, from its publication. If there is a life after Durham, he would like to pursue an international career of some sort.

About the Editors Lucy Darbon Soon to complete her second year at Durham, Lucy will be looking over the summer to make regular trips to the British Film Institute to undertake her dissertation research on the release of Soviet films in Britain in the 1930s. Working with the editorial team has been a great challenge and pleasure in her year. Jemma Ockwell Jemma is a second year historian from Hatfield College. Her main interests lie in British political history and African social history. She hopes to combine her historical interests with her cultural background with a dissertation focussed on the Jewish British response to World War ll. Nicole Stirk Nicole is set to embark on the final year of her 'Ancient, Medieval and Modern History' degree, with a dissertation focused on coronation ceremonies in medieval Europe.

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About the Authors Dr. Ben Dodds Ben is a Senior Lecturer in the Durham History Department and runs two hugely popular courses: Robin Hood and The Black Death. He has worked mainly on English medieval economic and social history, and is also pursuing questions concerning the representation of traditional rural societies in Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His current project is an examination of stories about bandits which circulated in modern Spain. Joe Adams Joe is a third year, graduating this June from Van Mildert College. Having focused much of his degree on medieval history, he wrote his dissertation on the attitudes of Frankish rulers of the Crusader states to their Muslim neighbours in the twelfth century. Beginning a thoroughly unrelated graduate role in Marketing at EDF energy in September, he intends (at some point) to write the inevitably controversial historical novel of the First Crusade the world's been waiting for. David Bartlett David is graduating from Josephine Butler College, Durham in the summer of 2013 with a BA in History. Having largely studied extra-European history in the course of his time at Durham, David is looking forward to beginning his training contract at an international law firm, subject to passing the GDL next year. James Callingham James began his BA History Degree in the autumn of 2012. His interests are mostly in late modern history, particularly regarding Britain, the USA and Russia. He hopes to pursue these interests in his forthcoming years at Durham, with possibly doing a dissertation on modern British political history. Outside of work James has enjoyed participating in History Society events such as the Lumley Castle Ball and is looking forward to his role as Secretary in the society next year.

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Harriet Evans Harriet is currently in her second year at St Cuthbert's Society. She is working towards completing a joint honours degree in English Literature and History, and her research interests are predominantly focused on 20th century cultural history. After completing her degree next year, she hopes to pursue a career in journalism or marketing. Antonia Goddard Antonia is in her first year at Durham studying history, writing historical fiction as procrastination when writing essays. Her particular interest is 16th-18th century history and she hopes to have her first novel, "Over the Sea to Skye", a historical romance set in 18th century Scotland, published soon. In the meantime, she is working on a novel about Charles II and dreams of writing for television. Philip Kelvin Philip is going onto his third year as an undergraduate at Grey College, with a dissertation focused on Livery Companies and the City of London in the Fifteenth Century. Other interests include print and propaganda in Tudor England. On obtaining his BA, Philip hopes to enter the world of work in finance. Rachel Powell Rachel is a history and modern languages undergraduate at Grey College, about to embark on her year abroad studying and working in Siberia and Moscow. She intends to combine her interests in travel and British cultural and social history in a dissertation surrounding exploration and colonialism in her fourth year. Daisy Srblin Daisy is a finalist at Castle and is relieved to have completed her undergraduate dissertation examining cultural policy and popular culture under ‘New’ Labour. She is delighted to have her work featured in the DUHS journal, and was lucky enough to have an essay on comedy in the 1960s selected for Symeon, the department’s alumni journal, last year. Daisy still wonders how the undergraduate degree flew by quite so fast but is excited to be taking up one of her offers for Master’s study in Modern History in the next academic year: it turns out that three years of History is just not enough.

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Joe Strong Joe is set to begin his third year as a historian. He is primarily focussed on, and enjoys, American history, especially African American, Native American and women's rights. In particular, he is interested on the role of sports and more broadly the media in the progression, and degeneration, of civil rights. This is also a justification for watching films and sports instead of working. Will Vick Will is currently in his second year as a History undergraduate in St. Cuthbert's Society, Durham. His interests at the moment (other than the Kad覺zadeli movement in 17th century Ottoman history) include the development of national identities in medieval and modern France, Spain, and Belgium, and concepts of colonialism and imperialism when applied to non-European polities such as the Qing and Ottoman states.

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