Examiner 3

The Examiner The KES History Department Magazine February 2015

Why Do Wars Begin?

William Lee As the famous Prussian military theorist Clausewitz said, “War is a continuation of politics by other means.” Indeed, the bane of human civilization is largely caused by the dealings of power-brokers and ends when those power-brokers decide it is no longer worth it to waste lives. Wars have begun due to a massive collection of casus belli; from the rather ludicrous War of Jenkins’ Ear to the famous pre-emptive attacks of World War II and the Six-Day War. All wars, however, share a single motivation that stands out: that of territory and resources.

The "beginning" of a war may, arguably, be split into at least three phases of differing time.

First, there is the long-term motivation for starting the war. Secondly, there is the actual reasoning for the war, whether or not it is given by the government (the casus belli).

Thirdly, there is the ‘spark’, or incidents which

act as the immediate pretext for commencing hostilities. Most, if not all declarations of war can be divided into these three sections. For instance, the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany was the culmination of the long-term aims of the Nazi leadership to conquer Poland for Lebensraum and the German people's desire to reclaim the former German territories, reconnecting Germany proper with East Prussia. The shorter-term cause, or the actual casus belli, was the reclamation of Danzig and the Polish Corridor. The immediate start of hostilities, though admittedly faked in this case, was a supposed attack by Polish troops on a German radio station, among other similar ‘incidents’.

The rationale behind the need for a casus belli, at least in the European, Christian tradition, lies behind the works, primarily, of Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, on the Just War Theory. This theory postulates that in order for a war (and as such, a declaration of war) to be just, it was necessary for there to be sufficient and good reasoning behind it. This, in their view, meant that the war had to be supported by sufficient authority, a good intention, a decent chance of success, sufficient proportionality and was a last resort. Though the importance of these theologians within the aforementioned tradition - especially during the Dark Ages, Medieval Era and the Renaissance – would imply that the wars within these periods fulfilled all these criteria, merely analysing a number of these wars would show that this was not the case.

However, it does provide at least an inkling of the motivation behind starting such wars. The ‘sparks’ which actually result in the commencement of hostilities cannot be very

easily described other than being incidents which provide enough justification or outrage to start a military conflict.

A further difficulty may be found in the argument that not all wars such a clearly defined incident; whilst everyone recalls the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as being the catalyst for starting World War I, the ‘catalysts’ behind the Hundred Years’ War and wars of conquest are less clear. Indeed, it is arguable that, until the establishment of modern nation-states and the development of not only a diplomatic service but also a code of international law, no such justification was required. Though they did undoubtedly exist (Darius the Great’s motivation for starting the Greco-Persian Wars, for instance, lay behind Athenian support for Ionian rebels), in the fluid landscapes of pre-renaissance Europe it was probably as often for such a justification to be given as it was not. Even after it became necessary for such incidents to occur to properly give cause to start a war, it could still be manufactured, as in the lead-up to not only the Mexican-American War and the Vietnam War, but many others too; indeed, many a critic of the Bush Administration believe that this is the case for the invasion of Iraq.

It is therefore obvious that the reasons by which a war "starts" are not necessarily clear and would involve a number of factors, both long and short term, to actually start a war.

This is compounded by the massive variety and number of wars throughout history, which have been waged for all number of reasons. It is also possible to claim that the reasons as to why wars start or end have evolved throughout the course of history, alongside the development of civilization, nation-states and increasingly effective and mechanical methods of warfare. There is all manner of ways to categorise reasons as to why wars start, but two are particularly distinct.

One interpretation would be that wars are the

culmination of a desire to gain resources, either directly or indirectly, through the support of an ally or the establishment of a sphere of influence. The other interpretation would be that wars are a continuation of interactions between peoples, and start as a result of such interactions, incorporating reasons such as culture, religion, revanchism and ideology.

It is arguable that wars begin on account of long-term, deeply-rooted reasons. This argument would, effectively, be based upon Clausewitz's claim: that war is, in effect, a continuation of interactions between peoples and the causes of war equally a result of such interactions. One such interpretation are that wars begin on account of a breakdown between nations. This is certainly true and incredibly obvious, and so does not provide a proper, substantial motivation behind the declaration of war. Wars may start as a result of diplomatic events – the scale of World War I was due heavily to the great net of European alliances – but even that war was motivated by more than just relations between leaders or nations. The Hundred Years War was far more than just a conflict between the Houses of Plantagenet and Capet, for instance.

Other reasons for why wars begin can often appear as a clash of cultures. A controversial reasoning has been that wars were motivated by matters of race or culture, especially in the 20th Century. It is certain that such matters do influence the start of wars, but the extent and how they contribute is again, questionable. It is possible to look at wars as interactions between different cultural groups, or see the motivation as being culturally charged, whether or not the matter of ‘inferiority’ is discussed. Such justifications have reached far beyond the Pan-Slavism of World War I or the actions of the Nazis in World War II, reaching back, arguably, to the dawn of human civilisation. The most striking of these early

examples is the Chinese ideal of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, wherein a capable Emperor had the Mandate to rule ‘all under heaven’. This concept drove Chinese Emperors, in acts of strength, to strike against its neighbours (“barbarians”, “jackals”, “aliens”, “foreigners” etc), resulting in the expansion of the Empire into Western and Southern China, and the establishment of puppet buffer states throughout Asia, notably Tibet, Korea and Indochina. It is also possible to derive Chinese actions towards foreigners in the Colonial period (notably addressing British troops during the First Opium War as “bandits” or “vagabonds”) from this concept. In turn, the motivation of firstly the British, then the French and Russians, and finally the EightNation Alliance to declare war upon China and force ‘unequal treaties’ upon it: there was a desire, subconscious or not, to kick the Chinese down a notch. Cultural reasons are also instrumental in beginning wars of Unification.

Garibaldi’s campaigns and the actions of Sardinia-Piedmont were based upon the idea that Italy, being a single culture, had to be united. Though many Italians were unsatisfied with their lot, especially those under Neapolitan or Austrian rule, it was the nationalistic belief that the Italian people should be united under a single nation of Italy that started the Risorgimento.

Inevitably interlinked within the concept of cultural reasons is that of religion. Though nowadays a rarity between Western nations, the concept of holy war still remains strong.

Whilst today militant religious extremists (for instance, aims of Islamic extremists to set up new caliphates) and the reactions towards them are strongly visible, the heyday of the holy war, arguably, was during the Medieval Era and the Renaissance. The Crusades and the reacting Jihads and holy wars defined these periods. Throughout Europe and the Near East Catholic Crusaders fought not only against

Islamic forces in the Levant, as it is commonly held, but also in regions far away from Jerusalem. The Reconquista, oft-forgotten in any non-Iberian country, was unquestionably a war that dealt with religion. The ‘Reconquest’ pitted the Catholic powers of Castile, Aragon and Portugal against the Islamic Al-Andalus and its neighbours in Islamic North Africa. It dominated Iberian politics and diplomacy, as well as military affairs, for over 700 years. In the Baltic, the Teutonic Knights waged war against the Baltic Pagans, again, driven by the justification to convert or purge the latter.

Even less-rarely discussed are the efforts of Catholics against other Christians - Lollard, Hussite, even Orthodox - and later, against Protestants, as the Reformation gave birth to the Thirty Years' War and centuries of civil strife upon the continent between Protestant and Catholic. Though inevitably interlinked with the great chain of European alliances and allegiances as well as economic factors, the wars between Catholic and Protestant were undeniably started upon religious motivations.

Another possible branch of the "interaction" theory are the similar concepts of nationalism, revanchism and ideology, the heydays of which were, fittingly, in the period following the days of holy war. Some of the most important of wars between, primarily, the "civilised", western powers of the 19th Century, can be put as being due to these: the conquest of land was all very good, but with increasing consciousness among the people it had become necessary to properly stimulate and mobilise popular support for beginning a war.

A number of smaller conflicts, especially guerrilla warfare, can also be put down to this as well. The era-defining wars of the period 1850-1950, at least in Europe, were based heavily upon the matters of nationalism and revanchism. The Franco-Prussian War, and the tenacious defence from the French were fuelled by lingering sentiment leftover from

the Napoleonic Wars; the German attackers united in the wish for a united Germany. The humiliating defeat of the French, in part, also helped contribute to the building up of the Entente and eventually, World War I. The ultimate spark for that conflict was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists. In turn, the defeat of Germany in that war and the propagation of the "stab in the back" legend (in itself a call to revanchism) helped stir up support for a strike against France. Though the decision to actually go to war was dominated by the expansionist Nazis, a large portion of the German population, in particular the old guard military, were eager for a war against France; the ‘national’ portion of National Socialism was certainly a reality. Even within the Second World War did these populist, occasionallyjingoist ideals continue to dominate the public mind of many of the participants: in the USSR the determination to drive out the ‘fascist invader’, defined by the song, The Sacred War, and Ehrenburg's extortion, Kill, clearly show signs of something more than patriotism in the Soviet effort to defeat the Axis. Since the dawn of the twentieth century the matter of ideology factored into decisions to go to war, and World War II is yet another perfect example for this. World War II can, easily, be described as being hostile interactions between different ideologies - Democracy, farright Nationalism, Fascism or National Socialism, and far-left Communism. Ideology was also an important factor during the Cold War era, too. Ideology, however, cannot fully explain why wars begin, especially to the extent of more basic reasoning.

The factor that stands out the most in explaining why wars begin, and is the most wide-reaching, is the matter of the possession of territory. Territorial gains and losses have defined peace settlements, so too should they define why wars begin. The concept is not

entirely alien or abstract: Malthusian thought suggests that resources are limited, and that the Earth would not be capable of sustaining the human population as it grows. Thus, the desire for resources, whether immediately necessary or not, has played a part in the large number of considerations made before the commencement of hostilities. The most direct examples of wars that have started as a result of resources are wars of conquest, but wars to expand spheres of influence and to contain other states also fall within this grouping. It is also possible to group economic reasoning within this motivation too: trade wars have always been over the extent of influence over a certain area (the First Opium War, through this view, was brought about by British determination to gain better trade rights – a form of influence – over Qing China, with the seizure of Opium and other actions by the Chinese authorities being the “spark”.)

Wars of conquest provide the most convincing argument for this Malthusian interpretation.

The vast majority of wars have, in one way or another, been fundamentally about the possession of land. From the very earliest of civilisations and the wars between the feuding Chinese States or between the Egyptians and the Hittites, to the Age of Colonialism and the modern day, land has been an integral part of the motivation to go to war. The casus belli of the conquest of land can be split into a number of points: firstly, conquered land can provide resources. Secondly, more land can create a buffer around a state by securing its borders.

Thirdly, conquest may be justified for prestige or cultural reasons. The most basic and primitive justification, of course, is the former, to simply gain resources. Any land has valuable resources in one form or another, even it is as simple as “living space”, one of Nazi Germany’s primary war aims on the Eastern Front. One of the most apparent campaigns driven by a somewhat-Malthusian interpretation is the

Japanese effort to conquer Asia in the lead up to and during World War II. The Japanese were incapable of fully providing for their economy and their people, especially after the Great Depression. It was this reason that motivated the fabrication of the Mukden Incident to invade China, but the most glaring instance within the Asian theatre was the peculiar actions taken by the Japanese against the Allied (and later, American) territories in South-East Asia. The American embargo against Japan had cut short the supply of oil, resulting in the Japanese General Staff choosing to embark upon more wars, which consumed the supply of oil, to gain more oil. In order to fuel the Japanese campaigns in China (as well as increase the dwindling stockpiles of rubber, metals and other rare materials), the Japanese attacked the resource-rich Dutch East Indies and British Malaya in coordination with a surprise attack upon the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. It is incredibly hard to find a war which did not end up with territories changing hands between belligerents: with that in mind, it would be hard to find a war where at least one belligerent did not desire some of its enemy’s territories beforehand.

Connected to the matter of resources are the ideals of power and prestige. These two factors also play a part in the acquisition of resources - subservient or friendly states are far more likely to trade than those which are vehemently opposed. One of the first ways this can factor into a declaration of war is the believed necessity to establish and secure spheres of influence. The heyday of these wars to gain prestige and to establish an influence in an area was the Age of Colonialism. The Schleswig-Holstein Question, in modern North Germany, involved the province in question and the claims as to who had influence over it - Denmark, or the various German powers in the form of Prussia and Austria. Yet, whilst such matters increased in importance after the

development of the nation-state, even in antiquity did such spheres exist. Rome, before its consolidation as an Empire, did have a number of client states dotted throughout the Mediterranean: the attack on its Iberian allies

by Hannibal Barca motivated the Senate to act against Carthage. Rome, though dependent heavily upon its citizen soldiers, required allies in further-off regions of the Mediterranean to restrict the expansion of its enemies and to provide resources for the Roman war machine - in this case, the Iberian allies were meant to contain Carthaginian expansion up from Carthago Nova and into Gaul.

The concept of power also lends itself to wars of containment. Whilst somewhat more difficult to identify, it is reasonable to claim that almost all wars have some reasoning based upon containing a foreign power, though the extent of this greatly differs. The Peloponnesian War, with the efforts of Sparta and anti-Athenian forces to destroy the Delian League, provides a far more visible reason than the Falklands War, where no reasonable containment could be easily achieved. Wars of containment in and of themselves are rare, particularly on account of the difficulty of waging such a conflict and the extreme cost: Coalition efforts to restrain the French Republic and later Napoleon took over twenty years; American efforts to "contain" Communism during the Cold War paid a very heavy toll in both money, stability and lives.

Arguably, one could also interpret the Crusades as being wars of containment rather than wars of religion. Though the matter of religion was always at the forefront, the Crusades started as part of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos efforts to curtail the expansion of the Islamic forces threatening his Empire, and Byzantine efforts throughout the period were solely to, or at least achieved more in containing and halting the Islamic threat rather than reclamation of the Holy

Land – itself a territorial war goal upon the establishment of Crusader states. On the other side, meanwhile, an increasing tendency among the Muslim powers developed to see the wars not as for the protection of holy sites and the expulsion of the infidel but as a means to expand the Dar-al-Islam - culminating in the Ottoman Empire's ‘scarlet apple’ - a target to be taken at all costs, which over time included Constantinople, Rome and Vienna. Through that, Christian efforts upon the Muslim powers were truly started as wars of containment with religious undertones rather than the other way round. Lepanto was more properly celebrated as stopping the Ottoman advance into Europe, rather than the Islamic advance.

In conclusion, the matter of territory has almost always contributed heavily to beginning a war. Whether through conquest, reclamation or through the reinforcing of another state, every single major war and the majority of less

notable wars have started and ended with the gain or loss of territory. However, the other motivations should not be ignored. It could be more accurate perhaps, to claim that whilst lands have always helped to begin wars, the lead-up to and the actual declaration of war were the realm of other factors. Though a government may desire a piece of land, he cannot begin a war without enough support – which must be gained through other justifications, whether exploiting cultural, religious or patriotic tendencies. Countless other factors, such as economic stability, fear, hatred or the personal aims of heads of state have not changed the fact that the possession of land still drives build-ups to war. Whether in the 21st Century, with the removal of the Taliban government by ISAF forces, or in the 2nd millennium BC, when the Mesopotamian and Egyptian Empires laid waste to one another, the question of who owns territory has persisted.

Why Do Wars End? Henry Rochford

The definition of war is: a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. War has been a fundamental aspect of human society for thousands of years. It has taken many different forms and there does not seem to be a period of human existence that has not been marred by conflict, violence and death.

However some think that war plays a fundamental role in our societies. While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human nature others argue that it is only inevitable under certain sociocultural or ecological circumstances. Some feel that no single group or society are responsible for war but rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his A History of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon which is defined in each individual case by those who wage it. Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstances. Plato famously examined the origins of warfare through his character Socrates and found that he could not create a utopian society in which warfare did not exist without creating a civilization which consisted of both producers and consumers living the absolute basic human existence devoid of art, culture, science and philosophy; a life he felt was not even fit for a pig. Wars have facilitated some of the finest examples of culture, science and art in the whole history of the human race.

Ancient Greece fought wars against the growing might of Persia and these fledgling states transformed into one of the great centres of art and culture for the next millennia. Through warfare Rome conquered

the Mediterranean forming one of the largest empires in the world and offering the kind of security to its citizens and that allowed many to devote their time to producing great works such as the Aeneid. The Mongols are another example of a group who conquered a great empire and through this those involved flourished and there were massive advances in the arts (although their conquest is considered to be the second most costly conflict in the terms of human life in our history falling short of the damage dealt during the Second World War); the Silk Road falling under the control of a single force led to advances in philosophy, religion and international relations that otherwise could not have occurred.

Japanese surrender signatories arrive aboard the USS MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay to participate in surrender ceremonies. September 2, 1945

Recently there has been a deluge of scholarship on why wars start; perhaps this is the case because of the most recently fought wars such as World War II which was a total war (a kind of war that is not frequently seen) whereby groups pull all their resources into the total defeat of the opposing side (in this case

the invasion of Germany and the seizure of the heart of the Nazi Reich: Berlin) meant that the only outcome was the total defeat of one side.

The worry that the Cold War would end in the total destruction of the Earth through nuclear strikes meant that perhaps focusing on the end of wars was just sickening for the thought of this war ending through conflict did not even bear imagining. However, it seems that perhaps understanding how and why wars end is as important, if not more so, than understanding why they start in the first place.

An example of this would be the recent Iraq War from which the British army has sent a deadline for withdrawal on 31st December of this year. This was a war started by a coalition with America in order to take the fight to terrorism in order to protect national sovereignty. The way that the coalition felt this would be best achieved was by installing democratic governments in the countries in question. This war has cost the forces that fought it hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of troops yet withdrawing and ending the war was not as easy as simply pulling the ground troops out. Ending wars is perhaps the hardest part and for this reason I feel it is crucial that we examine this issue in greater detail.

Front page of the "New York Times" on 11 November 1918

Before we can understand why wars end, we first need to understand how wars can end.

Carl von Clausewitz (an influential Prussian thinker on war writing around the time of the Napoleonic wars) described two types of terminations: real and absolute. An absolute victory ends in the total defeat of one belligerent and the total victory another (such as in the Second World War where the Allies defeated the Axis powers and they offered unconditional surrender, well certainly in the case of Germany); whereas a real outcome is one that falls short of total victory; such as when two belligerents become exhausted and decide to simply reach a peace settlement (for example the Russo, Japanese War of 1905 in which the United States helped mediate a successful conclusion).

Wars are fought for a multitude of reasons and understanding a little of this is also important to understanding the process of termination of wars. Thomas Schelling gave us the famous insight that war is about bargaining and the actual act of war is essentially just a

continuation of this process. Combatants normally go to war over scarce resources; this include territory, resources and arguably attributes such as national pride and prestige, this is the view that most people would support; there are others views such as the one supported by certain feminist may argue that wars are fought to enforce the patriarchal society model and to reinforce gender bias this is not a mainstream view that many people would agree with. Wars are costly and risky and do not tend to be fought unless there is something to be gained from fighting that is otherwise unattainable. Carl von Clausewitz stated that: “war is nothing but a continuation of politics” and these two ideas fit neatly together in that war is a way of forcing another state to accept your demands by proving you are the stronger party. The power and unknown intention of other states is another big factor in the outbreak of war, if a state sees that its neighbour is becoming more powerful and is unsure of its intentions than perhaps it may come to the conclusion that war with this up and coming power may be an inevitable conclusion and it would be preferable to strike before the state in question becomes too powerful to defeat. This essentially shows that wars break out due to a lack of information.

Two states may be arguing over a scarce resources (such as a border) and not be getting anywhere in their negotiations. If they both knew the strength of one another then they could accurately access the possibility of victory and perhaps come to the conclusion that one would win and the other lose and then just simply split the scarce resource that way thus avoiding the loss of life, money and well-being that would be involved in fighting the war. Also leaders tend not to initiate these costly and a potentially ruinous affair unless they feel that there is a real chance of victory (or at least the benefits of fighting outweigh the risks and potential hazards of not fighting).

To sum up wars break out because leaders feel

that they have a chance of victory (either stemming from confidence or a lack of information); that there is a general lack of information about the two sides and that the only way to truly understand which is stronger is to fight a war and that, finally, there is a gain to be made from fighting (whether that be territory, resources or simply security).

Having been started it could be argued that war acts as a mean to solve the lack of information, the battlefield outcomes help reduce the uncertainty about which side is stronger and the true balance of power is shown allowing sides to negotiate knowing who has the upper hand. Thus showing that war’s end (or perhaps should end) when the fighting has a presented a clear picture of who will win. As retired U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Bo Gritz aptly put it: “The battlefield is the most honest place on Earth”. Wars are fought with using finite resources like soldiers, raw materials and to some extent public support; these resources will eventually run out and thus the belligerents will be forced to capitulate (as in the case of the Vietnam War where public support, soldiers and money was being lost leading the Americans to the only assumption, that they needed to withdraw from the war). This is the simplest reason why war’s end, that being that they simply cannot go on forever. Another crucial explanation is that the objectives of the stronger side have been fulfilled and that their string of battlefield successes did not lead them to aim for more concessions as some may imagine but simply feel confident that their aims are attainable and once they have been obtained there is simply no need to continue the fight and as the resources that are being consumed (money being sent by governments and manpower being used in the war) are finite and costly so therefore it is better to end the war short of absolute victory having managed to secure their war aims.

Another other issue that relates directly to the termination of wars is the fact that states cannot make binding commitments to one another (or rather that they can but there is no international, all powerful government capable of enforcing the agreements). This means that belligerents may be reluctant to reach an agreement that is short of total victory as they may worry that their agreement will not be upheld. Whilst this is not always the case it is of course far easier for a state to decide to end a war if they know that whatever deal they sign at the end will be upheld one hundred percent and will not be reneged upon.

Therefore from these points we can draw two conclusions, that wars serve to fill an information gap giving belligerents enough evidence to allow them to understand the true balance of power and so to be able to decide accurately; and as well as this a credible commitment problem will encourage a state to fight on; either to absolute victory or certain defeat as they see no hope in surrender. Civil Wars show that groups tend to fight on especially if part of the agreement to end the war involves one side laying down their weapons and thus render themselves defenceless. This seems to show that wars seem to end when the belligerents feel confident not only that they fully understand the balance of power, but also that they are able to sign some kind of settlement and it will be upheld. Even if they have suffered numerous defeats a belligerent is unlikely to give in and sue for peace if their adversary is known to be unreliable at keeping peace deals (if for example the war started because the adversary attacked breaking a previous ceasefire agreement). In this case a belligerent will continue to fight on as long as there is a possibility of victory and the costs of wars have not escalated beyond what can be afforded and what is acceptable. By the costs of war I mean resources such as money and human lives (which in democracies are more likely to

present a major problem to the leaders of a nation fighting a war). When the costs of wars begin to rise and the hope of victory is slim even in the face of credible commitment problems a belligerent is likely to cave in because the alternative struggle will just be too costly and too risky to even consider. This highlights the point that when it comes to the ending of wars a credible commitment problem is perhaps the least important factor.

To illustrate this consider the unconditional surrender to the Allies by Japan in 1945 after the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; they faced massive costs in terms of population and resources fighting to defend Japan as well as the fact that with the invention of the atomic bomb and the total military supremacy of America in the Pacific there was little to no hope of reaching a victory in that theatre of warfare; even despite the fact that Japan had no ability to enforce their terms of surrender and negotiate anything they decided to capitulate supporting the idea that the costs of war and the chance of victory are more important in the decision making process of war termination than commitment issues.

One last point that may greatly influence a belligerent’s willingness to fight on or unwillingness to surrender is the possibility of third party intervention. The American Civil War illustrates this point well, the theory of King Cotton is that the South’s cotton was so fundamental to the economies of many industrialised western nations, such as Britain, that if it seceded the Union and fought a war with it that the Western nations would at least recognise it as a nation and trade with it or in the extreme go to war in order to protect their economic interest there. Britain arguably had the most to lose and yet they did not intervene owing in a large part to the issue that the American Civil War almost become a moral war with the Union fighting on the right side

against slavery in the South (at this point many western nations such as Britain had already abolished slavery) and so they felt that they could not become involved for political reasons despite the fact that many regions in the north of England (such as Lancashire) needed the cotton from the Confederacy which at this point accounted for nearly 77% of all cotton used in production in Great Britain. This is an example of how the possibility of third party intervention can bring about a war. The Korean War fought by America illustrates how important third party intervention is when it comes to war termination; the Americans joined the war thinking that China would not intervene in the theatre of war however soon China began supplying the Koreans with arms, soldiers and machinery. This combination of Chinese aggression, the prospect of invading China in order to secure victory and possibility agitation of the USSR to nuclear strikes meant that America saw no option but to withdraw from the war and create a boundary along the 37th parallel. These two examples show the power that third party intervention possesses and how fundamental a reason it is behind the reason war’s end.

Understanding why wars end and therefore how to end them is crucial in this day and age.

The ability of the UN to act as a mediator and be backed by the ability of nations to unite and use their troops to force an outcome means that the UN is in a very strong position to be able to help end conflicts but in order to do this effectively we must understand why they do end. Wars end when people are unwilling to fight them anymore; if a belligerent has

achieved his wars aims why should he continue to fight, the answer is he should not and probably will not continue to fight. Wars end because during the course of the fighting the balance of power is shown and conclusions are drawn and so sides choose to fight on until they emerge victorious or capitulate as they know there is no hope. Why wars terminate revolve around the belligerent’s objectives of warfare, the lack of information about their relative strengths prior to the outbreak of war, the commitment problems that plague terminations and the possibility of third party intervention swinging wars in favour of the one side or the other. The resolve of opponents and their willingness to fight and ability to mobilise all of their available resources into the theatre also plays a major part in why wars end. The ability of a group to wage war is crucial to their success or failure and so those that fail to do so well will inevitably lose. The reasons that wars do end is because they cannot go on forever, but most importantly that they have objectives that belligerents are trying to achieve and that when war had served its purpose and their ‘bargain’ has been accepted (either the other side has been destroyed or has surrendered) the war comes to its inevitable conclusion. The use of war as a bargaining tool explains why wars do end, because once a belligerent achieves their aims war becomes undesirable. Wars serve a purpose but no one wants to fight a war needlessly costing lives and resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Nations cannot afford to fight wars that never end, they destroy economies, foster hatred amongst the people and consume resources.

To what extent should Shostakovich’s compositions be seen as subversive activity directed against the Soviet Union?

Carl Wikeley A Scene: “The Bolshoi Theatre, comrade.”

“As instructed, Sir.” The rain mercilessly sweeps the ice­ridden streets of outer Moscow, as Dmitry Shostakovich is collected from the train station, in an unmarked government vehicle, heading towards the grand Bolshoi Theatre. Wearing a thick, woollen suit, now sodden from the fervent rain, DS considers his carelessness in leaving his overcoat behind him in the greenroom at Arkhangel’sk.

“And tell me comrade,” DS speaks hurriedly, “will Comrade Stalin be attending tonight’s performance?” No reply is heard from the darkened front cab; DS reaches over the folds of his wet suit to tap on the glass in front.

“Comrade, did you understand me?” “I was instructed not to answer, Sir.” Indeed nothing befalls Stalin more than an unnoticed visit to the theatre. DS remembers watching Stalin steal himself behind a dainty arras before Nijinsky and Diaghilev's performance of Petrushka. Naturally, the two large comrades on either door somewhat enlightened the entire theatre to the Comrade’s presence.

The vehicle turns past Shostakovich’s block, and he notices the hallway light remains on. Notices, but does not observe.

“If you would, step out Sir.” A voice passes through the thick metal of the door, and penetrates his thoughts so far as to uncontrollably rouse his legs into submission. DS is shown into the main entrance of the great Bolshoi Theatre, an entrance he is most unused to attending.

In the towering entrance lobby, DS catches many a glance from theatre-goers, and turns his back on the theatre concourse to grasp one last look at the road outside. The rain has stopped now, but he is still wet. The driver with whom he had exchanged such meaningful words, and who he now observes was somewhat stouter and less defined in demeanour than voice had let on, beckons him towards the staircase leading to the boxes. As they climbed the stairs, the driver speaks once more: “Sir, will you have a cold drink?” “What?”

“I think I ought to have a drink brought to you, Sir.” Confused, and hot despite the frosted winter winds, Shostakovich is glad that he forsook the confounded overcoat.

Having found himself sat in a box to the left hand side of the stage, DS receives the glass of water, unknowing of his uncontrollable shaking. Much of the water falls to the blackened carpet beneath his feet. Shostakovich’s eyes are drawn elsewhere.

On the evening of the 26th January 19, Comrade Stalin attended a packed performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Critics had hailed Shostakovich’s Lulu­esque opera as ‘genius’, and even the People’s Commissar of Education, Andrei Bubnov, allowed the work the party’s seal of approval. However, following Stalin’s premature exit from the theatre, Shostakovich ‘felt the earth open beneath his feet’. Stalin’s subsequent essay in the cultural pamphlet Pravda proved to be an almost fatal attack on the composer that drove him to near suicide. There seemed no way back from the political limbo Shostakovich found himself in, and

feared the same hopelessness that playwright Mikhail Bulgakov had felt upon Stalin’s refusal of his requested emigration. However, after the success of his fifth symphony, both amongst party advocates and liberal critics alike, assured Shostakovich a comparatively fruitful seven years of tolerated composition before his death in August of 1975.

Shostakovich’s symphonies following the fateful performance of Lady Macbeth each contain their own coded references and hidden seditious elements directed towards the Soviet Union, from Lenin through Stalin. Scholars today recognise the subversive manner of the now apparent “psychological and political hints”. However, it is their effectiveness at the time that many suggest determines the composer’s success as a subversive to the communist state. Need a composer be widely recognised as subversive, and need every nuance be picked up by the concert going public, for, as Shostakovich himself surely observed, this could not be possible in Stalin’s police state. Just as Thomas Paine’s ‘The Rights of Man’ was sold in numbers beyond 200,000, reaching millions of the newly politicised working class, and subsequently halted in its progress by William Pitt’s Treasonous Practices Act, so too was the Russian composer aware of his restrictions and commitment to Stalin’s wishes. The reaction of the soviet people, their highly regarded critics, together with the composer’s relationship with the ‘Red Tsar’ determine Shostakovich’s success as a subversive composer.

Firstly, it would be sensible to define what one means by ‘subversive compositional methods’. Take as a prime example, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Hailed by Stalin as a great tale of the ascendency of communism and success of the workers, for the premier, one movement was even entitled, “The Workers strive hard in the fields”. However, look closer and one finds quite the opposite to what western critics dismissed as eastern propaganda, with one critic writing of the final movement: “In some episodes the music can elicit an almost physical sense of pain.” Western critics saw this simply as blatant propaganda regarding the final transcendence of Stalin and communism over the destruction of capitalism, however, more recently, scholars have drawn parallels between the theme in the final movement of Symphony No. 5, and a later work of Shostakovich’s, Robert Burns’s ‘MacPherson’s Farewell’ in a musical setting which exploits a funeral march to the words, “Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, sae dauntingly, gaed he,” whilst the hood­esque out­law and hero is led towards the ‘galler’s tree’. With this hindsight, many have suggested that it is Shostakovich’s real intention in the finale, not to portray a festive and jubilant propagandist march, but rather to depict a ghastly and horrid march of the innocent to their execution, an idea perhaps citing the Stalinist purges and the ‘Great Terror’ of the period, most acutely felt by Shostakovich himself. Indeed, modern scholars are still noting undiscovered quotes from the ‘Marche au Supplice’ from Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie Fantastique’, furthering the notion of procession towards execution, and intense terror.

As a wartime example, we can observe and analyse Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, commonly known as his ‘Leningrad’ symphony, in historical and political context. On September 1st 1941, Shostakovich himself spoke on Leningrad radio, “Our art is threatened with great danger”. Immediately, this statement is one of triumphant nationalism in the face of the Nazi invasion of Russia with Operation Barbarossa. This, certainly is true, and parallels the idea of Shostakovich as an ‘affirming flame’; indeed Shostakovich continues emphatically, “We will defend our Music”2 . However, Shostakovich’s style as a composer is such that he said of himself, “I think slowly, but I write fast.” By this, we mean that the ideas that would combine to create his seventh symphony were probably appearing within his mind before the invasion on the Sunday 22 June, 1941. Thus far, the frenetic and grotesque theme that appears as a march and becomes slowly more sinister, may also echo the Purges that had expunged

so many of Shostakovich’s contemporaries. Furthermore, recent interpretations have cited Ludmila Mikheyeva, musicologist and daughter­in­law of one of Shostakovich’s dearest friends, as she states that Shostakovich had been seen to play through the variations on the March theme to his students at the Leningrad Conservatory even before Russia entered the war, proving that perhaps there is a darker, more proximal side to Shostakovich’s warnings. Exiled intellectuals would certainly have been quick to hear the sinister intentions in the growing intensity of the March theme. Here, perhaps, is the most significant point: the blackhearted, bombastic theme arrives at its frenzied finale in an almost inevitable manner, but most tellingly it arrives from a piano dynamic, and as such arrives from the very depths of the last movement. This is perhaps a metaphor: the fear that arises from the inside, the state of fear that was the Soviet Union. So, this goes some way in defining the notion of ‘subversive compositional methods, but how ought one to measure effectiveness?

In order to dissect the notion of effectiveness, it is necessary to distil the motion further; under what parameters does one define ‘effective’. Firstly, and perhaps most significantly, we must understand Shostakovich’s mind-set, and his motivations for composition (and subversion). What was it that the composer wished to achieve through his music?

It seems likely that Shostakovich wished to reach out to the cultural elite in Moscow, to become one of those to whom Stalin directed his slander, but with whom he was collectively protected from the iron fist of communism. To become a part of the exclusive and closed intellectual class promised security from blacklisting, as the Committee for State Security could not afford to display any interest in the ‘suspicious’ activities of artists to whom Europe’s attention and devotion was directed. Foreign opinion was important to the Soviet Regime, and Shostakovich was held in high esteem throughout the majority of mainland Europe; his Leningrad Symphony No. 7 received its European premiere just three months after its premiere at Kuybyshev, with Sir Henry J Wood conducting the London Philharmonic in a rapturously received performance. It is with huge irony that Stalin’s promotion of Shostakovich as the ‘people’s composer’ of Russia led to the waning of his popularity in Europe: many western European critics.

However, to measure the effectiveness of Shostakovich’s subversive compositional methods in bringing about widespread support from the intellectual elite in order to gain protection from fascist attacks, we must firstly observe reactions, responses and utterances from the cultural camps. We must be cautious in dividing those who praise the methods of Shostakovich, and those who criticise his Pravda nemesis. Negative cohesion will not prove his case here - party man Dobronitzky is clear to assert “I’m not a devotee of Shostakovich’s”, whilst poet L. Slavin states “I don’t love Shostakovich”, before adding the caveat. Furthermore, the Russian composer Kochmoytov is somewhat pessimistic in his reaction to the attacks in Pravda, not uttering words of encouragement, rather that “this article kills Shostakovich”. However, Shostakovich does appear to have gained the support of many from the artistic community, with the poet Gatov stating that “I view this attack on Shostakovich as a Pogrom”, and Shostakovich’s colleague Miaskovsky musing that without Shostakovich, the world of music would be “overwhelmed by wretchedness and primitiveness”. Therefore we can see that although some aspect of negative cohesion may be mistaken for genuine approval and support, Shostakovich certainly aroused a great awareness and incited anger towards Stalin and the regime which he could only benefit from.

However, as with any significant argument, we cannot simply assume the obvious; was it Shostakovich’s real intention to be both subversive and seditious? One assumes that the exit of Stalin at the Bolshoi theatre, and the subsequent attacks in Pravda could not have completely swayed Shostakovich to the Soviet linientreu position, and caused him to concede to the party line.

Nonetheless, such a photograph of Shostakovich in the official Leningrad Fireman’s outfit does nothing to dispel suspicion:

Indeed, Shostakovich took pleasure in being received rapturously in his official outfit. Perhaps, therefore, the hidden messages and subtext of Shostakovich’s later works are simply afterthoughts; little reminders of the effect of tyranny, and not deliberately malicious. Furthermore, the reception in the West, as explained, left a lot to be desired by Shostakovich, if his intention was to raise awareness of the Soviet regime; many in the west felt his 7th Symphony was simply too long (coming in at around 1 hour and 20 minutes, it certainly rivalled those of Mahler), and his works in general were little performed until the publication of Simon Volkov’s ‘Testimony’ in 1975. Musically, Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony was effective in raising the morale of the Soviet Red Army during the war, and was touted as a work of great nationalist potential. Simon Volkov, in his text Shostakovich and Stalin seems rueful about the east’s use of the symphony, writing that “it was invariably listed among the masterpieces and transformed into one of the most potent cultural propaganda symbols of the Great Patriotic war”. However, this does not really give credit to the positive effect it had on the war effort, and surely Shostakovich, a man proud of his origins and of his country, held with a nationalistic fervour the internal reception Leningrad received. Moreover, Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony begins in C major, the first to begin in a bright key since the fateful night at the Bolshoi. This perhaps shows a genuine nationalistic love for his country, and the men who fought for it, that, in many ways, dilutes the political sarcasm in which it is otherwise drenched.

However, this line of argument forsakes the real relationship between Shostakovich and the fascist regime. It is possible that this apparent contradiction between the artist and the nationalist can be consoled; Shostakovich can be a subversive and sarcastic composer, whose work is doused in seditious messages, whilst simultaneously being true to his country, a position which perhaps somewhat dilutes the political scathing, and necessitates the undercover nature of his anti-Soviet criticism.

So, as we can see, the impact of Stalin’s exit at the Bolshoi caused a perhaps more mature Shostakovich to emerge, both politically and artistically. He did all he could to warn of the continent of the dangers of fascism, whilst reconciling his position with the Moscow cultural elite. A man of both nationalistic and cynical tendencies, Shostakovich’s subversive compositional methods were hidden, but recognised in time, and the very fact that his popularity in the east and west saved him from the fate of many does much to credit his political and artistic guile. __________________________________________________________________________________

A Woman Called Humphry: The story of the leader of the anti-suffrage movement Mrs Helen Loader In a newspaper article entitled ‘Mary Quite Contrary’ by Fran Abrams in the Times Educational Supplement in 2003, the leader stated that ‘despite being a fierce opponent of the suffragette movement Mary Ward made remarkable breakthroughs in education for women and children in the early 20th Century.’ Why would a woman decide to lead the political campaign to try and stop women being given the vote? This question has intrigued me for the best part of ten years as a historian of education. This article will first provide a brief background the types of sources consulted in the research of Mary’s life and work and discuss and her main achievements as an educator of the general public. The remainder of the article will discuss why her activities have been hidden behind the most notorious role she played as Mrs Humphry Ward: the leader of the anti-suffrage movement.

The first step in any historical study involves biographical research. This is not always straight forward, as comparatively few ordinary Victorian and Edwardian women left formal traces of their lives outside of their male relatives’ records and archives. However, In Mary’s case the opposite is true. Records exist in a variety of forms in archives and libraries all over Britain and America. These include both published and unpublished primary sources.

Unpublished sources include: manuscripts of her novels, transcripts of her speeches, notes and minutes of committee meetings, letters and diaries. Published sources include her novels, plays, pamphlets, translations,

prefaces and newspaper and magazine articles.

The reason for the abundance of records is that Mary Ward was one of the most famous novelists of the late Victorian and Edwardian period, and she published thirty one books, most of which were novels. All of her fictional work was published using her husband’s name, Mrs Humphry Ward, whilst her translations, articles and prefaces to the many other works that she composed were published as Mary. A. Ward, and this explains why she is always referred to as ‘Mrs Humphry Ward’. Mary was also the granddaughter of one of the most famous educationalists of the Victorian era, Dr

Arnold of Rugby public school. Her father Tom, Dr Arnold’s second son, moved to New Zealand to take up a piece of Land but later moved to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) to help establish an education system as an inspector.

He married Julia Sorrell, the Governor’s

Mary Ward 1851-1920

daughter and Mary was born in Tasmania in 1851. In 1856, the family had to come to England when her father’s desire to convert to the Catholic Church meant he would have to give up his job, which was controlled by the Anglican Church.

The majority of the males in the Arnold family were involved in British education in a range of ways, as founders of schools, inspectors and writers but like many middle-class Victorian families, the females played supporting and dependent roles in their husbands’ and fathers’ lives. It is not surprising given her background therefore, that Mary became such an avid campaigner for education in Britain during her life. This is despite the difficult life

she had, as she was practically abandoned by her family and only received a poor academic education as a reduced-fee boarder in small privately run schools. Her education mostly comprised of what are now seen as gendered subjects, for example sewing, music and languages. Provisions for middle-class girls’ education was severely limited at that time in comparison to her brothers, who attended good public schools in Birmingham and Rugby and then went on to Oxford University.

Mary was highly intelligent however, and when her father converted back to the Anglican Church she was eventually allowed to come to live in Oxford when she was seventeen. As a woman, Mary could not be admitted as a formal student in the Colleges of the University but with the help of some of the tutors at Lincoln and Balliol Colleges, she gained access to the Bodleian Library and effectively taught herself. There were very few career opportunities open to Mary as a young woman, and her family was practically penniless. Using her social connections with the Arnold family, she met and learned from many of the most famous intellectual people of her generation. She eventually became more successful than any of her male Arnold relatives, when she wrote her most famous novel, Robert Elsmere in 1888. The novel was about religion and it established her as a highly intellectual and sought after writer and public figure. Over the course of her life she went on to write countless articles, novels, translations, plays, supporting her family, her parents and many of her brothers and sisters. Mrs Humphry Ward was far from what is generally considered to be a typical Victorian woman.

Mary’s other passion in life was education: she was the leading figure in establishing Somerville College in 1879, which was one of the first Colleges to provided women’s higher education in Oxford University. As a talented scholar of Spanish language and literature,

Mary was invited to be the first female examiner of men in modern languages, in the Taylor Institute in Oxford University in the early 1880s. Her most successful educational ventures, however, stemmed from a scheme she established, University Hall, in Bloomsbury in London. This was part of what is termed the ‘Social Settlement Movement’, where educated men and women with University backgrounds came to live in residencies in poor areas of cities to study and gain social work experience. Mary’s Settlement, University Hall, and later The Passmore Edwards Settlement provided lectures, religious instruction, and reading evenings for the local inhabitants but the most valuable service they provided were the evening and holiday play centres for the local children. In 1918, Mary and her committee successfully lobbied the government to provide education for younger children and ‘The Mary Ward Clause’ was adopted into Fisher’s Education Bill. This changed the lives of families with children who had physical disabilities as Mary ensured that they were included in the provisions, which were: to provide for children attending a public elementary school, Vacation Schools, Play Centres, or means of recreation during their holidays or at such other times as the Local Education Authority may prescribe1 As such a famous woman, Mary’s reputation was esteemed in America, and her ideas for the play centres originated in a scheme she had visited whilst touring and lecturing in Chicago.

Mary became friendly with Theodore Roosevelt, and her most prestigious role came at his request that she report on the British War Effort during the First World War. She became the first woman to visit and report 1

The text of Fisher’s Education Act of 1918 can be accessed: Derek Gillard, "Education in England: A Brief History," (2011), (accessed December, 2013)

from the Trenches in northern Europe, through a series of letters later published in books and translated into several languages. Many people at the time considered that Mary’s writings were so popular in America that they were instrumental in persuading America to join the Allied Forces in WW1.

So, I have come to the conclusion that through the popularity of her writing, together with the far-reaching successes of the social reforms she established in Bloomsbury, Mary contributed more towards the improvement of education for women, children and the poor than almost any other person at that time. So why have so few people heard of her – and why, having been so committed to help improve the British education system and the education of her readers, did she not believe that women should have the right to vote?

Although you, as students of the 21st Century, might not be surprised to know that most men agreed with Mary. You might be very surprised to know that at first, most women agreed with Mary too. She was not mad, however, and she had valid reasons for her beliefs. The men who persuaded her to head the campaign were equally astute. What better tactic could they have come up with? It was genius – divide and rule. As a famous well-connected woman in Britain in America, it turns out that Mary Ward had no need of a vote to get her opinion heard by other politicians – she just invited them to lunch or dinner. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement and a very successful ploy.

Through her indirect intervention, she ensured that the government funded thousands of children to attend play and evening centres during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. This is one of the most plausible reasons why Mary agreed to their demands to

<http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents /pdfs/1918-education-act.pdf>.

head the petition opposing female suffrage.

The Passmore Edwards Settlement, now called the Mary Ward Centre still operates successfully in London as an adult educational centre. So was the funding and support she received from political figures the only reason she was she agreed to campaign for the other side, as it were – the anti-suffrage movement?

After ten years of researching her novels, life and work I have concluded that there are several reasons but they can be traced to how Mary saw the role of middle-class women in society. As the leader of the National League for Anti-Suffrage, Mary was persuaded to head and publish a petition that set out the five main reasons for the opposition to female suffrage at that time. Mary agreed to head the petition of 104 eminent British women in the world of education, literature and public service. It was published in the Nineteenth Century Magazine in June 1889 as ‘An Appeal Against Female Suffrage’ and those who signed it included many of her Oxford women connections such as: Charlotte Green, Alice Green, Louise Creighton, Georgina Müller, Charlotte Toynbee and Lucy Soulsby.

The first claim in the petition was that women by ‘nature’ were different to men and therefore suited to political activities within their communities and not through Government. The second section asserted that women by ‘nature’ were moral and should use this to benefit their communities. The third section warned of the moral dangers that would result from changes to the structure of society because ‘large numbers of [unmarried] women leading immoral lives will be franchised’.2 The fourth section claimed that the majority of British people were not in favour or prepared for suffrage being extended to women. The final part of the ‘Appeal’ 2

Mrs Humphry Ward, "An Appeal against Female Suffrage", p. 412.

claimed that legal injustices limiting women were best challenged through their influence over men but Mary reiterated that it was ‘safer and wiser to trust to organisation and self-help on their own part…. than to the exercise of a political right which may easily bring women into direct and hasty conflict with men.’3 A series of replies were published in response to the article by leading suffragists, who were scathing of the way in which it claimed that women were unsuited to having the vote.

After the furore died down, Mary took much more interest in uniting all sides of the female suffrage debate. These activities included her work on the Joint Advisory Committee 1913, which she set up to try and bring antisuffragists and suffragists together with members of the House of Commons. In this role, Mary took a ‘positive’ stance. Her view was that women should, first and foremost, become engaged actively in promoting education and welfare in their communities rather than focussing their attention in campaigning for the vote. She believed that this would improve the education of society as a whole, because together with the other antisuffrage supporters and campaigners, they considered women had innate qualities. In their view, women were by their nature, better equipped to look after the morals and welfare of society and that men’s roles were to guide the country and Empire through Parliamentary work. So, in Mary’s eyes, the violence and ‘unwomanly’ behaviour of the suffragettes who were throwing themselves at horses in the streets and starving themselves in prison was completely abhorrent. The sight and thought of preserving ‘respectability’ was uppermost in the minds of women like Mary, and the behaviour of the suffragettes went against everything she considered inappropriate for women. Mary also distanced 3

Mrs Humphry Ward, "An Appeal against Female Suffrage", p. 413.

herself from the gendered suppositions of women and health, which pervaded the debates surrounding female suffrage as she refused to corroborate claims made by the anti-suffragists that suffragettes suffered from hysteria. The wider issue at stake concerned the ‘Women Question’, and much of what has been written about Victorian women revolves around this issue of what women’s roles, capabilities and responsibilities were. Mary took the side that women were different but equal and that men and women should work together. She hated the ‘anti-man feeling’ that appeared to form the basis for much of the anger displayed by the suffragettes. Mary did believe that women should have the vote eventually, but considered that so few women were well enough educated at that time and allowing them to vote would be detrimental to the stability of the country. And by ‘responsibly’ the middle-classes obviously meant that women should not simply vote according to their husbands’ views.

The reason that the anti-suffrage campaign was so successful for so long (they did not give up until the Act of 1918) lay in the rising fear of the middle-classes of socialism, presented by the growing number and voices of the working classes. So, it wasn’t only men versus women in the battle for the vote, it was a class struggle for power and control of land and capital.

Bubbling in the undercurrents of late Victorian society, were the labour disputes of the factory workers in towns and cities, who felt they were exploited, badly paid and suffered dangerous working conditions. Added to this, the miners’ complaints were bringing strike actions, which were crippling the coal pits and the rural poor were rising in anger at their increasing inability to feed themselves. This was aggravated by the extension of the Ground Game Acts. These acts brought harsh penalties to anyone caught poaching for much needed food from the game, fish and animals on farmers’ who rented

land (previously only the landlords had this right). The land, factory and mine owners argued that rising labour costs could not be paid due the increasing competition from Europe.

Although Mary continued to support the play centres and invalid children’s education until she died, she also maintained her views on suffrage until 1918, when the first legislation was passed that would enable women to vote.

Her decision eventually caused her and her novels to become very unpopular: forgotten and disowned by subsequent generations of men and women. Most literary criticism of her works either looks at her religious novels, such as Robert Elsmere, or categorise her as an antiwoman and anti-suffragist. Her most fierce critics at the time were the writers, Virginia Woolf and Rebecca West, and Mary is often now referred to as Ma Hump!

Mary’s two daughters, Janet Trevelyan and Dorothy Ward assumed most of the responsibility for running and organisation of the play centres, along with Mary’s most devoted assistant, Miss Bessie Churcher. Sadly, little is written about the valiant efforts of these women and all the supporters and play workers whose efforts to educate their communities are much underrated and unrecognised. Whilst women, such as Emily Davis and Anne Jemima Clough, who established large girls’ schools, are commemorated in histories of education, the life and work of Mary Ward is rarely noted. In my view, Mary was not as terrible as she has been portrayed in recent accounts of women’s history, as an anti-feminist. Her novels and books present a wonderful insight into the religious, social and political life of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. On balance, she was somewhat miss-guided by her views of class and on women’s nature, which were deeply entrenched in the religious beliefs of Victorian society: women were different to

men. Her beliefs were underpinned by her European white middle-class view of the world. This view, which she maintained until the end of her life in 1920, was that society could only progress if men and women played different but equal roles but most important, that they had to be educated to perform those roles. The irony, of course is that whilst Mary fought to try and stop women gaining a political voice, she was engaged in all manner of political activity!

I would have loved to have been able to conclude this article by saying that Mary Ward was forced to support the men who asked her to campaign against the vote, as I first presumed when I asked the question of ‘why’ as an undergraduate student ten years ago. I have found no evidence to support this, so instead, my conclusion is that Mary Ward was a woman who had strong convictions and campaigned throughout her life for what she believed in. However, the tendency, for women’s history to be configured around feminism and ‘the vote’ has meant that a significant number of remarkable women, like Mary Ward, have been cast out as they neither

fit the bill as heroines who fought men, nor victims who were oppressed by men. So, as you begin to think about history, remember that it is not about winners and losers, nor is it about who did what to whom or when. ‘Why’ is question that drives the majority of historians to look beyond the first evidence they are presented with. The answers to this question may be unpalatable at times and not what one might expect, as it has been for me as I come to the end of my research as a PhD student this month. The important thing to bear in mind is that knowledge is always established by those who have the power to ask the questions and they will seek to control how the answers are told and to whom they are told. That is what makes history so fascinating to me. My advice to all students of history, or indeed any subject is that whenever you are presented with statement, you must always find out who first asked the question and why and who paid them! There are many answers to most questions in life and they are rarely consistent or straight forward. The best we can do as students is to ensure that we keep asking the questions.

Helene Mayer: Heroine or Villain?

Dr. Chantal Simon

Like many descendants of those Jewish people who fled Germany prior to the Second World War, I was told little about my father’s family history. There are many reasons for that. My father was too young when he left Germany to remember most of those left behind and as he grew up didn’t want to be stigmatised as an outsider; therefore he learned not to talk about his past. My grandfather died before I was born; and my grandmother was plagued by survivor’s guilt. She did not like to talk - or even think - about those left behind; once she left Germany, she completely disregarded all that she knew before and threw herself into the harsh reality of survival as an ‘enemy alien’ with limited English and no money in blitz-torn London. As a child and young adult, I never really thought about where my family came from. My father spoke English with a perfect English accent, and he was never religious.

My mother was English and not even Jewish. I grew up in a middle class household in London, went to an ordinary school and had ordinary friends. Therefore, from my perspective, I came from an ordinary English family and didn’t think to question it. That all changed after my father died. Whilst clearing out his office, tucked behind the drawers of his desk, we found an old, dusty cardboard box.

To our surprise, it was packed with letters, documents and pictures about his family life before he came to England. The documents were not ordered in any way and much was in old German, handwritten script, so it was hard to form a coherent story. It has taken years to untangle and decipher the information from the box, but from it have emerged a number of fascinating stories waiting to be told. This is just one of those stories.

Helene Mayer was born in Offenbach am Main. Her father, Ludwig Karl Mayer, was born in Mainz, a town not far away, to a Jewish family. He was trained as a doctor and in 1906 opened a medical practice in Offenbach. Her mother, Ida Becker, was of the Lutheran religion by birth, although as in many mixed-religion families, religion did not play a large role in family life. Helene was the middle child of three, with an older brother, Ernst (born 1909), and a younger brother, Ludwig (born 1916).

From an early age, Helene was good at sport. She was tall and athletic in build and had very fast reactions. She particularly excelled at fencing, progressing through local competitions until she won the German women’s foil championship in 1924 at the age of just 13. At the age of 17, she was picked for the German Olympic team and won a gold medal at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. She followed this with European Championships in 1929 and 1931, and World Championships in 1929, 1930 and 1931.

Helene’s father was very keen that all his children received a good education. Helene was clever and alongside her fencing training, she studied to become a lawyer at Universities in Germany and France.

She was particularly pleased to be offered a scholarship to continue her studies at the University of South California after competing in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. However, times were changing. The worldwide depression and crippling debt that Germany carried after the First World War had led to great unrest in Germany. Hitler, a radical right wing leader, had swept to power. He was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30th January 1933 and within weeks was making sweeping

changes to exclude Jews from German Society. Although only half-Jewish, and very Aryan in appearance (tall, blond and blue-eyed), Helene was not exempt. Under the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Hitler’s government classified her as a first-degree ‘Mischling’ because she had two Jewish grandparents. The term ‘Mischling’ literally means ‘mixture’ or ‘of mixed race’ but in the German language it is a derogatory word used to describe mongrel dogs. Therefore, just the label ‘Mischling’ implied the person was of unequal status compared to pure bred ‘Aryan’ German citizens.

Even living in California, the ripples from these radical changes affected Helene. On 7 th April 1933, Hitler had passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This effectively banned anyone ‘non-Aryan’ from working as a lawyer in Germany and deprived Helene of the career that she was working towards. She was forced to change her degree in California to the study of comparative literature and later to social work.

In 1934, Helene was expelled from Offenbach Fencing Club because of her Jewish heritage. She said in a newspaper interview at the time that it was ‘one of the little ironies in life’ that she had a framed letter in her trophy cabinet from the club stating how proud they were that she was a member that had been sent to her after her gold-medal winning victory at the Amsterdam Olympics, just 6 years previously.

The Summer Olympics were due to be held in Berlin in 1936 and were fast approaching. Helene was still at the top of the world fencing rankings and was keen to compete. As she had competed for Germany in 1928 and 1932, under Olympic rules she was not allowed to compete for any other country. However, under the new anti-Semitic regime in Germany, no Jewish athletes were being selected to compete for the German team.

But, the German policy not to select Jewish athletes was in breach of Olympic regulations stating that team selection should be made on the basis of merit alone and not on factors such as race or religion.

This had not gone unnoticed internationally and high profile moves were made to object to the German stance by a number of international athletics associations, most notably the American Athletics Association, which was set to send the largest team to the Games. Calls were made for the Games to be moved to another country or boycotted.

Either a move or a boycott would have been a public relations disaster for the Nazis. Therefore, in order to prove that there was no policy to exclude Jews from the German Olympic team, as a concession Hitler invited Helene to be a part of the 1936 German women’s fencing squad to compete in the single foil event in Berlin. She was one of only two Jewish representatives on the German team.

Other talented German Jewish athletes, such as the world champion high jumper Gretel Bergmann, were not selected. This left Helene with a dilemma. She had become a token Jewish competitor for the German Olympic team and thus had been put in the spotlight as a political pawn on an international stage. She was strongly urged by prominent members of the American Jewish community and other Jewish athletes to boycott the games, but she chose to compete.

I don’t think we will ever really know why she made that decision, but there are a number of possible reasons. Helene was an athlete who loved to compete and for whom this would undoubtedly be her last Olympic Games; she had underperformed at the 1932 Olympics picking up fifth place overall and was disappointed with that result; perhaps she simply couldn’t let her last chance for Olympic gold slip away? She also considered herself to be German first and foremost, so perhaps the opportunity to compete at an Olympic Games on her home soil was too much of a temptation for her? Another more sinister possibility is that she agreed to compete to help her family. Although her father had died in 1931, her mother and two ‘Mischling’ brothers still lived in Germany. Her mother was ill and Helene stated in many letters from America that she wished that she could be with her. Helene may have bought her family concessions and safety by agreeing to compete. She hinted at this by stating publicly at the time that she was looking forward to ‘reuniting’ her family through the Games.

Whatever her reasons for going, Helene’s performance at the Berlin Olympics was memorable.

Ironically, in the final rounds she met two other half-Jewish competitors, Ilona Schacherer of Hungary, and the defending Olympic Champion, Ellen Preis of Austria. Helene’s final matches were cliff-hangers but she fought hard and drew both. Preis lost her match against Schacherer and so Schacherer took the gold, Mayer the silver and Preis the bronze. This prompted one of the most controversial moments of Olympic history, and is the event for which Helene Mayer is most famous. When the 1936 Berlin Olympics women’s single foil medal ceremony took place, like all her other German team mates, Helene performed a crisp ‘Heil Hitler’ salute on the podium after her medal was awarded and as the winners’ national flags were raised.

Why did Helene do that? I suspect that she was simply following orders. She was almost certainly worried for the safety of her family, and probably feared for her own safety if she did not comply; but that did not stop the tide of international criticism that followed.

So, was Helene accepted back into German society after her 1936 Olympic performance? Sadly she wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. She went on to win the Fencing World Championships again in 1937 but continued to live in the United States. Although she had a good life in America, she never felt at home there, and in 1952 she returned to live in Munich. She married Baron Erwin Falkner von Sonnenberg, but soon after died from breast cancer - just 2 months before her 43rd birthday. However, perhaps most pertinently, both her brothers, and their families, survived the Second World War living in Germany completely unharmed.

Was the American use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?

Matthew Barber

Background information

In May 1945 the war in Europe had ended with the final Axis forces surrendering. However in the east, the war was still going on. American forces were moving ever closer to the home islands of Japan, fighting for one island at a time. Japanese forces were dwindling but their fighting got even more ferocious the closer the Americans got to Japan itself. The Japanese code of Bushido (way of the warrior) was a major part of each soldier’s state of mind and the concept of Yamato-Damashii said that each soldier should never surrender, never be captured and never break down. This made fighting for the Americans very difficult since the Japanese would simply never give up. When islands were finally captured, very few prisoners were taken since all remaining civilians had performed mass suicides instead of being captured. So when finally all the islands apart from the home islands has been captured, the thought of a full scale invasion of Japan was not a welcome one. An ultimatum was presented to Japan called the Potsdam declaration on the 25 of July, 1945 which in simple form said either Japanese surrenders or expect, “prompt and utter destruction” The utter destruction meant an atomic bomb because on the 16th of July 1945, the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb in New Mexico. The Japanese ignored the ultimatum and on the 6th of August, a nuclear bomb called little boy was dropped by a US B-29 bomber on Hiroshima and killed almost 80,000 people within the first few seconds after detonation. Anyone within a kilometre of the hypo centre would have been vaporised almost instantly. 3 days later on the 9th of August, the nuclear bomb “fat man” was dropped onto Nagasaki killing around 50,000 people instantly. In total from both of these bombings around 200,000 civilians died from being killed instantly or cancer or burns later. On the 14 of August, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito made a broadcast to the nation that Japan had accepted the allied terms of surrender and the war in the East was over

A justified act?

After the final taking of all the islands apart from the Japanese home islands, there were plans for a full scale invasion of Japan called Operation Downfall. It would include American, British and Commonwealth troops. It included 2 parts; Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Operation Olympic was planned to take over the south most island, Kyushu, staged from the recently captured Okinawa. Then Operation Coronet would be to invade Honshu, the largest Japanese island. If Operation Downfall had taken place it would have been the largest amphibious invasion of any kind.

The justification of the use of the atom bomb came from the predicted casualties for the operation.

The Americans estimated between 250,000 and 1 million American casualties. The operation would have continued into 1946 with more casualties predicted if the invasion continued longer. It wasn't just allied deaths, Japanese civilian deaths were also predicted to be high. The Truman administration could have done this or drop the bombs on Hiroshima saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Another justification was that the use of these weapons was part of Total War which means the whole nation is at war including all resources which are used for the war effort. In the case of Japan and the USA, total war meant the atom bomb was justified because it was just another part of war, a weapon, just a very powerful one. In total war there is less of a differentiation between civilian and soldier since they are all fighting for that belligerent. Therefore a war against the people of Japan can also be justified to a certain extent because they also were indirectly fighting against the United States.

The use of the bomb can also be justified by the fact that the Japanese government was not willing to surrender since it would be dishonourable and neither were the soldiers (see background information). Instead of wasting allied soldiers lives trying to conquer the entirety of Japan the atomic bomb could be used to shock the Japanese so much by its destructive power that they have to surrender, otherwise they would be completely annihilated. Even though the civilian government was trying to begin peace negotiations with the allies, they had to have unanimous support from the Japanese war cabinet and that was something they could not get. This was because representatives from the Japanese imperial army and navy would veto the decision. At one point it seemed that the government was happy to accept the terms of unconditional surrender of Japan as long as the Emperor remained. However foreign minister Togo would not allow it, saying, “Although it is apparent that there will be more casualties on both sides in case the war is prolonged, we will stand as united against the enemy if the enemy forcibly demands our unconditional surrender.”

An unjustified act?

The opposing argument is that the bomb usage was unjustified for a number of reasons, the first being that it was not needed for any military purpose. In 1945 the planned Operation Downfall would have brought around a Japanese surrender quite quickly. The Japanese army had been decimated and very few Japanese soldiers were still alive. Their remaining defences had all been concentrated on the island of Kyushu, which was where they predicted quite correctly where the allies would land first.

Once the allies had overcome these defences, there was very little standing in their way to take Honshu and the other islands. In addition to this was that after the war in Europe, the Soviet Union was planning an invasion of the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido. With a war on 2 fronts, it wouldn't have been long before the Japanese sought for peace. In 1946, Paul Nitze of the Strategic Bombing Survey wrote that, “Even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.”

This report clearly said that without the atomic bomb, the air supremacy over japan would have soon put enough pressure on Japan to unconditionally surrender, without the need for an invasion as well.

Also Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief if the USA pacific fleet, said that:

”The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan”

The mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rises 18 km (60,000 ft) into the air.

By the time of the bombings, American B-29 bombers had been pounding Japan with wave after wave of incendiary air raids, bombing major cities such as Tokyo and Kobe. Since most of the Japanese buildings were still made out of wood, huge firestorms rose up all over Japan destroying vast tracts of city killings thousands. By this time in 1945, war had brutalised the American leaders and for them it was ok that 125,000 Japanese had died in one air raid. For them the bomb was just another type of bomb that would kill just more Japanese civilians. There was never a moral decision with regards to the atomic bomb. There is also another reason for this lack of morality when deciding whether to use the bomb because American propaganda of WWII had made out that the Japanese were a sub-human and like monkeys or vermin. This dehumanisation may have been part of the rather immoral decision made.

Others can argue that the bombings were war crimes and a crime against humanity on the most basic levels. Many high profile members of the Manhattan Project opposed the use of the bomb including Albert Einstein and Dr. James Franck. James Franck and 7 other scientists wrote to President Roosevelt saying that the USA would bring destruction to mankind and would also stop the race for armaments since this type of weapon was so powerful, all other weapons were meaningless. Many other people have stated their views on how the bombs are crimes against humanity including the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The mayor of Nagasaki said, “The use of nuclear weapons therefore is a manifest infraction of international law.”

Another argument is that the use of bomb, being militarily unnecessary, was just to show the Soviet Union how powerful the USA was since the Americans were afraid of the USSR and the spread of

communism. This is one of the main reasons for the Korean and Vietnam wars. In WWII, the USA and the USSR had been thrown together as allies against Axis forces and had to fight with each other. For the war America had to accept this but was clearly not pleased with having to work with communists.

To show the USSR how much more powerful they were, the USA used the bomb on Japan, a perfect target. The use of the bomb can be seen as the start of the Cold War. Conclusion From all of this information I have gathered, there are a number of different sides to the argument.

Of course we have the justified and not justified arguments but within these there are more arguments and opinions. The American opinion which is a very important one with this debate up until the 1960s was that the bomb was justified. Their reasons were that the bomb ended the war and saved thousands of American lives. However it seems from other evidence I have read is that the Americans, even after news of the horrors of the bomb began to filter into the news, their opinion didn't change drastically at all. The Americans did not, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Probe for the truth behind the bomb, or even ask tough questions about what we were being told.â&#x20AC;? This paints a picture for me of the Americans knowing about how horrific the bombs were but not wanting to know. It was out of sight out of mind.

The Japanese opinion has been that the bomb was good since it ended the war however the atrocities it occurred to people was unforgivable.

From all of this evidence I have gathered and using sources of information from the time my conclusion is that the use of the atomic bombs was morally unjustified for the reasons such as it was inhumane and the sickness it left behind years after was horrific. However I cannot say that it was just morals involved in the decision to use this weapon. From the point of view of the Americans I agree that the bomb was justified for military use. I believe that Operation Downfall would have taken too long and since there was another option which saved lives, the atom bomb was right. Because of so much evidence on both sides of the argument I believe that we can't come to an absolute justified, unjustified opinion. But that we must make our own opinion on each aspect of the argument. The fact that no further atomic bombs have been dropped in an act of war since Nagasaki and Hiroshima, points to while it is the ultimate weapon, which has led to nuclear build ups by nations, it is also the weapon which the human race can never afford to use again.

So while the debate of morality will continue, perhaps the lesson of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is that through the experience of dropping the bomb and its aftermath, we have learnt that it can never happen again.

George and the Dragon Or An Everyday Story of Victorian Racing Folk Mr VK Diver

In the annals of the nineteenth century the name of Lord William George Frederick Cavendish, commonly known as Lord George Bentinck, is not writ large. True, he has splendid contenders for greater popular fame- from conquerors on sea and land, from reformers and empire builders to earnest and mischievous Prime Ministers and immortal wordsmiths. The list of those who jostle for glory is almost endless and yet this obsessive, driven aristocrat, in focusing on one aspect of his country’s malaise, can be remembered as a significant catalyst, albeit one of many, in the gradual transformation from England’s swaggering, uncaring, hedonistic Georgian past into the outwardly paternal, pious, pompous Victorian era with which we are familiar. His is a story which encompasses an attack upon one of England’s treasured institutions, dogged detective work plus some slightly irregular arm-twisting, a sensational court hearing and the final unmasking of a dastardly set of villains amidst countrywide publicity, thus strengthening the hand of social reformers at a pivotal moment of English domestic history. The irony lies in the fact that Lord George’s contribution to improving one area where, as one observer has put it, “what we know as Victorianism took its first tentative steps” had little to do with his concern for the greater good. In fact, his main objective was more a desire to preserve the status quo for his aristocratic fringe of society against the growing infiltration of the lower classes. Nevertheless, unwittingly or not, many of his reforms are with us today and, in a second dose of irony, brought him sufficient acclaim as to so anger the Fates that, jealous of his achievements, they conspired to rob him of the one supreme prize to the winning of which he had, in his own word, “sacrificed” his life. A Greek tragedy could not have put it better.

Lord George entered this world in 1803, third son of the soon to be Duke of Portland who, by astute financial management, and the thoughtfulness to have a rich wife, transformed crippling inheritance debts into a substantial financial empire. From his birth George was appallingly indulged and spoiltopinion varies as to whether or not he received much recognised formal education; suffice it to say that he was the antithesis of the classical scholar. On maturity, therefore, it comes as little surprise to find a supercilious and arrogant young man being gazetted into the Royal Lancers, where his military career was less than illustrious, marked principally by an unfortunate clash with his senior officer which, via Lord George’s connections, led eventually to said officer’s cashiering and subsequent cholera. Young George moved on to become military secretary to his uncle George Canning who was originally expected to become Governor of Bengal but who instead finished up as the new King George IV’s first minister. Certainly, during the last three years of Canning’s life George had much happy relaxation- we find him rowing, shooting, playing cricket, hunting and, above all, racing and riding in

matches. He also moved into Parliament as MP for Lynn, and achieved not a little success although neither the Army nor politics could provide quite what a man with his super-abundant energy neededa real sense of purpose.

Lord William George Frederick Cavendish: Statue in Cavendish Square, London

The racing and gambling bug had first bitten George when he was twenty two, and had ridden a hard won public match at Goodwood. As a nobleman with deep pockets, superhuman energy and an obsessive, almost ruthless nature, he plunged heavily, starting with a small stud and growing it until in 1846, when he reluctantly left the Turf for good, he had some forty horses running in his colours and over a hundred others kept for allied purposes. To Disraeli, a close friend and admirer, this “Lord Paramount of the Turf” was “the purest and most self-denying of patriots”. To others he was a vindictive, tireless and spiteful enemy. Perhaps these were attributes needed most as he limbered up for possibly the greatest fight of his life.

Organised horse racing in the first three decades of the nineteenth century bore only a passing resemblance to today’s sport. Essentially, it was still very much an aristocratic and wealthy upper class activity and, whilst turning away from the old system of matches between two or more horses and towards races of larger fields, betting was still confined mainly to owners and their peers. It was a savage and crude sport- cheating was accepted by all and sundry, horses were routinely poisoned (substances ranged from two pounds of lead shot to opium balls!), jockeys could and did bet, with obvious consequences, maiming of horses was widespread, judges were bribed and owners excelled themselves in hoodwinking each other and the racing public.

Our hero threw himself wholly into this class-conscious and unsavoury sport, caring little for money for its own sake but determined to gain mastery over the Turf. This he achieved, aided by his wealth and by activities which bordered occasionally on the ethically dishonest. To his credit, however, it must be emphasised, and emphasised heavily, that he did much and worked tirelessly to clean up many aspects of the sport, and is well remembered for his personal campaigns to rid the Turf of levanters and defaulters (welshers), his efforts to improve the effectiveness of trainers, his work to improve Turf legislation via Westminster and, equally important, smaller improvements in the practical operation of races and racecourses.

In Georgian and early Victorian times gambling had taken hold of Britain. It was the dragon that fired up all sporting activities, from cockfighting and hare coursing, through the noble game of cricket and the equally noble art of bare-knuckle self-defence, to the vicious gambling hells of London and, naturally, to the “sport of kings”. Clergymen might rail against it, scandals might come to court, murders might be committed in its name, but still the “Great Evil” inexorably stole across the land.

Nothing was safe from its all-consuming flames and, woe upon woe, the unfortunate lower middle and working classes were beginning to join in the action. Hitherto, the major sinners had been the aristocracy but now the whole country was infected and every rascal, rogue and blackguard was happily engaged in separating the great British public from its hard earned monies.

The lower classes might not be able to lose their sixpences and shillings at hazard in the West End, but horse racing was another matter. And, of all race meetings, the Epsom Derby was the stellar attraction.

It is perhaps difficult today to comprehend the importance to the whole nation of the Derby during the early Victorian years. Then, as now, it was the greatest test of a three year old thoroughbred in the world of flat racing, but to England in the mid-1800s it was the ultimate sporting attraction, “that paramount and Olympian stake” according to Disraeli. It was an obsession that galvanised and united the whole nation. From 1847 both Houses of Parliament adjourned for most of Derby week and by 1844 the railway boom enabled the flood of people into the little town of Epsom- along with the nobility poured the masses of all classes from all parts of the country. Dickens himself compared the spectacle of the Epsom crowds with the crowds on Broadway and even the triumphs of ancient Rome, and considered both of the latter rather wanting.

We thus have the arena for our hero to challenge the fearsome Dragon of mass and unscrupulous betting, over the crookedest Derby that has ever been staged. As with every contest between good and evil we need a villain. Step forward Abraham Levi Goodman, called rather curiously “Goody Levi”.

A rogue of the first order, Goody had devised a cunning plan to steal the Derby; an attack on one of England’s treasured institutions, a plan equivalent to stealing the Crown Jewels or storming Windsor Castle. Note well the strict conditions of entry for the Derby- only entire colts (i.e. no geldings) and fillies of three years old were allowed to compete. However, surmised Goody Levi, since a four year old would be significantly stronger in stamina and particularly in bone and sinew, could not a small or preferably large fortune be made by substituting a suitably disguised four year old for an entry originally made by a genuine youngster? It was well known that a horse’s age could be determined accurately by inspecting its teeth- what could be simpler than filing or breaking off those new teeth which the animal would have sprouted between three and four? So long as the horse had not grown appreciably and possessed the same configuration and colour, who would be the wiser?

Levi’s first plan was to try to steal the 1843 Derby, the year prior to out episode. Goody had bought a bay colt with black legs named Maccabeus, a horse engaged quite genuinely in the 1843 race. His plan was to run an older horse called Goneaway, also a bay but with a white heel and star (which would be duly covered with black dye) in place of, but representing, Maccabeus. Goneaway unfortunately spoilt proceedings by dying; Levi had lost out on this one but set out to plan a similar ruse for the 1844 race.

We come now to a third bay colt, a then two year old called Running Rein, already entered for the 1844 Derby and much similar to the older Maccabeus. It was not beyond Levi’s mind (plus generous applications of black dye to its legs) to have a practice run by substituting the two year old Running Rein with the doctored Maccabeus at Newmarket in October 1843. “I knocked the tusks out of him” boasted Goody to his confederates after the abused horse had won its race. So much for the tooth problem then, although Lord George had already become suspicious and Levi took steps to keep the Maccabeus/Running Rein colt out of the public eye until it reappeared in the 1844 Derby. He also ostensibly relinquished ownership to a Mr Alexander Wood who may, or just possibly not, have been party to the forthcoming scam.

The machinations that followed are worthy of Sherlock Holmes, with Lord George rightly suspecting that the horse called Running Rein was a year older than advertised, and spending the 1843/4 winter carrying out extensive detective work, putting pressure on all levels from stable lads and jockeys to owners and, finally, to the Epsom Stewards, culminating in a formal letter to the latter well before the 1844 Derby, detailing in no uncertain terms his and others’ suspicions about Running Rein’s true parentage and age. In true bureaucratic fashion no action was taken, and the eventual line up for the Derby would total twenty nine horses, at least one of which was suspected of being over-age.

Furthermore, two favourites were due to be nobbled (Levi was not the only villain at work) and one jockey had been bribed to throw the race! Enough wickedness for anybody’s book one would assume.

Not so. Almost certainly with Levi’s knowledge, if not contrivance, a German owned but English trained horse called Leander was also in the line-up and, despite formal objection by one Lord Maidstone, surely under pressure from Lord George, duly took its place at the start on 22nd May. Leander, like Running Rein/Maccabeus was strongly suspected of being over three years old and even, rumour had it, of being five! One theory is that Leader was to win the race with Running Rein/Maccabeus finishing second, and since private betting had been so ordered, Levi would clean up even if the places were reversed. Safety was assured, giving further credence to an Anglo-German agreement. The plot, of course, hinged upon the fact that any objection to the winner could only be made be made by the owner of the horse running second so as long as the two crooked horses first and second the result would not be challenged.

Unfortunately for the miscreants the addition of the Leander interest was to prove their undoing. On rock hard ground the Derby finally got underway and those with their bets discreetly placed rubbed their hands in glee when the field came into view at the first turn- Leander in front with Running Rein on its heels and the nobbled favourites already off the pace. Then fate took a hand. Some said it sounded like pistol shot; one of Running Rein’s fore hooves struck Leander’s offside hind leg above the fetlock and shattered the bone. Leander was pulled up, soon to be shot, and Running Rein, with the advantage of years, ran on round Tattenham Corner, up the incline, and won comfortably by about a length. Alas though for Levi, the second horse was now Orlando, owned not by a co-conspirator but by the amiable Colonel Peel, brother of the Prime Minister, and a man easily swayed by a forceful Lord

George to make a formal objection to the result. So, Running Rein/Maccabeus, had won the 1844 Derby only it hadn’t. Lord George and Colonel Peel were seen in earnest conversation with the stewards, and soon afterwards the latter ordered that the stakes would not be paid to Mr A.Wood, owner of Running Rein but would be handed into court “….such stakes being claimed by Colonel Peel as owner of the second horse”. Even more distressing to our villains was that all bets on the two relevant horses could not be settled until the legal system had decided which horse had won.

Orlando; winner of the 1844 Derby

Mr Wood, protesting innocence, was not well pleased and sued Colonel Peel to recover the stakes.

The case was to be heard in the hugely anachronistic Court of Exchequer, set up originally by William I and subsequently a perfect example of the buffoonery so lovingly lampooned by Dickens. The judge in question, called “Baron” and not “Judge”, was the highly intelligent Mr Alderson, a man in love with the witty sound bite, but also a strong racing man, whilst the plaintiff was represented by the earnest Alexander Cockburn, later to become Lord Chief Justice, and the defendant by no less than Sir Frederick Thesiger, the Solicitor General. Lord George was of course present and it was soon apparent that he, and not Colonel Peel, was to be the key figure in the case.

A full description of the case, with its miscellany of characters ranging from the haughty aristocrat down to the horse trainers, various rogues an stable lads, is worthy of a book in itself, but the fact that some five weeks had elapsed between the Derby and the hearing had given Lord George ample time to play the master detective. He had raised suspicions about Leander, which had been disinterred and found to have had its lower jaw hacked off, thus preventing any conclusion about its age; he had obtained evidence about horse switching from as far afield as Ireland and, through painstaking research via chemists and hairdressers in London, had uncovered Levi’s earlier involvement in purchasing the black dye that could well fool even horse handlers into thinking one horse was another.

Lord George had ensured that potential witnesses were harassed, others being paid and even clothed at his expense, and even more directly or indirectly made to see the error of their ways. Together with

the admission by the relevant trainer’s son that Leander was a fraud, Colonel Peel’s, or rather Lord George’s, case looked strong.

Despite Cockburn switching tactics and endeavouring to paint Lord George and his cronies as the ultimate blackguards, and despite a succession of almost comical villains appearing as witnesses for the prosecution (Levi sensibly decided to absent himself) the case at first seemed to be going Running Rein’s way. Help was at hand, however, in the form of Running Rein itself in a manner of speaking.

The horse appeared to have disappeared and thus could not be brought to court to be scrutinised. To an exasperated Baron Alderson, Cockburn had to confess that the horse must have been stolen without, of course, Mr Wood’s knowledge. No amount of fanciful stories could now sway the inevitable outcome. Mr Wood surrendered, the jury was directed to find for the defendant and the result of what has been described as the dirtiest Derby in history was decided in a dusty courtroom far away from Epsom Downs.

This was certainly a triumph for Lord George, who became the nation’s hero, but can the result of one horse race really be considered to have had an influence on a whole country’s ethos by itself? Almost certainly not, but the 1844 Derby warrants its place as an important catalyst, amongst others, which speeded up the reaction to that change which was already being mooted in many quarters. In particular, England was becoming aware of its addiction to gambling and the demographic spread of its influence. Now, with the proliferation of race meetings and the rise of the bookmaker, it became that much easier for everybody, in every station of life, to risk large or small amounts on an only too regular basis. Before organised football, before widespread national lotteries and before the awfulness of scratch cards and bingo, horse racing was the greatest medium through which to make or lose a tiny or large fortune. In short, the Derby, being the pinnacle of racing, was a national institution and anything that affected it affected the nation. Preachers and other moralists might have thundered from pulpit and lectern, good works might have sprung up across the land in towns and villages, but in each case the effect was, with obvious exceptions, somewhat limited geographically.

Not so the Derby. Any revelation here would ripple across the whole country.

To change attitudes a shock was needed, and the 1844 Derby provided it. A degree of corruption in horse racing was understood and accepted; nobbled horses, bent jockeys, wily trainers and unscrupulous owners were part of the sport. A full scale attack on the Derby was, if the pun may be excused, a horse of a different colour! The shock was in place- Victorian moralists had further ammunition and were joined by the ever-expanding middle class who were in the process of expanding philanthropy. Even fans of the Turf clamoured for racing to be cleaned up, although whether this would improve the lot of the poorer classes was open to doubt. Nor was this the end of the story. Then, as now, England loved a court case and, despite its brevity, the Running Rein trial aroused intense interest. Yet, for those wishing a more grandiose description of why this single race came to have such a great effect on a nation’s very ethos perhaps Disraeli in “Sybil” has the most appropriate words with his famous description of the Derby: The ring is up; the last odds declared; all gallop away to the Warren. A few minutes, only a few minutes, and the event that for twelve months has been the pivot of so much calculation, of such subtle combinations, of such deep conspiracies, round which the thought and passion of the sporting world have hung like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting tablets of the past. But what minutes!

Count them by sensation and not by calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life.

Hogarth in a coarse and yet animated sketch has painted "Before" and "After." A creative spirit of a higher vein might develop the simplicity of the idea with sublimer accessories. Pompeius before Pharsalia, Harold before Hastings, Napoleon before Waterloo, might afford some striking contrasts to the immediate catastrophe of their fortunes. Finer still the inspired mariner who has just discovered a new world; the sage who has revealed a new planet; and yet the "Before" and "After" of a first-rate English race, in the degree of its excitement, and sometimes in the tragic emotions of its close, may vie even with these.

KES LVI History Magazine Article – My experience of doctoral research

Dr DW Filtness (King Edward’s History Department)

DISCLAIMER: What follows concerns my own experience of research and university. My circumstances at the time were peculiar to me and I readily concede the likelihood that others may have differing conceptions or experiences of historical research. The object here is to convey my own opinions and motivations for those interested in one day pursuing historical research, not to give the final word on the subject.

“Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species” [Joseph Addison, The Spectator, Vol. 1, 1711] The above quotation by the republican satirist Joseph Addison in his seminal yet short-lived periodical The Spectator serves as well as any other I’ve seen to adumbrate the life of an arts student engaged in doctoral study. It describes effectively how one is simultaneously of this world, observing its writings and most profound philosophies in minute detail, and yet simultaneously squirreled away in an iron prison of solitude constructed from books and manuscripts, cut off from the daily business activities of ordinary folk. Many a day I’ve spent ensconced in the University Library of Cambridge University surrounded by piles of nineteenth and eighteenth century pamphlets, periodicals and treatises on political economy hoping to discern any truths hidden therein with only the seemingly distant promise of a coffee break in the cafeteria or the boppy tunes on my iPod to keep me going. That is the reality of the daily grind of academic research, yet it is not in itself the whole story.

The idea of conducting historical research was never far from my mind as an undergraduate. As potentially an integral part of my 3rd year, when everyone has the option of completing a dissertation providing they can develop a viable project, I knew it was a prospect I’d likely want to pursue but the experience of writing weekly essays and the occasional piece of short coursework led to a quickening of frustration at the time and space constraints on the development of my own ideas and avenues of investigation. The chance to undergo a deeper, thorough and more detailed investigation of a historical topic of interest was activity, I thought, that was the real expression of historical inquiry.

Original research is what history is, fundamentally. In the fecund bedrock formed by the experience

of writing my undergraduate dissertation on Wesleyan Methodism, evangelicalism and the development of a Habermasian public sphere in the reign of George II sprouted the matrix of ideas at the heart of my MPhil research thesis; an investigation of to what extent E. P. Thompson’s “moral economy” was grounded in the political thought of the late eighteenth-century period and this project grew into my doctoral research. I had originally settled on the Eighteenth Century as the site for my research as it was a period of dynamic change that I knew relatively little about, and I’d found the findings of intellectual historians of the period compelling in earlier programmes of reading. At the heart of my research was a curiosity about the period, a respect for the methodology, a determination to engage with serious historical work and the confidence that I had fresh ideas and insights that would reward investigation. These ideas had begun to cohere during my undergrad years and it was the prospect of developing these, and in the process developing myself, that motivated my decision to stay at Cambridge. The challenge of reading and grappling with the nascent science of political economy in arguably its most formative period through the oeuvre of writers such as Thomas Robert Malthus, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham was a privilege, doubly so as I was fortunate enough to secure funding from the University to do so. The enticing prospect of such intellectual stimulation wedded to the absolute dearth of passion for the corporate world made my progression from undergraduate to master’s student to doctoral candidate something of a no-brainer. My experience of this engagement, distilled through the conceit of a typical day, follows.

A day in the life of a graduate student I am awoken early, not by the dulcet tones of my alarm clock but by the babble of voices in the corridor outside of my room as the science students that I live with head out to the lab to run experiments. As this is 7am I don’t mind and drift back to sleep; if it had been, as it sometimes is, the accursed ‘boaties’ at 5am then a short burst of cursing usually speeds them on their charisma-free way. Fortunately, as an arts student, unless I have a scheduled seminar or tutorial my timetable is almost my own and I therefore make the most of the privilege of being able to sleep-in. Hence, my day normally starts around 10am when I get up, shower, grab some breakfast (toast/ fruit) and head off to work. Typically my schedule is uncluttered but nevertheless I will frequently have meetings or supervisions to attend, I may be sitting in on an MPhil class or lecture for an hour or two, attending a research skills or IT class, lunch with a friend or an undergraduate class to give. The patterning of my days can actually vary quite a bit and this helps to keep things fresh, plus the flexibility allows me to accommodate interests or events, such as a guest speaker or whimsical trip to London quite easily. The journey across town to the History Faculty for some secondary literature reading is 40 mins by foot or 20 mins by bike, depending on urgency, or I may head straight to the University Library for the good stuff. If I have a paper to read then I may likely stop off in town at a café so that I can do some quiet reading in a different setting – the chance to read whilst having a coffee or piece of cake is also not permitted in the libraries so this can be something of a welcome change from my usual settings. However, the bulk of my day is spent at the University Library in the Rare Books Room, reading original documents, books, periodicals and literature from the period 1780-1830, specifically that pertaining to the discussion and establishment of savings banks and other institutions for alleviating poverty and helping the poor to help themselves. As the documents are hundreds of years old the room has to be kept slightly chilled and you need to prop the books up on reading stands and use special implements to keep the books open, which can be a faff, but it is for me inherently interesting to read the words of past people and try to reconstruct their attitudes and ideational constellations from their commentaries and analyses of their times and problems. After a 4-5 hour stint of interrupted reading

I’m ready for a break so I submit my request forms to the librarians for the next load of books/ papers to consult and head to the coffee room for a break. After a sandwich and coffee I head back to the Rare Books Room for another reading session until the library closes at 7pm. After I have cleared away my working materials and filed my unfinished reading for tomorrow I leave the UL and head across to the Graduate Research Room of the History Faculty a short distance away. Here, I check my emails and correspondence and write up some of my ideas and findings from the day and plan the next stage of work, find readings, etc. If I have a seminar or conference paper or class to prepare or then I will do some writing here or head home and work on my writing there, until 1 or 2 am usually. Alternatively I may head out to the pub to meet with some friends, head along to a graduate social event at college, head to the cinema, etc. Some nights of the week I have football training or a football social in the pub; the joy of not having office hours means that the possibility of a spontaneous trip to a student night at a local club remains a possibility after this. If it is a Thursday or Tuesday then I may leave the library early at 5pm and head to a history graduate seminar to hear a paper by a colleague. The opportunity to stay abreast of current research and network with fellow historians working on similar ideas or in tangential areas of research enables a social dimension to research work, offsetting the solitude of working and reading alone for much of the day. These seminars also provide a chance to bounce thoughts off fellows and senior researchers working at the university, which can be very valuable for developing one’s ideas.

All-in-all I found the experience of doctoral work to be immensely rewarding, and the chance to explore my own ideas and intellectual interests was a privilege. Unlike some other subjects, a history doctorate allows one to formulate and pursue an entirely bespoke and original research project with only the guidance of a supervisor to direct or constrain your work. This allows for a huge degree of latitude intellectually and I was able to supplement my history reading with self-catered schemes of research into development economics, literary theory, sociology and philosophy in order to try and add a variety of theoretical perspectives and lenses through which to interpret my findings. The chance to widen my scope and broaden my understanding in this way was very gratifying and helped to develop my ideas a great deal yet the freedom that is facilitated in terms of lifestyle can be intoxicating and many people get a bit carried away with the opportunities for socialising. Yet this means that one is almost entirely self-motivated and self-discipline is vital to keep things ticking along and to complete on time. The frustrations of being reliant on your own will and self-control to work each day, coupled with a lack of engagement with the productive economy or many other people for much of the day can make for a grinding experience, but the rewards of having the freedom of being able to pursue your own intellectual interests and enjoying a relatively unburdened lifestyle (for example, I could knock off work at 3pm to have an impromptu pub session or to attend an interestingsounding university-organised lecture on bio-engineering, primatology, the use of space in cities or the imagery and role of angels in Paradise Lost – all of which I actually attended, to give a brief selection) more than make up for it. Plus, at the end of the day your research is informing current practice in the field, is furthering the research frontier, is making a “substantial contribution” to the sum of human knowledge, produces a comprehensive project (effectively a book) and the sense of satisfaction that this engenders definitely makes it all worthwhile. There is also the question of further research and publication, an avenue increasingly difficult to follow as funding is withdrawn by the government, but an intriguing and rewarding one nevertheless.

So, historical research has been something of a passion of mine for close to a decade. It has allowed me to do something that, despite some troubling moments, I have genuinely enjoyed and it has enabled me to operate at a level of intellectual involvement and academic pursuit that I have found challenging and rewarding in equal measure. My ideas and research have contributed to the furtherance of societal self-knowledge and I have a hefty tome to show for it. I have been able to meet and work with some amazingly talented people and I have enjoyed the student lifestyle for longer than most. However, academia does have its dark side. Many researchers, although very hard-working and focused, can lack interest or appreciation of ideas or scenes outside of their own particular bubble and it is a solitary existence. There is the constant pressure to publish, little in the way of job security or financial remuneration and the perpetual frustration of mediating your findings for the less initiated to comprehend. My advice to any potential researchers would be to definitely go for it, but to be clear about what motivates you as person and try to be honest with yourself. Can you be disciplined enough to work without a lash at your back? Do you have the intellectual curiosity for continual learning? Is money or a gentrified lifestyle crucial to your wellbeing? At the end of the day you need to love learning. If you fall into the category of person for whom, to quote from a much-loved children’s classic, “Daydreaming is more fun than history” [Mr Daydream, by Roger Hargreaves], you may be better off doing something else…

JANE AUSTEN AND HAMPSHIRE FASHION What Jane Austen reveals to us in her novels and letters, about dressing for Society in the south of England 200 years ago.

Alison Carter Tai Freelance dress historian, writer and lecturer

In 2017 the Bank of England is to launch a new plastic £10 bank note, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen. The image chosen has already courted controversy. It is from an engraving of 1870, based on a sketch by Jane’s sister Cassandra of 1804, and purists see it as a rather too ‘prettified’ version of the original. Hampshire residents have every reason to be proud of the famous authoress, who is to be honoured in this way. ‘Hatched’ and ‘despatched’ in Hampshire, although to her own regret never ‘matched’, Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an astute commentator on fashions in our region. In addition to the minutiae of detail in her novels, Jane’s surviving body of letters to Cassandra reveals all sorts of intelligence about what she wore herself, and saw ladies in her social circle wearing, in late Georgian society from Bath and Southampton (where she lived from autumn 1806 to spring 1809) to Portsmouth and Basingstoke, Alton and London.

Jane’s letters give a shrewd insight into everyday happenings, amusements and irritations, rather like a blog today. As with so many good writers, she wrote about what she knew, in her novels. She clearly drew on details of conversations she had overheard in the drawing room and at country balls and assemblies, and she poked fun at those who took their appearance too seriously, or simply looked ridiculous. A particular point to note, however, is that three of the six novels were written in the 1790s but not published until the 1810s, and therefore the details of dress are actually rather out-of-date in these novels. Pride and Prejudice (hereafter known as P&P) published in 1813 was actually written 1796-7, Sense and Sensibility (S&S) published in 1811 was written between 1792 and 1797 and

Northanger Abbey (NA) written 1798-9 and revised in 1803, was only published in 1818. The letters are more reliable for up- to-the-minute fashion detail.

Portsmouth in 1811

This article looks at how we can judge the accuracy of the portrayal of Jane’s own clothing in portraits and engravings, and what we can learn of contemporary fashions from primary sources, with particular reference to Jane’s writings. It also seeks to indicate ways in which this knowledge may be applied more widely by historians. Dress historians routinely analyse a variety of documentary and visual source material to reveal the fabrics and styles of fashion, and the terminology of a given period to good effect, in assisting historians with their researches into social, local and family history. In recent years their evidence has been vital in establishing which, amongst the considerable number of purported portraits of Jane Austen, along with items of dress, textiles and jewellery associated with her name, can really be said to be of her, or have belonging to and been worn by her. Indeed this knowledge has on occasion made enemies of those owners of purported ‘original Jane Austen personalia’, whose material has not stood up to dress historians’ scrutiny, given the premium prices paid for anything clearly linked with Jane Austen. All historians must adhere to a strict code of academic rigour to examine authenticity from every angle, and ride the storms of such controversies.

Dress historians are becoming established as part of the armoury of the art detective world. In particular, they are able to spot anachronistic detail, which does not marry with the body of evidence relating to a particular date or decade.

Surviving costume accessories associated with Jane Austen include various pieces of jewellery – a topaz cross which is one of a pair given by Jane’s brother to his sisters as Jane describes: he has been buying gold chains and Topaze (sic) crosses for us (1801) and a gold and turquoise ring which was bought at auction by the American Kelly Clarkson in 2012, but which became the subject of a British government export licence stop in 2013. It has now been bought by the Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton, near Alton, her home from 1809 to 1817, for £157,740. Interestingly, given that Jane was a Sagittarian, both turquoise and topaz are the birthstones of that star sign. The ring dates to c.176080, and would have been bought from a London jewellers, such as Thomas Gray, goldsmith, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly which is mentioned in Jane’s novels. Jewellers sold antique jewellery alongside new pieces.

There is also a twilled silk garment know as a ‘pelisse’ of c.1812-14 given to the Hampshire County Museums Service collections in 1993, by descendants of the Knight family which accords in date, and detail, with what we know of Jane’s wardrobe at that period. It has patriotic oak leaves woven in golden silk threads on a ground of autumnal fallen oak-leaf brown. More details of this Jane Austen pelisse may be found at www3.hants.gov.uk/austen/austen-pelisse.htm. In 1808 Jane wrote: my mother is preparing mourning for Mrs EK – she has picked her old silk pelisse to pieces (sic) and means to have it dyed black for a gown. Unpicking and reshaping a dress into different garment, and re-dyeing were common practices with fine silk clothes. The pelisse was a popular garment, a form of lightweight coat-dress won over thin cotton gowns. When in London in 1814, Jane asked Charlotte in Chawton to send up her silk pelisse by Collier on Saturday. Collyer’s was the predecessor of the local Red Rover Coach, which carried ‘packets’ of clothes between dressmakers, private residences and hotels.

Jane regularly replaced, altered and edited her own clothes. In 1798 she was so tired and ashamed of half my present stock that I even blush at the sight of the wardrobe that contains them. She announced: I will not be much longer libelled by my coarse spot, I shall turn it into a petticoat very soon, making an undergarment out of a now unfashionable spotted muslin dress. In 1815 Jane wrote: I want to get rid of some of my Things, & therefore shall send down a parcel by Collier on Saturday.

Such clothes would be passed on by Jane as part of her charities to the poor. In 1798 she gave four pairs of worsted stockings, a shift and a shawl, altogether valued at half a guinea (10/6d), to women in Steventon near Basingstoke, her home village until 1801.

The engraving to be used for the bank note does accord with what we know of Jane’s liking for wearing caps and her preference for wearing light blue. Caroline Austen noted that her aunt ‘always wore a cap…I never saw her without one…morning or evening’. Jane wrote in 1798: caps save me a world of torment as to hairdressing…my long hair is always plaited up out of sight. She added that Nanny Littleworth dresses my hair and that my short hair curls well enough to want no papering.

Jane did pay considerable attention to her headwear and liked to be complimented on it. She announced she would begin operations on my hat on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend. She borrowed Cassandra’s Black velvet Bonnet, retaining the narrow silver round it…and put in the Coquelicot [goose feather] (which) is to be all the fashion this winter. Some days later she noted: my black cap was openly admired. That year she also had a mamolone cap (also called a Mamalouk turban), all the fashion now, worn at the opera and by Lady Mildmay at Hackwood Balls (near Basingstoke). If it was good enough for Lady Mildmay, it was clearly good enough for her!

Arriving in Bath in 1801, which was her home for the next five years, Jane and her mother ordered new bonnets, although she thought her existing straw bonnet looking much like other people’s and quite as smart. In 1813 Jane was prepared to spend an extravagant amount – up to £1 16s - on a cap made by a Miss Hare, a London milliner of white satin and lace, and a little white flower perking out of the left ear, like Harriet Byron’s feather (in Richardson’s novel Sir Charles Grandison of 1753). She enjoyed window shopping in London: in March 1814 she saw a great many pretty Caps in the windows in Cranbourne Alley. She was however naturally frugal, and worried in 1811 that I am getting very extravagant and spending all my money as she was so tempted by the very pretty English poplins [silk warp, worsted weft fabric] at 4/3d a yard at Layton & Shear of Bedford House. Around seven yards would be required for a gown.

The dress in the engraving of 1870 is pale blue, as is the dress in Cassandra’s watercolour sketch of Jane from the back, dating to 1804. We know that she and Cassandra had matching gowns of the same blue fabric, for Jane asked her sister in 1808: how is your blue gown? Mine is all to pieces, something

wrong with the dye… four shillings thrown away. The engraving shows a short-sleeved dress. We know that as Jane grew older she preferred long sleeves, and indeed rejoiced in September 1814 that long sleeves appear universal, even as Dress (i.e. full dress for evening and ceremonial).

To find out about fashions more generally in England for this period, we turn to primary visual sources such as dated portraits, engravings and cartoons that give the silhouette and reveal the detail that is reflected in other documentary sources such as diaries, inventories, wills and newspaper descriptions.

Tailors’ advertisements for making stays (corsets) and retailers’ trade cards further assist our understanding of methods of production and consumption of fashion. As with the Jane Austen pelisse, surviving garments with good provenance also add considerably to our knowledge.

One special type of engraving known as the fashion plate appeared in ladies’ pocket books from 1770.

These plates were beautifully hand-coloured from c.1790, and there was accompanying descriptive text designed to appeal to educated ladies who could adopt the latest silhouette and be creative with the designs according to their own tastes and the availability of materials. Fashion news also came from those who had been to up to London. Mrs Gardiner’s express duty was to describe the newest fashions…in town (P & P). In 1814 Jane writes that ribbon trimmings are all the rage in Bath using a phrase that shows her own awareness of fashion fads. Aged just 21 in 1796 Jane wrote: I have had my new gown made up and it really makes a very superb surplice, clearly laughing at the quasi-religious style of overdress then in fashion.

Ladies who could afford to, would select fashion images from their subscription magazines and take them to their local dressmakers, to provide inspiration and guidance for making up the latest designs in a particular fabric, pattern and colourways, and would often choose the dress lengths at the draper’s themselves. Meticulous attention was paid to choice of material and trimmings. The exact length of the hem, the sleeve shape, height of waistline and circumference of the skirt were all critical details of cut and construction. When she moved to Bath, Jane swiftly found a local dressmaker, writing to Cassandra that Mrs Mussell… made my dark gown very well and may therefore be trusted I hope with yours.

Ready-made dresses were not yet available, except as second-hand ‘cast-offs’. All garments and accessories in this period were still stitched entirely by hand. All materials were still made from natural fibres – either vegetable - chiefly linen and, increasingly, cotton, or animal fibres –mainly wool and silk, or combinations of these. All dyes were derived from natural sources – notably from woad (blue), traditionally grown around Salisbury and Lymington, weld (yellow) and madder (red) also grown in the south of England. Fastenings mainly comprised ties and laces, Dorset buttons, and hooks and eyes.

There were travelling needle- and sewing women, and lacemen. In 1789 Jane Austen bought some Irish (linen) from a Scotchman [itinerant draper] to make up four pairs of stockings (more like leggings) and six shifts (the undergarment closest to the skin). Learning to make one’s own and family undergarments was considered a necessary female accomplishment, as were embroidery and netting.

In 1798 Jane’s friend Mrs Lloyd, who had only just given birth, was netting herself a gown in worsteds, i.e. woollen threads. Groups of ladies sewed together. In 1796 Jane wrote we are very busy making Edward’s shirts and I am proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party. In 1811 she and Cassandra worked with their mother on a patchwork coverlet which survives at Jane Austen’s House Museum. It shows a wide range of examples of chintz (glazed cotton) and other printed cotton fabrics

that were used for dress materials around 1800-10. She enquired: Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork? We are now at a standstill.

We know that Jane attended Mrs Martin’s circulating library in Basingstoke. Such libraries not only lent books, but also sold accessories such as rings and other jewellery. In Sanditon (an unfinished novel, 1817), Charlotte Heywood bought new parasols, new gloves and new brooches for her sisters and herself at the library. Parasols were ‘must-have’ accessories to shield the skin from the sun (literally ‘against the sun’) as pale complexions were favoured. Another covetable accessory was the shawl. Lady Bertram wanted William to go to the East Indies that I may have my shawl. Then sheer greed kicked in. I think I will have two shawls (MP).

The persistent fashion for white and light-coloured dresses held distinct drawbacks. Mrs Allen expressed dislike for open carriages: nasty things. A clean gown is not five minutes’ wear in them.

You are splashed getting in and out (NA). Elizabeth Bennett was accused of getting her petticoat dirty, six inches deep in mud (P&P). Cotton muslin gowns were inevitably fragile. When Miss Steel meets Elinor Dashwood in Hyde Park she says: La! If you have not got your spotted muslin on! – I wonder you were not afraid of its being torn! (S&S). The possibility of a wardrobe malfunction could be put to good use: In Emma, Miss Woodhouse faked a fashion disaster. She broke the lace off short on one of her half-boots in order to beg leave to stop at Mr Elton’s house. Jane’s own clothes suffered mishaps, as when her new coloured gown was laundered and rendered very much washed out, the dye proving unreliable.

By the advent of the French Revolution (1789-1799), Paris had established a firm lead in dress fashions across Europe. French terminology was frequently used to make new fashions sound exciting.

However the Napoleonic wars (1803-15) led to a lack of knowledge as to what women in Paris were now wearing, which English women found frustrating. Mrs Bell stepped into the breach to invent new fashions for them, and give advice, when her husband founded La Belle Assemblée magazine, in London, in 1806, its very title still reflecting the love for all things French. As the war rumbled on, a spirit of patriotism kicked in, and a new wave of very English fashions took the names of Britain’s military war heroes, hence we read in 1814 – the year Britain celebrated a premature victory against Napoleon - of the’ Wellington corset’, and the ‘Blucher bonnet and spencer’ (the spencer was a shortwaisted jacket). There was now a fashion war as well as a military war going on!

Pelisse Coat. La Belle Assemblee April 1817

The topaz crosses given to Jane and Cassandra were effectively the spoils of war. Jane had two brothers in the Royal Navy. Charles bought the crosses in Italy, with prize money after the capture of a French ship. Jane worked this detail quite directly into her novel, Mansfield Park, where the heroine Fanny Price received an amber cross from her brother William after the capture of an enemy vessel.

Wearing good-quality jewellery was a form of conspicuous consumption – showing off wealth through adornments. Mrs Elton in Emma noted with pride: I see very few pearls in the room except mine, a clear case of satisfied one-upmanship. Jane’s characters often express how seriously matters of fashion were taken. For Fanny Price: how she should be dressed was a point of painful solicitude (MP). Again, for Catherine Morland: what gown and what headdress she should wear on the occasion became her chief concern. Yet the author’s commentary within the novel makes her view clear: She cannot be justified in it. Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction. Anxieties about fashion would have seemed very silly alongside the serious business of the outbreak of war which occurred just as Northanger Abbey was being revised in 1803.

Jane mirrored contemporary cartoonists’ lampooning of the scantiness of post-1800 dress, which chiefly comprised thin layers of white linen, cotton and semi-transparent muslin, in styles that clung

to the body in a neo-classical columnar shape. In 1801 she wrote of attending a rural country house dinner part in Deane (near Basingstoke) in January: ‘Mrs Powlett was at once expensively and nakedly dress’d. We have had the satisfaction of estimating her Lace and Muslin’. This is the equivalent of satirists in recent years laughing at the exorbitant prices paid for the smallest of designer bikinis! In 1814 Jane also noted with relief that while waistlines remained short, and petticoats short, hems were generally …flounced (as they became more bell-shaped), and while necklines had been dangerously low - as revealed in a Thomas Rowlandson cartoon of Portsmouth Point in 1811- now the bosom (was) covered, so at last ‘décolletage’ (an excess of visible cleavage) was less of an issue than it had been.

Jane writes relatively little about men’s dress but she does express her female characters’ liking for military uniform. Mrs Bennet confesses: I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well (P&P). Bingley and Wickham wore blue coats. William Price (MP) was taller, firmer and more graceful …in his Lieutenant’s uniform. Men’s dress was admired for its power to impress: Henry Tilney’s great coat with triple collar had looked so becomingly important (NA). However excessive vanity in men was not tolerated. In Persuasion, Sir Walter Elliot’s obsession with Gowland’s lotion, advertised for ladies’ complexions, is evidence of his vanity...the beginning and the ending of (his) character.

Jane also clearly disapproves of the shallow artifice of Isabella in writing to Catherine: I wear nothing but purple now… I know I look hideous in it, but no matter… it is your dear brother’s favourite colour (NA). Catherine herself lay awake at night debating between her spotted and tamboured (chain-stitch embroidered) muslin. Jane’s observation here is telling: It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man …is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged, the mull or the jackonet. What is costly or new, she felt, was of little interest to men; they simply admired neatness and fashion in a very general sense.

In examining the wealth of conversation around clothes, as well as exploring various aspects of production and consumption of textiles and accessories in Jane Austen’s world, I trust that I have demonstrated that while dress history may seem an indulgent and largely female specialist interest – like designer fashion today - nevertheless an understanding of the dress appropriate to the various strata of society, some knowledge of the terminology which is found in wills and inventories as well as novels, and knowing about extant visual sources - notably fashion plates - and material culture such as well-documented extant garments to marry with documentary descriptions, can greatly assist historians of all kinds, as well as literary scholars, in their understanding of the niceties of the class system, and the importance of fashion as a driver of economics, not just vanity, in late Georgian and Regency England.

Were Allied foreign policy makers entirely to blame for Germany's economic instability 1918-23?

Emma Falconer German’s fragile economy after the war was a cause of instability, and caused a lack of confidence in the political system. This effect has been suggested as one of the factors which contributed to the rise of Hitler. But I want to trace back this line of thought… what was the reason for the lack of significant economic growth 1918-23? The obvious answer is that Germany was punished too harshly at Versailles by the allies for the ‘Great War’- but is it that simple?

On the 28 June 1919, The Treaty of Versailles seemed to seal the German economy’s fate. By 1921 the total sum of reparations that Germany owed was at £6.6 million - an inconceivable amount for a tattered, war-weary and struggling economy. In addition, Germany lost some of her most precious raw materials as her colonies were taken away. These had been rich sources of income. Meanwhile the labour force had already decreased by 1.7 million men, in an economy which relied heavily on the male gender.

The brutal humiliation that was caused by the treaty fractured the economy. The bitterness it created in Germany was to discourage an already damaged workforce. As many believed the debt would never be overcome, few aspired to be entrepreneurial, or to work hard and revive the economy- because it was perceived as an impossible task. This harmed inward productivity as workers became demotivated with no apparent prospect of prosperity. It also limited foreign investment, as throughout Europe Germany became to be viewed as a ruined economy, despite the fact it had previously been second most economically advanced nation in the world, specializing in industry.

Investment would have developed new technologies, hired workers (lowered unemployment), and encouraged growth. In the short run investment would have stimulated demand, and via the multiplier effect4 this could have been significant. In the long run investment would have improved the productive potential of the economy (the amount it could possibly produce). However this investment didn’t occur- because the Weimar republic did little to convince workers and foreign countries that it could whip the economy into shape. Therefore, whether or not the treaty was too harsh to allow economic recovery, the fact it was perceived to harm Germany beyond repair did grave damage.

Was this the fault of the Policymakers? The ‘big four’ are often blamed for their harshness on Germany, when in actual fact many historians believe that the reparations were in fact manageable.

The size of the German economy before the war was at roughly $3800 per capita as seen from the diagram bellow, or $260000 for a population of 68 million. This meant reparations would have been manageable once the economy had returned to its pre-war state. It is arguable that the attitude of the people and the disasters of the Republic made the situation be far worse than the policymakers had directly caused. We must remember however, that vital sources of income in colonies were also taken away in the treaty, and this was made far worse by the events of 1923.

4

The cyclical effect in which an injection of extra income leads to more spending, which creates more income, and so on.

When Germany was not managing to send the reparations it owed, France and Belgian troops marched into and occupied Germany’s industrial Ruhr region. Whether Paris ordered troops in because it believed the Weimar government had deliberately failed to honor the terms of the Versailles treaty or because the Poincare government had been plotting to occupy the Ruhr since 1919, the decision was short sited. France was feeling short-changed by the terms of Versailles, and in a blighted attempt to take revenge, it helped to destroy any hopes of receiving peaceful justice. The Ruhr housed three quarters of Germany’s steel and coal production. Several Weimar ministers declared the occupation to be a deliberate act of French aggression, committed against a people who had been denied the means to defend themselves. The nationalist newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung warned: France herself has smashed the dictates of Versailles. But Paris must not think that the German fury is an apparition that belongs to the past so completely as the French imagine, or that it needs guns or bayonets to appear once more on the scene. Any great nation that has been driven to despair has always found the ways and means for its revenge.

The treasury was deprived of all the normal tax revenue from a huge proportion of the nation’s industry, as well as the coal tax and the income from the Ruhr railways. Therefore it can be seen here that the Allies actions provoked an economic and social downturn. It is, by this argument, the policy maker’s fault that the industrial heart of Germany practically stopped beating- their main source of income had been stripped from them. The occupation of the Ruhr would not only have huge consequences for the economy but would give leverage for Hitler to exploit in his rise to power.

However, if we look deeper it is less obvious that the “Hardly anyone worked: hardly policy makers outside Germany were to blame for its anything ran… The population of the lagging economy. After all, Germany had not paid its Ruhr area — 2 million workers, 6 reparations, meaning France and Belgium had a right to million souls — had to be supported take industrial wealth. The German reaction, by the rest of the country. “ meanwhile, did nothing to promote stability and recovery. Press reports were released, most of them Adam Fergusson, historian exaggerated if not entirely fictional, of French soldiers executing or beating German workers and civilians in the Ruhr. Therefore, we may in fact condemn press statements such as that by the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, which substantially amplified the problem.

The Weimar regime’s official position was one of ‘passive resistance’. Behind the scenes, however, government agents encouraged trade unions to organize a general strike in the Ruhr, to freeze industrial production and hinder French confiscation of resources. This policy may have sabotaged the French occupation, but it also sabotaged the national economy. A standstill was brought to the country, inhibiting growth. On top of this, the Weimar government told striking unions that it would continue to pay the salaries of Ruhr workers and civil servants. This was unrealistic- the German national treasury was nearly empty and there were no cash reserves to pay two million striking

industrial workers for an unknown period of time. Then the government made a catastrophic mistaketo ordering the printing of extra banknotes. This policy fuelled the rampant hyperinflation of 1923.

Hyperinflation has several, serious and malign consequences for an economy. Prices rapidly increase before anyone can react to them. This means everybody spends money quickly before prices rise again- increasing the inflation they are trying to avoid. This is exactly what happened as Germany entered an inflationary spiral. Hyperinflation devalues money and so those with savings loose out, as do those on fixed incomes, such as pensioners. This creates agitation in the economy. Banks were close to collapse as their loans were now worthless, and time and resources are wasted as people rush around trying to keep up with prices (known in economics as shoe-leather costs). Investment and growth decreased, as an aspersive environment for businessmen was created.

So who was to blame for Germany’s economic suffering after the war? Was it in fact the policy makers abroad? Or the reaction of the people? Or the actions of the government? To be sure, the German economy was struck aggressively by foreign policy makers twice- firstly in the Treaty of Versailles and then for a second time by the invasion of the Ruhr. By no means were these actions astute: they failed to see the direct link between good economic standards and peace- a correlation that has always been demonstrated across history. However, the reaction of the people in Germany exaggerated the extent of their punishment. The reparations may have been manageable over a period of time, and it is likely they could have been negotiated in the future with the help of the USA. Instead he economy slumped as demotivation ruled the population. Understandably, after the wreckage of the war, the German population couldn’t face more punishment and suffering, so the economy lacked motivated workers and professionals. In 1923, the invasion of the Ruhr took away raw materials and wealth; but the government’s reaction this time made the situation far worse, as did the response of the press. In this way it can be seen that the foreign policy makers did damage the Germany economy, but are not wholly responsible for the magnitude of its suffering during this post-war period.

Why were the tactics and methods of battle used by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army so effective against US forces during the Vietnam War? Max Kinder The Vietnam War was one of the last open wars to be fought between capitalist US forces (and some South Vietnam forces) and Communist forces that included the Russians and Northern Vietnamese forces. At the beginning of the war in 1961, nearly all odds were against the Communist Viet Cong forces. The US had more men, more varied weapons and methods of destruction, and more vehicles to help transport soldiers quickly into the fight. The Viet Cong had none of these, and yet, by the end of the war in 1975, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong were victorious in Vietnam, and the US had retreated from the war. This was due partially to the blunderings of the American forces that hindered their own progress, but it was mainly due to the simplistic but successful tactics of the Viet Cong forces during the war itself.

One of the greatest assets that the Viet Cong forces had over the Americans was that they understood the usefulness of adapting to enemy attacks, so that they could not be surprised by repeated attacks of the same method. What was clever about this philosophy was that it was also aimed at being used at the simplest level, so that anything could be used to adapt to new US threats. At the end of a battle, all Viet Cong units and personnel would go through a “self criticism session” to evaluate how they acted within a battle, and what could be done to improve their actions so the next battle would be better. This was especially important for when the Americans introduced new war machines to the fight, such as helicopters and the M-113 Troop transport, as the VC would initially be defeated by these machines, and needed new tactics to take the threat done (such as creating mines and camouflaged trenches that would deal with the M-113 without the VC even needing to show themselves). The VC/NVA were also very adaptable, such as their rules about their bases. They only stayed in the same place for about 2-4 days at a time, and would move if they heard the US were coming their way, though they would leave Figure 1: General William enough time to set up booby traps and mines to cause casualties Westmoreland and to slow the US down. Another example of the VC and NVA adaptability would be their tactic of “hanging onto the belts of the enemy”. This was the method that they created to stop losing troops to napalm and helicopter gunship attacks, by staying very close to the enemies during battles and ambushes, and not staying at long range. This stopped the US from trying to use air strikes on them because of the fear that they might incur more friendly casualties than they would kill VC soldiers. However, a lesser part to this strategy being successful was the fact that the US forces never properly adapted to the Viet Cong guerrilla tactics against them. The American generals during the war – William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams – never understood the practicality of adapting to the enemy’s strategy, as they thought that because of their superior firepower, they could easily over power the enemy no matter the circumstance. This arrogance meant

that they kept failing to keep up with enemy forces. This failing was combined with the fact that that they would either keep permanent bases (which were easier for the VC to know the location of and therefore attack with more information) or ones that they would take during the day, but leave during the night (due to the standing orders that any search and destroy party should return to base at the end of the day, thus losing any land captured) meant that the VC were more adaptable and therefore had the edge during the war.

Another major tactic that the Viet Cong used that worked in their favour during the war was the fact that they relied more on guerrilla tactics (hit the enemy quickly and effectively and then leave before the enemy has the chance to react) to successfully attack the US. The North Vietnamese forces knew that their man and firepower was far smaller to that of the US and South Vietnamese, and this meant that they had to fight smartly. The VC and NVA would often camouflage both themselves and their camps/equipment to stop aerial reconnaissance from spotting them, and allowing them to blend into the dense jungle environment around them until the enemy were close enough to attack. They also would make booby traps that blended seamlessly into the environment, meaning that the US would only see them when they had been tripped. They not only would blend into the jungle, but would also hide within the small Vietnamese villages throughout the country, meaning that they not only had somewhere to stay, but they could also blend into the populace until the moment of attack. This not only was effective at damaging US troop numbers, but it also helped to damage US troop moral and the Vietnamese view on the US as a whole. Because the VC employed these guerrilla tactics, the US were frightened about where an attack might come from, and as a result, moral dropped sharply. In addition, the level of civilian support for the US went down significantly, because as a result of the US fear that an attack can come from any where, the US either bombed large amounts of jungle with explosive or napalm (seriously flammable liquid dropped from planes) meaning that lots of civilians lost faith in the US protecting their country. They also lost faith because during search and destroy missions to villages that US intelligence said that might have VC/NVA forces in it, US forces would often shoot first and ask who might be VC later, because they would have no idea who might or might not be an enemy soldier. This meant that, because many civilians could be killed in these raids, many Vietnamese turned against the US troops, and started supporting the NVA as opposed to them.

Another example of NVA/VC tactics being very effective at defeating the US forces during the Vietnam was would be the use of booby traps and mines that were used to whittle down the huge numbers of US forces. There were two advantages to using these weapons. Firstly, it allowed the VC and NVA to take out enemy troops and land vehicles without the need for any of the soldiers to be seen by the enemy. This allowed fewer casualties on the side of the NVA/VC whilst still causing havoc and destruction for the US. What was also was useful about booby traps was that they were often simple to make and silent when activated. For example, one of the booby traps called the punji stake was an effective stealth booby trap. This was a sharpened stick covered in mud or animal droppings that would have a sapling trigger and be placed in a small hole covered with Figure 2: An example of a punji stake

loose grass. These would be useful when US troops were out on patrol, or when they flung themselves into cover during a firefight. The enemy troops would fall into the holes and be impales on the sticks, thus dealing with them silently and without use of their own soldiers. What’s better about using booby traps is that they could be reused – all that was needed was for the grass covering to be replaced again, and it was ready for use. Another clever and simplistic method that made Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army booby traps better was that they repurposed old US troop equipment to become booby traps and mines. For example, the VC would use old US ration tins that had been dropped after battles, fill them with explosives, and have triggers that would make the tins explode if the US opened them. This repurposing shows adaptability and simplicity, as well as success because US troops would not only fall for the traps, but also would not do the same, thus putting the VC at an advantage to the US.

However, the Viet Cong and Northern Vietnamese Army were not always successful in their attacks against the US. For example, they would often send small forces that were horribly outmatched against more superior US forces, as seen in the Gulf of Tonkin incident on the 2nd August 1964. Here, the VC sent out 3 gunboats to engage the destroyer USS Maddox using torpedoes, thus gaining an advantage in the area. The Maddox responded with superior firepower, and badly damaged all 3 ships, killing 4 VC soldiers and wounding 6 more.

The Maddox only took small amounts of damage from one torpedo. This showed that sometimes the NVA and VC would overestimate how much damage their troops could do. This overestimation can also be seen in the Tet Offensive of 1968, when VC troops launched an Figure 3: Pictures taken from the USS Maddox during the Gulf all-out attack during the Tet Festival in Vietnam of Tonkin incident in order to surprise the US forces. However, this was a major tactical defeat for the VC. They were only able to temporarily control some major cities and towns before a much larger US forces pushed the VC back, basically wiping out most of the Viet Cong force. In fact, because the VC lost so many men, members of the Northern Vietnamese Army filled one third of the Viet Cong, in order to support them after the Tet Offensive. If this had not occurred, the Viet Cong would not have had the manpower to continue the fight against the US. However, whilst this was a tactical defeat for the Northern Vietnamese, it can be considered a minor victory. US citizens were shocked at the massive attack that the communists were able to make against the US and South Vietnamese, and now felt betrayed by their leaders and military, who had been saying that the US had been able to control the VC. As a result, less support for the war effort in Vietnam started to show, and this can be seen as the US defeat in Vietnam, because they didn’t have the support necessary to continue the campaign.

Another example of bad tactics on the part of the VC would be the huge amounts of casualties that would occur as a result of their battles. Not only would many VC troops be killed the open conflicts that would occur during the Tet Offensive, VC troops were often not great with restraining their fire

to enemy soldiers only. Indeed, during their initial attack on Hue city during the Tet Offensive of 1968, they deliberately attack civilians, and killed 5000, 2800 of which were publicly executed by their troops. Then, when the US retaliated, the VC lost between 1000 and 5000 troops. However, whilst this can be considered bad tactics due to losses in men, the VC and NVA managed to protect their public image and keep the support for their cause through the use of propaganda leaflets, which would be handed out to show that the VC and NVA were doing well, and that therefore they should be given the support that they deserve. In addition, they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the downside that the US military had, which were the military reporters. US military reporters in Vietnam would send updates back to the US stating the casualties and actions of the army in Vietnam, and this could easily sway public opinion of the armyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actions. For example during the retaliation effort by US at the Battle of Hue city, the media reported that the US lost 668 troops, and 3 707 more were wounded. Us citizens were outraged at this, and realised that the government was not easily taking out the VC and NVA like they said they had been doing, meaning that political support of the war began to drop.

In conclusion, there were a couple of points that showed that the tactics of the VC and NVA were not totally flawless, such as the overestimation of the impact their forces could have, and the huge losses of manpower. However, there are more points to show that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were able to effectively defeat the US because of their simplistic fighting tactics, such as guerrilla fighting strategies and using any items left from battle to whittle down more enemy forces during the next encounter they would have.